Characteristics of a Learning Organization

According to Sudharatna and Li (2004) specific characteristics to build a learning organization can be categorized as communication, values of the culture, knowledge transfer, characteristics of employees, leadership commitments and upgrading of performance.  They further mentioned that the through these characteristics organization can be converted to a learning organization with a capability of change.  Different scholars explain differently about the characteristics of learning organization. Yaslioglu et al. (2014) explains the characteristics according to the Senge five features such as personal mastery, mental model, shared vision, team learning and system thinking. Ratna et al. (2014) states that mechanism to build a learning organization consist of several stages such as communicate shared vision, information accessible to every employee, encourage innovation, empower employees, establish and use both individual and organizational learning strategies.  According to Sachan et al. (2016) form a learning organization not only learning but also leadership style, communication process, values and beliefs of an organization also counts.  The below video explains the characteristics of a learning organization.

Video1 : Characteristics of a learning organization

Source: Sprouts (2017)

As per the above mentioned video, there are six characteristics of a learning organization such as cherish open culture, design and improve feedback loops, promote personal mastery, intelligent fast failure, implement best practices, cultivate a common vision and learning from each other.

Reference

Ratna, R., Khanna, K., Jogishwar, N., Khattar, R and Agarwal, R. (2014) Impact of learning organization on organizational performance in consulting history. International Journal on Global Business Management and Research, 2(2).

Sachan, S., Aroura, S and Pandey, S. (2016) Concept of learning organization: facilitators and flow of learning. International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications, 6(2), pp. 42-47.

Sprouts (2017) The learning organization: characteristics of a modern enterprise [Online].  Available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40meQNZl3KU>.  [Accessed on 4th November 2019]. 

Sudharatna, Y and Li, L. (2004) Learning Organization characteristics contributed to its readiness to change: a study of the mobile phone service industry. Managing Global Transitions, 2(2), pp.163-178. 

Yaslioglu, M. M., Sap, O and Toplu, D. (2014) An investigation of the characteristic of learning organizations in Turkish companies: scale validation. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp.726-734.