Purpose: Considering personality as changeable through a bottom-up process of altering states, habits and traits, constitutes a shift in the predominant paradigm within personality psychology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Bateson's theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning in light of this recent empirical evidence.…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of learning organization concepts from the perspective of Dr. Peter Senge and presents an interesting evolution of his systems oriented view of the learning organization field over three decades. Design/methodology/approach: Through a conversation with a thought leading scholar,…

Purpose: While many approaches in the field of unlearning aim at describing, understanding or explaining the "what" and/or "how" of unlearning, this paper aims to focus on the "where-to" and the goal of unlearning. In many cases, unlearning starts off with a specific result or goal in mind. This paper suggests that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight challenges and opportunities that surround the process of learning with an emphasis on higher-order learning and learning as behavior. Higher-order learning has been conceptualized as learning behavior that can be learned. Design/methodology/approach: The holistic framework regarding higher-order…

Purpose: Marks and Spencer's Plan A environmental strategy is an ambitious one which addresses economic, social and environmental considerations. As part of this process it recently used a sustainable learning store strategy to develop, capture and disseminate learning before, during and after construction so that learning could be transferred to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe fundamental concepts and theoretical challenges with regard to systems, and to build on these in proposing new theoretical frameworks relevant to learning, for example in so-called learning organizations. Design/methodology/approach: The paper focuses on some crucial fundamental aspects introduced…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that changes in social systems do not occur randomly. They are consistent with what has gone on before, with the history and identity of the system. As long as the organizing principles of a dominant culture remain unchallenged, behavior of all the social-units originating from this culture will remain…

Purpose: With the advent of information and communication technologies (ICT), some organisations have endeavoured to develop and maintain systems commonly known as project histories. This paper aims to provide a framework to the construction organisations in order to improve the learning from projects through the development and use of project…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide a literature synthesis of the learning organization and discuss several pertinent theoretical concepts on the subject. Design/methodology/approach: A range of works mainly from 1990-2004, which aim at providing a variety of perspectives on the learning organization, have been analyzed and discussed based on its…

Reflection upon a field study of a corporate transformation provides insights into the application and integration of organizational learning theory and frameworks with local, corporate knowledge. In the corporate transformation studied this local knowledge came from consumer psychology, marketing campaigns and the use of media. When these ideas…

Purpose: This paper proposes that knowledge management is a system that integrates people, process and technology for sustainable results by increasing performance through learning. Definitions of knowledge, knowledge management and performance serve as a foundation. Design/methodology/approach: The model for the knowledge era proposed in this…

Purpose: To track changes in management paradigms from the bureaucratic to the post-bureaucratic to the learning organization model, highlighting core differentiating features of each paradigm as well as necessary ingredients for successful evolution. Design/methodology/approach: The article takes the form of a literature review and critical…

People's mental models are viewed as being significant in achieving organizational outcomes, on the assumption that mental models influence people's acts. A fundamental issue in the area of organizational learning, then, is the relation between mental models, learning and performance. We contend that a fruitful line of work is to study persons as…