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批判性地讨论学习组织文化如何在组织内创造一个稳固和可持续的竞争优势
还讨论了产生组织知识的重要性，通过设计不同的学习机制和经验，将支持一个强大的竞争优势。
大多数组织失败的原因在于，组织学习的障碍阻碍了组织的成长，最终使他们在市场上失去了战斗力。因此，一个成功的组织将是一个学习型组织，因为未来唯一强大而持久的竞争优势是学习能力比竞争对手快。竞争优势是难以模仿的知识、技能、资源和核心能力的拥有。稳健和可持续的竞争优势要求组织创造比竞争对手更可持续的核心能力。开发核心能力的方法必须通过组织学习来实现。
Critically discuss the extent of how the learning organisation culture helps in creating a robust and sustainable competitive advantage within an organisation? Also discuss the importance of generating organisational knowledge through the design of different learning mechanisms and experiences which will support a robust competitive advantage.
1.0 Introduction 简介
Hussein et al. (2016) investigated the life expectancy of large organizations and found that their average life expectancy is less than 40 years. Most of the reasons for the failure of most organizations lie in the fact that the obstacles to organizational learning have prevented the growth of organizations and eventually made them lose their battle in the market. Therefore, Feng and Hu (2017) concluded that a successful organization will be a learning organization, because the only robust and sustainable competitive advantage in the future is the ability to learn faster than its competitors. Somprach, Prasertcharoensuk, Ngang (2015) believed that competitive advantage is the possession of hard-to-imitate knowledge, skills, resources and core competencies. Robust and sustainable competitive advantage requires organizations to create core competencies more sustainably than their competitors. The way to develop core competencies must be achieved through organizational learning (Lyman et al., 2017). Learning is the basic means for an organization to develop and acquire skills and technologies that make up its core competencies. Therefore, the competitive advantage of organizations comes from organizational learning. Considering how to establish a learning organization and promote organizational learning so as to gain a competitive advantage, scholars give different opinions. One of the most influential opinions is to establish learning organisation culture. Learning organisation culture is a kind of corporate culture that encourages individual learning and self-transcendence (Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz, 2017). It is the organizational culture to promote the learning ability of employees in innovation and thus enhance the competitiveness of an organization (Saadat and Saadat, 2016). Currently the importance of learning organization culture (LOC) has been generally recognized, but about to what extent LOC can enhance competitive advantage of an organization, and what learning mechanisms and experiences will support a robust competitive advantage need to be further explored, which is the research aim of this study. This article first introduces the concepts of learning organization, organizational knowledge, learning mechanism, LOC. Then it analyzes the mechanisms of LOC in promoting competitive advantages of organizations. Finally, it makes recommendations on how to improve the deficiency of LOC for promoting organizational competitive advantages.
2.0 Main body 正文
2.1 Learning organization
International academic circles mainly define the concept of learning organization from three perspectives. First, from the perspective of competence and skill, Bingham and Conner (2010) stated that learning organization is an organization that continually improves its ability to create the future. In this organization, the members have to learn because learning has become part of life. In such kind of organizations, new and open modes of thinking are nurtured, and people learn how to learn together. From the perspective of learning and change, Hussein et al. (2016) pointed out that learning organization is an organization that helps its members to learn and continually change the organization itself, and it creates a sustainable competitive advantage by effectively organizing change. From a cultural point of view, Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz (2017) defined learning organization as an organization that deeply embodies learning, adaptability and change in its organizational culture. The values, policies, practices and structures covered by its organizational culture can support the members to learn.
The above ideas define learning organization from different perspectives. All these definitions have their own rationality, but they also all have one-sidedness. However, from their point of view, it can be summarize some differences between learning organization and traditional organization. First, learning organization helps to promote employees’ active learning. In a traditional organization, employee learning is mostly passive and their learning enthusiasm is not high (Caffarella and Daffron, 2013; Beevers and Rea, 2016). Second, learning organizations not only emphasize employee learning, but also change organization structure and system into which is beneficial for employees' learning. In traditional organizations, the importance of employee learning is not fully understood and has not been greatly supported by organizations (Shea and Taylor, 2017). Third, corporate culture of learning organizations encourages continuous improvement of corporate behaviour and work practices, staff learning is lifelong, while in traditional organizations, employee learning is mostly short-term behaviour (Saadat and Saadat, 2016).
2.2 Organizational knowledge
Organizational knowledge refers to the knowledge that an organization possesses, including the knowledge generated by self-development within the organization and the knowledge that is useful for the survival and development of the organization outside of the organization (this part can be internalized as organizational knowledge) (Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick, 2006; Dalkir, 2011;). According to the classification of organizational knowledge, organizational knowledge is divided into four types: (1) know what, that is the knowledge about fact; (2) know why, it refers to the scientific theory of the natural principles and laws; (3) know how, it is the ability to do certain things; (4) know who, refers to the knowledge who knows and how to do, that is, to contact relevant experts and make effective use of their knowledge (Hislop, 2005; Dalkir, 2011; Barão et al., 2017). According to the existence form of organizational knowledge, organizational knowledge is divided into two categories: explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (Barão et al., 2017), explicit knowledge is systemic knowledge that can be passed within and across organizations, it is protected by law; tacit knowledge is a type of knowledge that can only be understood in words.
Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz (2017) pointed out that the importance of organizational knowledge is recognized by more and more organizations, especially in the era of knowledge-based economy, organizations emphasize organizational learning and organizational knowledge, both are indispensable, through the interaction between the two to form the "joint force" that promotes the sustainable development of organizations. Organizational learning will not only change the quantity of organizational knowledge, but also promote the qualitative change of organizational knowledge (Hussein et al., 2016). Appropriate organizational learning can promote the evolution of organizational knowledge, thereby enhancing an organization's core competitiveness (Zhao, Feng and Hu, 2017).
2.3 organizational learning mechanism
One of the fundamental purposes of organizational learning is to establish a mechanism that learns experience from an organization inside and outside, it can produce, store, and search for knowledge, ultimately turning knowledge into a competitive advantage (Somprach, Prasertcharoensuk and Ngang, 2015; Beevers and Rea, 2016). Generally speaking, there are two kinds of organizational learning mechanisms, one is organization learning motivation mechanism, and the other is learning agent mechanism (Lyman et al., 2017).
Organization learning motivation mechanism is the driving force to ensure continuous organizational learning behaviour, this motivation can be broadly divided into two types, first is the outside factors, fierce competition that organizations face is an important factor to promote organizational learning (Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz, 2017). In a highly competitive environment, every organization must constantly learn to improve its ability to adapt to the environment. The second category is the institutional factors, such as learning promotion system within an organization, property rights system, human resources strategy, incentives and so on (Saadat and Saadat, 2016).
Organizational learning agency mechanism means that organizations can learn many useful knowledge and ideas through learning agents from customers, suppliers, scientific research institutions and even competitors (Barão et al., 2017). Then, by systematizing and systematizing the knowledge, the new knowledge can be shared by other members of the organization, and then the knowledge will be combined into products and services provided by the organization to form its robust and sustainable competitive advantage.
2.4 Learning organization culture
Learning organization culture (LOC) is an organization culture of introduction of learning organization theory in the process of organization culture development, in order to guide organizations to grow into a learning organization (Hussein et al., 2016). LOC attaches great importance to human factors, especially the overall improvement of people's quality, it pays attention to the coordinated development of organizations and employees, it is the highest level of human-oriented management embodiment (Zhao, Feng and Hu, 2017). LOC is a kind of corporate culture that encourages individual learning and self-transcendence. It is a kind of organization culture that forms common values, improves mental model, and cultivates the ability of thinking systematically (Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz, 2017). It is a kind of organization culture that enhances innovation with learning ability and thus strengthens the competitiveness of organizations and employees. LOC provides a guarantee for learning organizations to grasp and accumulate organizational knowledge to form learning mechanisms, thereby increasing sustainable competitive advantage of organizations (Somprach, Prasertcharoensuk and Ngang, 2015; Beevers and Rea, 2016).#p#分页标题#e#
2.5 Impact of LOC on organizational competitive advantages
Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz (2017) believed that the competitiveness of organizations is mainly composed of four key factors: organization resources, organization culture, innovation capability, integration and coordination capabilities. Among the key factors that constitute the core competitiveness of organizations, LOC has a positive impact on these factors.
2.5.1 Resources and organization culture
Considering physical resources, talent is the key factor in the core competitiveness of organizations (Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz, 2017). According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, people in modern organizations pay more and more attention to the value orientation of "self-actualization" (Shea and Taylor, 2017). LOC pays full attention to the development of people. LOC is more concerned with the development of employees and emphasizes creating an organizational environment that is suitable for the development of employees (Pedler, 1995). Therefore, LOC becomes the fundamental factor to attract and retain key talents. Through LOC to attract and play the role of key personnel is an important reason for modern organizations to win in the fierce competition in the market.
In term of resources, organizational knowledge is the key factor to improve the core competitiveness of organizations. An open corporate culture can encourages employees to learn new knowledge, and when business members have a high degree of acceptance of a LOC, they will be willing to work hard to participate in organizational learning and gain the knowledge needed for organizational development (Saadat and Saadat, 2016).
It can not be ignored that LOC itself is an intangible organization resources. LOC is accumulated in the long-term management practice of organizations, and the culture is unique and can not be imitated, so once LOC is formed, it will be rooted in the organization for the organization members to share and pass on to the new members of the organization, thereby having a long-term impact on the organization (Hislop, 2005). With this resource, companies will be more efficient in market competition.
2.5.2 Innovation
LOC has a positive effect on the improvement of organizations’ innovation abilities. Shahzad, Xiu and Shahbaz (2017) were from the perspective of the openness of LOC to point out that, LOC does not confuse the thinking and behavior of employees with old and rigid system, but encourages employees to continuously innovate and change. From the perspective of staff cohesion, Azar and Ciabuschi (2017) found that LOC is through the establishment of a common vision to motivate team learning, every time when an organization chooses an innovative project, all the employees will quickly come together to learn together and work together to reduce the possibility of innovation failure, which is conducive to the realization of innovation. From the perspective of communication, Prange and Pinho (2017) analyzed that the quality of communication within an organization directly determines the innovation performance. LOC having emphasis on learning and communication fosters an equally open environment for high level management and other members to have honest communication, learning from each other and sharing of knowledge within the organization, facilitating access to the information and technology needed for innovation to effectively reduce the risks and uncertainties of innovation.
2.5.3 Integration of capabilities and resources
When organizations possess the key capabilities and resources that form the core competitiveness of an organization, they can not directly form core competitiveness (Leigh, 2006). The competitiveness of organizations depends not only on the size of various capabilities and resources but also on whether the organizations can integrate them well. LOC has a positive effect on organizations’ integration of capabilities and resources of organizations, which is reflected in the following three aspects. First, LOC ensures the reasonable distribution of various resources composing the core competitiveness of an organization (Lyman et al., 2017). LOC allows all departments and members of organizations to clearly understand the objectives of the organization, and clearly define the tasks and responsibilities of various departments and personnel, so that resources can be rationally distributed within the organization to promote the synergy of various capabilities (Prange and Pinho, 2017).
Second, LOC promotes the combination of various capabilities as a whole (Leigh, 2006). LOC is through its cohesion to make all staff realize that only when the various departments cooperate with each other, all abilities of the members match and integrate with each other, can it truly enhance the strength of organization s, so that everyone is closely linked together, all kinds of capabilities are combined with each other to form the core competitiveness of organizations.
Finally, LOC helps to improve and enhance competitiveness (Hussein et al., 2016). LOC is conducive to the internal communication of organizations to have a timely detection the internal problems that affect the development of core competitiveness. On the other hand, LOC encourages members to actively learn the internal and external organizational knowledge to further organize the problems to ensure the smooth cultivation and promotion of the core competitiveness of organizations.
2.6 Critical analysis
It can be seen from the above research that in theory, LOC has a positive influence on a robust and sustainable competitive advantage within an organization. However, people observe that many organizations adopt LOC and try to shape them as a learning organization. However, they failed to achieve the expected success, so many scholars criticize LOC.
First, judging from organizational resources, LOC has a positive meaning for gathering all the resources needed for organizations, but it also requires organizations to pay more costs, for example, organizational training and learning require organizations and their members to pay time and money costs, but such costs do not always bring the organizations a competitive advantage but at times create risks, for instance, if there is an increase in learning ability of members’ of an organization, the members will be more likely invited by other companies. LOC encourages employees to master and learn knowledge, but to translate this knowledge into the competitiveness of organization s often require a long time, which in many cases does not meet the cost-effectiveness principle.
Second, from the point of view of organization innovation, LOC emphasizes learning and accumulation of knowledge, but these are only the basis for innovation. There is no necessary connection between such learning and innovation. It is still not enough to improve the innovation ability of an organization by strengthening learning and improving the learning ability of the organization. The success of innovation also requires an organization to take more active measures in the aspects of system, capital, talent and strategy. In addition, learning is divided into four types: copy, learn, study and research (Lyman et al., 2017). At present, the research and application of organizational learning focuses mainly on the second type, that is, knowledge-based learning, but the latter two types of learning are more necessary for the realization of innovation. However, these two kinds of learning often do not become what LOC focuses.
Third, from the perspective of the integration of organizational capabilities and resources, LOC advocates making use of continuous organizational learning to improve the integration and coordination of organizational capabilities and resources so that the entire organization can constantly adapt to changes in the environment. However, this management philosophy also needs to be ensured through an efficient organizational governance structure and an optimized workflow, as well as employee incentive system. LOC attaches great importance to creating the atmosphere and environment for organizational learning, it pays no attention to the reform of organizational process reengineering and management systems, making it very difficult to eliminate centralized and authoritarian chronic disease in organizations, that is to say, it is very difficult to realize the optimal integration of organizational capabilities and resources.
Finally, LOC can not meet the needs of all types of organizations, Shea and Taylor (2017) believed that certain organizations not only emphasize learning, but also have emphasis on research, and they commitment to innovation, so learning organization is not suitable for the development goals of education organizations, it will cause the trouble and cost that is more than the benefits brought. Some scholars also study the inherent limitations of learning organizations in the field of government management. They thought that some learning organizations have the drawbacks of passive learning, unclear goals, disengagement of learning and practice, high costs, they need to change from learning government to research-oriented organizations (Sutanto, 2017). Therefore, whether an organization should construct LOC depends on the characteristics and goals of the organization.
2.7 Recommendation
From the above analysis it can be seen that LOC has both positive and negative effects. Organizations in the reality makes use of learning organization culture to establish organizational learning mechanisms to effectively promote organizational members’ learning and improve the competitive advantages of organizations, which can be improved from the following three aspects.#p#分页标题#e#
Firstly, organizational learning should be closely integrated with the long-term strategy of an organization to improve the motivation mechanism of organizational learning. Corporate strategy is based on the external environment and its own characteristics of an organization, the strategy has long-term, complex and other characteristics, on the one hand, the combination of organizational learning and organizational strategy can provide organizational knowledge and personnel support, on the other hand, it also gives motivation for organizational learning.
Secondly, it should improve organizational learning system and improve the dynamic mechanism of organizational learning. Based on an organization's short-term performance and future plans to develop rational plans, so as to develop organization learning system, such as: training system, talent introduction system, reward and punishment system. Organizational management structure and work flow of organizations should be optimized to ensure that the organizational learning can be smoothly realized in the organization and at the same time to ensure that the results of the organizational learning can be effectively transformed into competitive advantages of the organization.
Thirdly, it should build a platform for organizational learning to improve the agency mechanism for organizational learning. It should make use of modern information technology to build organizational internal learning platform, including forums, e-mail, electronic documents, excellent knowledge and experience of internal agents will be distributed through the learning platform so that the explicit and tacit knowledge can be promptly discovered and learned by organizational members.
3.0 Conclusion 结论
LOC becomes an effective organizational form for a contemporary organization to create a robust and sustainable competitive advantage within an organisation to cope with external competition. LOC provides a guarantee for learning organizations to grasp and accumulate organizational knowledge, as well as form a learning mechanism, so as to improve competitive advantage of organizations in terms of organizational resources, innovation and integration of resources and capabilities. However, in reality, there are still some problems in the application and practice of LOC. Finally, the author puts forward some suggestions to improve these issues in LOC, including integration of organizational learning and strategies, improving organizational learning system, establishment of organizational learning platform, and so on.
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