Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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improvement drive. Individual employees worked together to identify the
constraints associated with work in the organisation as well as methods of
developing interventions. The authors reflected upon the small
improvements and removal of barriers to work as being directly
responsible for productivity increases leading to continuous improvements
and learning at both individual and team levels. Learning organisations
provide training and career development for individuals, who can also be
urged to learn better methods of working and help to understand and
solve organisational problems (Shieh, Wanh & Wang, 2009). Finally,
Lampel (1998) argues that the advantages for the learning organisation
are not just efficiency and productivity increases, but an ability to adapt to
the dynamic nature the organisations find themselves in:
“the improved capabilities conferred by such organizational learning
do not result merely in better products and higher profits; they also
increase the ability of the organization to take advantage of rapidly
changing external conditions” (pp. 215).
One last point to note is how the literature (e.g. Lampel, 1998)
seemingly denounces hierarchical organisations (those with a 'Role'
culture) as not being able to be learning organisations. This would
therefore suggest that these two ideals are completely separate and
mutually exclusive of each other. Contrarily however it is clear that
elements of organisations consisting of the Power culture or the Task
culture could be seen as learning, with these types of organisation
seemingly learning from experience and reacting to change as necessary.
This point would therefore argue that these aspects of Handy's
conceptualisation are not mutually exclusive from that of the learning
organisation, and these are points which need to be taken into account
within the presented research.
2) Organisational Development & Change