A methodological approach to supporting organizational learning

Many organizations need to respond quickly to change and their workers need to regularly develop new knowledge and skills. The prevailing approach to meeting these demands is on-the-job training, but this is known to be highl y ineffective, cause stress and devalue workplace autonomy. Conversely, org anizational learning is a process through which workers learn gradually in the work context through experience, reflection on work practice and collab oration with colleagues. Our approach aims to support and enhance organizat ional learning around enriched work representations. Work representations a re tools and documents used to support collaborative working and learning. These are enriched through associations with formal knowledge models and in formal discourse. The work representations, informal discourse and associat ed knowledge models together form on organizational memory from which knowl edge can be retrieved later. Our methodological approach to supporting orga nizational learning is drawn from three industrial case studies concerned w ith machine maintenance, team planning and hotline support. The methodology encompasses development and design activities, a description of the roles and duties required to sustain the long-term use of the tools, and applicab ility criteria outlining the kind of organizations that can benefit from th is approach. (C) 2001 Academic Press.