Purpose: This paper aims to provide an overview of the Organization Learning and Learning Organization concepts obtaining the perspectives of Professor Mary M. Crossan and presents an evolution of her immense contribution to the field over the past two decades. Design/methodology/approach: A conversation with thought-leader, Professor Mary M.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to challenge processes of organizational learning and innovation that are based on making use of, extrapolating, or adapting past experiences and knowledge, because such a strategy turns out to be incapable of dealing with the challenges of today's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. As a…

Purpose: This study aims to develop a conceptual model linking the relationship between individual learning, organizational learning and organizational commitment. A multi-layered conceptual model involving three dimensions of organizational commitment: normative, affective and continuance, and individual and organizational learning is presented.…

Purpose: This paper aims to illustrate the need for context-adapted models of military learning organizations (LOs), identify challenges to building LOs in the military and discuss how maturing as an LO provides military organizations a competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach: This paper highlights the primarily industrial focus of…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the effects of team power asymmetry (hierarchy) on team learning. Design/methodology/approach: Literature suggests that power asymmetry can hurt team learning due to unequal interactions. The authors integrate the situated focus theory of power and the theory of adversarial growth to propose that…

Purpose: This paper aims to revive the old idea of the Learning Organisation by providing a fresh conceptualisation and illustration. The New Learning Organisation is conceptualised, focussing on the common good through responsible action. It is positioned as responding to the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity, Bennett and…

Purpose: The purpose of this two-part paper is to develop a process model of unlearning established organizational routines. The model traces the interactions among three unlearning sub-processes: ostensive aspects of initial destabilization of an established routine; performative aspects of ongoing discarding-from-use of old behaviors and…

Purpose: Organizational learning has long been recognized as an important determinant of organizational performance and sustainability. Existing research, however, has commonly viewed organizational learning as a single-level, top-down and organized organizational event initiated by the leader. This particular perspective may fall short of…

Purpose: This paper aims to demonstrate how the Nordic model, featuring highly regulated trade union-employer collaboration, has enabled the building of learning organizations through a co-generative learning model involving both practitioners and action researchers. Design/methodology/approach: A literature search on the Nordic sociotechnical…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight challenges regarding methodological approach in studying learning organizations as well as the following content related issues--knowledge harvesting in project work, role of middle managers in creating energized learning environment, structuring individual activities to promote learning, impact…

Purpose: Sustainability is, in itself, the idea of a harmonic answer to the dual nature of the most pressing problem for global society. Most of the problems dealing with sustainability concern its dual and contradictory nature. That paradoxical reality is in no way a unique feature of sustainability; its universal pervasiveness is demonstrated by…

Purpose: The concept of a mental model has been described by theorists from diverse disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to offer a robust definition of an individual mental model for use in organisational management. Design/methodology/approach: The approach adopted involves an interdisciplinary literature review of disciplines, including…

Purpose: The paper's aim is to explore the connection between individual worldviews, called ecological selves, and organizational change, which allows people to create the conditions to confront the global environmental challenges they face as a species. Design/methodology/approach: The essay is a conceptual one, with reference to a small…

Purpose: While the importance of organizational learning for sustainability has been stressed by a number of authors in the literature, the practicalities of how organizational leaders might foster such learning are seldom treated. This paper seeks to demonstrate that there is much that could be learned from the aviation industry about…

Purpose: This paper aims to introduce and investigate dialogic interaction as a key element of achieving a transition towards sustainability in people, organizations and society as a whole. Furthermore "sustainability competence" as a potential outcome of such interaction is to be introduced, referring to the capacities and qualities…