ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
- foundational roots for design for complexity
Angela Nobre
Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais,Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Campus do IPS, Estefanilha, 2914-503Setúbal,
Portugal
Keywords: Organisational learning, organisational design, complexity, sociotechnical systems, systems theory, social
systems, and appreciative inquiry.
Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the field of organisational learning and claims that its foundational roots
still have to be further developed and explored. This critique points to the potential of sociothecnical
systems, complex systems theory and appreciative inquiry as building blocks from which an effective
organisational learning design can emerge. The current challenges faced by organisations are related to the
complexity of the knowledge economy. These challenges need to be answered by an organisational
development strategy that incorporates competitive issues, corporate governance and sustainability
concerns.
1 INTRODUCTION
We have entered a new era in the evolution of
organisational life. There are immense forces of
change present simultaneously: technology
development, societal change, global markets and an
increased complexity and volatility of organisational
environments. New terminology captures the
changes in work-life reality: post-industrial society,
the information revolution, the post-capital society,
and the knowledge age. Kearmally (1999) refers to
the knowledge economy of the information era. The
information era and the knowledge economy imply
the need for a learning society.
At organisational level the issue of learning may
b
e interpreted as the overall adaptation and
development which is necessary in order to profit
form the challenges and opportunities of the new
environment. Though we might not be able to fully
comprehend and grasp the magnitude of the
changes, organisations and managers are struggling
to find the balance between economic performance,
managing business transformation, and business and
human sustainability.
Organisational learning has developed from
man
y roots and threads of thought. As the field
matures it is critical that some of the baseline
concepts are not overlooked. In tune with
hierarchical systems theory, it is necessary to
distinguish those issues which have a structuring
effect over the others thus allowing for an overall
consistent development. Hierarchies exist because
not everything has the same importance, which does
not imply that we need hierarchical organisations as
we know them. Prescriptive, simplistic and
mechanistic forms of interpreting and promoting
organisational learning are of less consequence than
exploratory, complex and interpretative approaches.
In order to envision what paths will lead us in what
directions it is important to consider the criteria of
what might bring us to a situation where the greatest
diversity of possibilities may materialise, i.e. how
may we open and keep open the complex systems in
which we are immersed.
The current paper focus on some of the origins of
or
ganisational learning and aims at pointing at an
approach which may help twenty first century
organisations to deal with the daily struggle of
bridging theory and practice, our intentions and our
actions, and what the organisation as a whole
officially states that it stands for and how that
materialises into current reality.
Figure 1 presents a general overview of the key
conce
pts and theories developed in the paper.
85
Nobre A. (2004).
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING - foundational roots for design for complexity.
In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 85-93
DOI: 10.5220/0002652400850093
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

Internal
organisational
settings
External
Organisational
Environment
Figure 1 – The need to reinvent the foundations of Organisational Learning
2 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
DEVELOPMENT
There has been a continual effort to devise
managerial innovations able to deal with the
challenges posed by the organisations’ environment
changes. Examples of these efforts are:
empowerment, business process reenginering, self-
managed teams, sociotechnical systems redesign,
and total quality management.
Some authors comment that often, the
application of these methods has been linked to a
fashion or a management fad motivation
(Abrahamson, 1996, 1999; Gibson and Tesone,
2001). There is a growing recognition that these
methods too often failed to deliver their promises
(Beer, 2000). Lillrank et al (2001) claim that the
impacts of the continuous improvement methods,
tools, and processes that aim to help organisations to
enhance their productivity, quality, and worker’s
quality of working life are usually short lived.
Pursuer and Cabana (1998) state that the problems
with the reduced effectiveness of these
methodologies, when applied in real life situations,
is due to their link, in practice, with the concepts of
traditional hierarchical organisations and industrial
age notions of management.
In response to the complexity and uncertainty of
a turbulent environment, the learning organisation
appears as an effort to radically develop a
continuous innovative and adaptive capacity.
Organisational learning developed from the
methodologies already mentioned and also from the
early pioneering experiments with self-managing
and learning work-systems conducted in early action
Individuals
COMPLEXITY
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
> continuous improvement <
=> Organisational Development <=
Challenge:
to reinvent the
foundations of OL
Systems Theory
holistic whole +
parts + boundary
Sociotechnical
Systems
work task +
technology +
social organisation
Appreciative
Inquiry
managing
relationships +
reflection
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86

research projects such as the sociotechnical work in
British and coal mines and Scandinavia (Shani and
Docherty, 2003; Obholzer and Roberts, 1994).
Marquardt and Reynolds (1996) published a
comprehensive list of companies which have
engaged in some activities around creating a
learning organisation.
The conceptualisation of organisational learning
is complex and its origins cannot be pin-pointed in a
precise way, in part because this is a new
management discipline and consequently its
conceptual basis are still being developed in a
continuous way. Yet there is a set of contemporary
theories which help us to distinguish early
influences, such as: business strategy theory,
resource-based view of the firm, behavioural theory
of the firm, systems theory, sociotechnical systems
theory, group behaviour, action research and
appreciative inquiry, human development, individual
learning theories, organisational change theory and
organisational development theory.
To make the picture even more complex, each of
these influences brings with it a range of different
approaches to the same knowledge area. For
instance, the literature on individual learning within
organisations runs through different streams of
educational, psychological, and organisational
behaviour research (Cowan, 1995). Organisational
learning itself has been studied from different
perspectives including: organisational sciences,
sociological, economics, organisational change, and
development research (Antal, Lenhardt and
Rosenbrock, 2001). Garvin (2000) claims that
despite the popularity of the organisational learning
approach, the field lacks a shared definition and
coherent framework for action, and thus it is of
limited relevance to the practical-minded manager.
There is a clear need to work on the seminal work of
the founders and to integrate theory and practice.
3 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
AND ORGANISATIONAL
THEORY
Rami Shani and Peter Docherty (2003) call attention
to the increased popularity of organisational learning
and state that it has shifted to the centre stage of
organisational theory. Authors such as C. Prange
(1999) and the works of Shani and Stjernberg (1995)
suggest and illustrate this move.
An increasing number of organisational theorists
and executives are predisposed to understand and
adopt the learning organisation concept. Some view
organisational learning as a comprehensive approach
that provides a window of opportunity for
assimilating advanced managerial approaches.
However, not all efforts materialise into positive
results. A follow-up study of US organisations
(Moingeon and Edmondson, 1996) that attempted to
assimilate new managerial approaches revealed
some failures among those that did not have the
foresight to construct a suitable mechanism for
organisational learning that incorporated processes,
tools, and work patterns. Shani and Docherty (2003)
refer also that the published literature does not
provide sufficient knowledge regarding
implementation and they state the examples of
Popper and Lipshitz (1998), Raelin (2000), Stebbins
and Shani (2002) and of Ulirich, Jick and Von
Glinow (1993).
Planning makes learning more conscious, better
focuses effort, and increases measures of
accountability, as long as learning does not become
an end in itself with only loose coupling to the work
processes. Planning allows people to nurture
learning strategically and to take advantage of a
wider range of learning strategies that might
otherwise be overlooked. Marsick and Watkins
(1997) indicate several difficulties that may hinder
informal learning, namely:
• organisations do not always let people follow
their natural inclinations to learn in different
ways
• people differ in their capacity to seek needed
information and skills
• there is a disagreement as to what learning to
learn means and therefore as to how to help
people to better learn how to learn
• the topic of learning might require the
assistance of outside experts
• and organisations may not provide clear
guidance regarding what people must know
and how this will assist them in their career
paths
Since learning demands constant and ongoing
questioning and inquiry into current and future
practices, it can be viewed as a continuous
disturbance of existing routines that were developed
for the purpose of stability, predictability and
efficiency.
Faced with the decision to focus on learning,
many managers continue to view the energy, time
and effort spent on learning as wasteful and
unproductive (Garvin, 2000; Schein, 2002).
The situation is further complicated for managers
by the disturbing paradoxes relating to learning,
such as the relations between learning, knowledge
and action. The development situation requires
reflection, experimentation, new alternatives, and
tolerance to risk and uncertainty. Learning requires
balancing routine and reflection. The inherent
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING – FOUNDATIONAL ROOTS FOR DESIGN FOR COMPLEXITY
87

challenge fosters the need for managers and
practitioners to have access to, and develop basic
understanding of, the ideas and theory behind the
learning organisation mechanisms, including
understanding of their origins and development.
As has already been mentioned, despite the
energy, time, and money that companies spend on
attempts to transform organisations through a variety
of change programmes, the reality is that few
succeed in sustaining the reinventing process (Beer,
2001).
4 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
ACCORDING TO SOME KEY
AUTHORS
It is interesting to observe the different ways in
which organisational learning has been described by
leading authors of the field. Shani and Docherty
(2003) collected the following citations as
descriptions of organisational learning or of learning
organisations:
• «... is a process in which members of an
organisation detect error or anomaly and correct
it by restructuring the organisational theory of
action, embedding the results of their inquiry in
organisational maps and images.» (Argyris and
Schön, 1978)
• «...includes both the processes by which
organisations adjust themselves defensively to
reality and the processes by which knowledge is
used offensively to improve the fits between
organisations and environments.» (Hedberg,
1981)
• «... organisations where people continually
expand their capacity to create the results they
truly desire, where new and expansive patterns
of thinking are nurtured, where collective
aspirations are set free, and where people are
continually learning how to learn together.»
(Senge, 1990)
• «...the intentional use of learning processes at
the individual, group and system level to
continuously transform the organisation in a
direction that is increasingly satisfying to its
stakeholders.» (Dixon, 1999)
• «... is an organisation that is skilled at creating,
acquiring, interpreting, transferring, and
retaining knowledge.» (Garvin, 2000)
• «... is a process of inquiry (often in response to
errors or anomalies) through which members of
an organisation develop shared values and
knowledge based on past experiences of
themselves and others.» (Friedman, Lipshitz,
and Overmeer, 2001)
5 THE DESIGN OF LEARNING
MECHANISMS AND
ORGANISATIONAL
COMPETITIVENESS
Organisational learning needs further theoretical
development able to direct and inform organisational
practices and action. Organisational development
itself is the key answer to competitiveness
improvement within the challenging context of the
knowledge economy.
«The literature on learning in the context of
work, at the individual, team, and organisational
levels, is vast. Yet, despite the fact that many
organisations and researchers jumped on the
organisational learning bandwagon, the field lacks a
coherent framework and practical models for
action.» (Shani and Docherty, 2003).
These authors claim that the relation between
individual and collective learning is a ‘chicken and
egg’ question, and that knowledge is created in the
ongoing joint work commitments and dialogues in,
for example, teams.
These authors take a design perspective on
learning and sustainability and state that
organisations make choices about the design and
implementation of specific learning mechanisms that
fit their goals, culture and business context. They
view ‘learning mechanisms’ as: formalised
strategies, polices, structures, processes,
management systems, ICT systems, methods, tools,
routines, and the design of physical or virtual
workspaces that are created for the purpose of
promoting and facilitating ongoing learning in the
organisation. They continue to clarify that learning
mechanisms may concern formal and informal
learning at an individual, team, and organisational
level.
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Shani and Docherty (2003) also state that they
view the learning mechanism for organisational
learning as a formal configuration – structures,
processes, procedures, rules, tools, methods and
physical configurations – created within the firm for
the purpose of developing, enhancing, and
sustaining performance and learning. Just as there
are many types of organisational designs, there are
also various ways to design and manage
organisational learning mechanisms. The design of a
specific configuration is viewed as a rational choice
among alternatives based on learning design
requirements and learning design dimensions.
Achieving and maintaining competitiveness is a
powerful incentive to improve organisational
learning processes, as long as there is a visible link
between the two efforts. Many organisations miss to
see and to work on this link.
Shani and Docherty (2003) claim that «mastering
the art of learning is not a ‘quick fix’». Their
contention is that one of the main reasons for the
failure is that most companies do not manage to
develop and nurture learning mechanisms that allow
them to challenge the basic assumptions about the
key/core business processes and as a result are not
able to alter their mental models and actions. They
call attention to new and increasing learning needs
and give the example of manufacturing companies
that reported in 2001 that they had 80 percent of the
personnel they will have in 2010 but only 20 percent
of the technology, implying that there will be a
strong pressure to constantly adapt to the new
technology. They also stress the fact that the
opportunity to learn is not received by many workers
as an offer of a generous fringe benefit, but rather as
the threat of a ‘last straw that breaks the worker’s
back ‘, meaning that those who will not be
able/willing to learn would have to leave the
company.
The rationale for learning by Shani and Docherty
(2003) is that sustained competitiveness at the
company level requires competence or capabilities
‘on the cutting edge’, which, in turn, requires
continuous learning. They call attention to the recent
developments in business and working life that have
been characterised by the shift from the industrial to
the finance economy, by rapid advances in ICT with
new technology generations every few years,
marked deregulation, and the introduction of
management models and methods to ‘heighten
efficiency and effectiveness’, such as lean
production, time-based management, business
process reengineering, outsourcing, downsizing, and
contingent labour. For companies the goals have
been rationalisation and increased flexibility. For
personnel the consequences have often been
increased work intensity, worse working
environments, and decreased personal security in
terms of employment as has been stressed in the
work of Wickham (2000). The organisational
learning approach may bring together loose ends
within a company’s strategy, through the alignment
of the potentially conflicting interests of key
stakeholders.
A critical issue is that it is relatively easy to
develop a neat theoretical approach to organisational
learning. What is indeed difficult is to live through
that theory in daily organisational life as the
complexity cannot be hidden away as if it were
external to our straightforward model. Thus the need
to dive deep into the waters of other origins of the
field in order to bring some depth and breath to the
organisational learning field. These are the aims of
the next sections.
6 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
AND SOCIOTECHNICAL
SYSTEMS
Many of the key issues as well of methodologies
developed within the conceptual framework of
sociotechnical systems, forty years ago, are still
valid to current organisational learning approaches.
However, the links are not always visible or
accounted for.
The origins of sociotechnical systems date from
the period after the second World War. The work of
two social scientists, Fred Emery and Eric Trist,
pioneered the movement toward experimentation
with alternative work redesigns, different forms of
employee involvement, varied degrees of autonomy
and responsibility in work teams, participative
management orientations, and the development of
learning systems, all with deep concerns regarding
economic performance (Emery and Trist, 1969, cited
in Shani and Docherty, 2003).
Based at the Tavistok Institute in London, in the
early 1950s they introduced a method known as
sociotechnical systems design to British industry.
Their work is a landmark in the field of
organisational design, change, and development, as
it is represented the first attempt to introduce
flexible learning forms of organisation into the
world of work.
Eric Trist’s study focused the work organisation
of the coal-mining British industry which had been
nationalised straight after the war (Obholzer and
Roberts, 1994). Through this study it was discovered
that groups of workers supposedly doing similar jobs
in separate coal mines in fact organised themselves
very differently, and that this had significant effects
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING – FOUNDATIONAL ROOTS FOR DESIGN FOR COMPLEXITY
89

on levels of productivity. This led to the concept of
the self-regulating work group, and to the idea that
differences in group organisation reflect unconscious
motives, which also affect the subjective experience
of the work. It was through this project that the
‘socio-technical systems’ came to be defined as an
appropriate field of study (Thrist et al, 1963, cited in
Obholzer and Roberts, 1994 ).
Organisations as sociotechnical systems can be
understood as the product of the interaction between
a work task, its appropriate techniques and
technology, and the social organisation of the
workers pursuing it. While originating from research
in industry, this approach has subsequently been
applied to the study of a wide range of organisations.
In particular, Isabel Menzies’ study, «Social systems
as a defence against anxiety» (1960, cited in
Obholzer and Roberts, 1994), to identify the causes
of high drop-out rate from nurse training was an
early example of bringing the Tavistock Institute of
Human Relations (TIHR) sociotechnical model to
bear on an institution where the technical system is
largely human.
7 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
AND SYSTEMS THEORY
Systems theory is an area which has had a profound
foundational influence in organisational learning
even if not always visible, recognisable or
recognised.
Systems theory was also another avenue for
research at the Tavistock Institute of Human
Relations (TIHR) in the post-war era (Obholzer and
Roberts, 1994), as it was one of the imports from the
social sciences that underpinned socio-psychological
thinking. The particular application of open systems
theory to the work of TIHR was substantially the
contribution of A. K. Rice, later working with Eric
Miller.
In essence, the open systems view sees an
institution as having boundaries across which inputs
are drawn in, processed in accordance with a
primary task, and then passed out as outputs. While
this may sound like a model best suited to
understanding manufacturing processes, Miller and
Rice (1967, cited in Obholzer and Roberts, 1994)
applied it far more widely. They traced many of the
difficulties faced by work groups to their problems
in defining their primary task and in managing their
boundaries.
TIHR researchers did not go in as experts who
already knew what their clients must do to improve
things: they went to study whatever they would find.
The study was undertaken jointly with the clients,
and, to a large extent, by them. TIHR staff then
sought to contribute a way of construing their
observations and experiences, which they believed
would point to potentially helpful changes. Once
introduced, the effects of the changes would
themselves become the subject of further study,
leading to further change. The role of the TIHR staff
member was designated as ‘participant observer’,
and the whole style of working was known as
‘action research’.
Within systems theory the notion of autopioesis
has a critical role. Autopoiesis is a term from
biology which was adapted and adopted by
Maturana and Varela to describe the ‘organisation of
the living’ (Maturana and Varela, 1980, cited in
Winograd and Flores, 1986). Maturana was a
neurophysiologist who greatly developed the
biological aspects of cognition. He searched for
explanations of the origins of all phenomena of
cognition in terms of the species history, the
phylogeny, and in terms of the individual history,
the ontogeny, of living systems. According to
Maturana, an autopoietic system holds constant its
organisation and defines its boundaries through the
continuous production of its components.
Winograd and Flores (1986) while aiming at
studying the design of computer technology, use
Maturana’s theories as well as those from different
philosophers in order to develop an ‘understanding
of computers and cognition’. They explain their
rationale this way:
«All new technologies develop within a
background of a tacit understanding of human nature
and human work. The use of technology in turn
leads to fundamental changes in what we do, and
ultimately in what it is to be human. We encounter
the deep questions of design when we recognise that
in designing tools we are designing ways of being.
By confronting these questions directly, we can
develop a new background for understanding
computer technology – one that can lead to
important advances in the design and use of
computer systems.» (1986)
As the work of these authors is, on one way,
philosophical and, on another way, directed to the
study of computing technology, it may seem
detached from the domain of organisational learning
as a knowledge field. However, if we take a broader
and deeper view of the issues which are at stake in
the study of organisational learning as a dynamic,
continuous and complex process, then it is critical
that the insights from these apparently far away
areas are translated and incorporated into the
organisational learning discipline.
Herbert Simon (1991), who was working also
within the field of computing technology and
artificial intelligence, has dedicated his work to a
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90

very broad range of subjects which included the
development of complex systems theory. In fact, he
started his research considering the issues of
organisational endeavours:
«... administration is not unlike play-acting. The
task of the good actor is to know and play his role,
although different roles may differ greatly in
content. The effectiveness of the performance will
depend on the effectiveness of the play and the
effectiveness with which it is played. The
effectiveness of the administrative process will vary
with the effectiveness of the organisation and the
effectiveness with which its members play their
parts.» (Simon, 1991)
Simon calls attention to the fact that «complexity
is more and more acknowledged to be a key
characteristic of the world we live in and of the
systems that cohabit our world.» (1991). He
ascertains that though science has been focusing on
complex systems through the study of astronomy,
economics, biology or psychology, what is relatively
new today is the study of complexity in its own
right. As complexity, or systems science, is too
general a subject to have much content, then
particular classes of complex systems become the
focus of attention, and that is how H. Simon explains
the emergence of the study of chaos or hierarchical
systems.
Simon (1991) defines complex systems as made
up of a large number of parts that have many
interactions, and states that formal organisations
have a clearly visible parts-within-parts structure,
thus implying that they are social systems. Other
examples of social systems that he mentions are
families, villages and tribes. He refers to biological
and to physical systems and also to «one very
important class of systems: systems of human
symbolic production», citing the example of a book
or a musical work. Simon’s work is itself highly
complex though here we are merely referring to
simple descriptions and examples with the intention
of illustrating the basic links between organisational
learning and systems theory.
8 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING,
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY AND
SOFT SYSTEMS THEORY
Still within the broad area of systems theory, the
development of human and social related approaches
greatly resembles one of the core aspects of the
organisational learning field that it deals with
people. The term ‘people’ represents not only single
autonomous individuals or collections of
independent autonomous individuals, but persons
who are part of social practices and of social
structures. The etymology of the word ‘person’
means individuals in relationship. These ‘individuals
in relationship’ are simultaneously determined be
the practices and structures to which they belong, as
well as they themselves partly determine those
practices and structures.
Peter Checkland is a theorist who has worked in
systems theory for over thirty years and gives the
following account (1999):
«Although history of thought reveals a number
of holistic thinkers – Aristotle, Marx, Husserl among
them – it was only in the 1950s that any version of
holistic thinking became institutionalised. The kind
of holistic thinking that came to the fore, and was
the concern of a newly created organisation, was that
which makes explicit use of the concept of ‘system’,
and today it is ‘systems thinking’ in its various
forms which would be taken to be the very paradigm
of thinking holistically.» (1999)
The same author (1994) refers to the importance
of two inquiring systems developed since the 1960s:
soft system’s methodology and Vickers’ concept of
appreciative inquiry (1965). He claims that these are
highly relevant to the twenty first century, as both
assume that organisations are more than rational
goal-seeking machines, and address the relationship-
maintaining and Gemeischaft (translated as
Community) aspects of organisations, obscured by
functionalist and goal-seeking models of
organisation and management. Checkland states that
appreciative systems theory and soft systems
methodology enrich rather than replace these
approaches.
Checkland had previously summarised Vickers’
main themes and broad description of appreciate
systems theory (Checkland and Casar, 1986) as:
• A rich concept of day-to-day experienced life
• A separation of judgements about what is the
case, reality judgements, and judgements about
what is humanly good or bad, value judgements
• An insistence on relationship maintaining as a
richer concept of human action than the popular
but poverty-stricken notion of goal seeking
• A notion that the cycle of judgements and
actions is organised as a system
Checkland also explains that soft systems
methodology was not an attempt to operationalise
the concept of an appreciative system (1994).
Rather, it was after soft systems methodology had
emerged from an action research programme at
Lancaster University that it was discovered that its
process mapped to a remarkable degree the ideas
that Vickers had been developing in his books and
articles (Checkland, 1981, cited in 1994).
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91

Checkland continues to explain that the
Lancaster programme began by setting out to
explore whether or not, in real-world managerial
rather than technical problem situations, it was
possible to use the approach of systems engineering.
He states that it was found to be too naïve in its
questions to cope with managerial complexity:
‘What is the system? What are its objectives?’
Checkland continues (1994): «We can now say that
managerial complexity was always characterised by
conflicting appreciative settings and norms.».
An interesting parallelism between systems
theory and organisational learning theory is that soft
systems methodology was characterised as a
learning system (Checkland and Scholes, 1990, cited
in 1994): «... a learning system in which the
appreciative settings of people in a problem situation
– and the standards according to which they make
judgements – are teased and debated.» And
Checkland continues to clarify: «The influence of
Vickers on those who developed soft systems
methodology means that the action to improve the
problem situation is always thought about in terms
of managing relationships – of which the simple
case of seeking a defined goal is the occasional
special case.»
The need for organisational learning, as a
practice, to incorporate the decades old lessons of
appreciative inquiry and soft systems theory is not
so much a mentalistic or intellectual exercise. It is
more a question of experiencing organisational
learning through the eyes of new approaches – new
in terms of daily and standard organisational
practices. It is related to how the actual reality is
interpreted and then reinterpreted through new
learning experiences.
CONCLUSION
The current paper gives a general account of several
origins of the organisational learning field and it
focus on key foundational issues which are relevant
to the future development of the field.
Organisational learning design, through a special
attention to the processes, structures, strategies,
methods and tools which support and continuously
maintain learning, is highlighted as an essential
element on any project that has an intention to apply
the organisational learning approaches to a real life
situation.
Often continuous improvement methodologies as
well as organisational learning projects fail to grasp
the benefits subjacent to these conceptual tools
because they are not able to understand three central
issues.
One is that any organisational restructuring
process must take into account the organisation as a
whole. In order to do this, it is necessary to
understand the concept of holism, and systems
theory is one way of enabling this perspective to be
applied.
Secondly, the issue of social and human
characteristics which permeates every aspect of
organisational life must be considered and
understood in a way that does not oversimplify
reality. The early influence of the development of
the appreciative inquiry is an example – there could
be several other - of how these issues may be
tackled.
Thirdly, the importance of complexity which is
inherently and directly related to both previous
issues. Humans are highly complex in themselves
and organisations are obvious examples of complex
systems. Complexity is particularly critical to
practice and applied approaches such as is the case
of the organisational learning knowledge area.
The central message to be delivered is the need
for organisational learning to take a fuller depth and
breath approach to the diverse and interdisciplinary
influences which characterise its core identity as a
management and organisational theory discipline.
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