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Organizational learning involves both single-loop on routines: the procedures,
learning, where errors are identified and corrected, and conventions, or technologies
double-loop learning, in which the assumptions that through which companies operate.
underlie specific actions are questioned and improved.
These perceived negatives became
the focus of scholars such as
Argyris and Senge. Interest in the
ACTIVITIES
BELIEFS RESULTS concept of the learning
OR TASKS
organization grew in the 1990s, as
business conditions became more
uncertain and companies more
Single-loop learning dependent on technology.
Results show what needs In 1993 management innovation
to be fixed or improved. expert Mark Dodgson, then senior
fellow at the Science Policy Unit of
the University of Sussex, UK, linked
economic uncertainty and rapid
Double-loop learning
Results also reveal the bigger picture: the technological change to an
culture of the organization—the values increased need for learning at all
and assumptions that govern behavior. levels in a company, citing the view
of psychologists that learning is the
highest form of adaptation.
Dodgson, like other scholars, made
Argyris joined forces with MIT in particular emerged to dominate a distinction between
professor Donald Schön to write thinking in this area. The first, from “organizational learning”—when
the highly influential book Yale professor Charles Lindblom in organizations learn a lesson from a
Organizational Learning: A Theory 1959, was that action taken in particular event—and “the learning
of Action Perspective, which organizations is based on historical organization,” which embraces a
explored theories such as double- precedent rather than on continual process of education and
loop learning. anticipating the future. The second implements strategies to initiate
Going further back, the first was set out by Richard Cyert and that process. In Senge’s opinion,
scientific studies of learning within James March, who in 1963 organizations focused on continued
an organization were conducted in published their observation that learning will gain a competitive
the mid-20th century. Two theories behavior in organizations is based advantage in the marketplace. ■

Peter Senge A world-renowned expert on reflection, and engaging its
management and organizational employees. As he said on one
learning, Peter Senge was born in occasion, a learning organization
Stanford, CA, in 1947 and studied “is continually expanding its
aerospace engineering at Stanford capacity to create its future.”
University. He went on to obtain In 1999, the Journal of
an MA in social systems and a Business Strategy named Peter
PhD in management at MIT, and Senge a “Strategist of the
is now a senior lecturer at MIT’s Century”—one of the 24 people
Sloan School of Management. He who had had the greatest
is also the founding chair of the influence on business strategy
global Society for Organizational in the 20th century.
Learning (SoL).
Senge pioneered the concept of Key works
“the learning organization”—an
organization structured in a way 1990 The Fifth Discipline
that is conducive to new ideas, 1999 The Dance of Change