Relearning the Learning Organization: A Meta Theoretical Analysis
Open Access
- Author:
- Bartell, Sherrie Myers
- Graduate Program:
- Public Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 14, 2006
- Committee Members:
- Frances T. Munzenrider, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James Truman Ziegenfuss Jr., Committee Member
Michael C Kenney, Committee Member
Neil M Boyd, Committee Member - Keywords:
- organization studies
organization theory
metatheoretical analysis
learning organization
public administration - Abstract:
- The learning organization (LO) is a misunderstood concept. The related literature reveals a fractured knowledge domain racked by definitional diversity, a lack of cumulative work, and polarized camps of scholars who clash over the topic’s core theoretical assumptions. Consequently, the LO idea is often speciously downgraded in its importance as an atheoretical concept, a management fad, a form of hegemonic programming, idealistically naïve, and/or otherwise untenable in reality. These perceived problems are the genesis of this study, which develops a metatheoretical framework sufficiently plastic to: (1) determine the theoretical lineage of the LO construct; (2) analyze and understand more fully the current state of LO theory and practice; (3) “test” the veracity of the aforesaid criticisms; and (4) explore the LO’s potential for implementation in organizations. In effect, this dissertation seeks to “relearn” the LO, a response to the proposal by many scholars within the social sciences that “a process of unlearning” the LO take place due to its flawed assumptions about organizations and worklife. Contrary to this emerging perspective, this project embraces a different thesis, one that derives from a belief that a given construct is only as robust as the ideas that inform it, and a hunch that the LO paradigm has an evolutionary aspect to it that echoes the sum development of organization theory. The starting point for this study is Peter Senge’s conception of the LO, which is recast in this work as an ornate cloth made from manifold threads of theories and thoughts about organizations. Then, by reweaving extant strands of knowledge with new yarns of insight, a fresh understanding of the LO and the inherent difficulties of operationalizing its meaning is made possible. This dissertation is strictly an abstract work. It makes its chief contribution by presenting a new way to understand the notion of the LO via its theoretically grounded processes of concurrent deconstruction and re-invention. This work’s most important finding is that the LO idea is conceptually robust and theoretically powered; the result of an impressive scholarly pedigree that reflects the dialectical process of knowledge development within organization theory/organization studies field.