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Purpose — The purpose of this chapter is to give a framework to the issues that need to be addressed with the advent of the global economy and the realisation that the only lasting competitive advantage is an organisation's ability to effectively exploit intellectual capital. Excellent companies build learning organisations systematically, but in their haste, many firms underestimate the importance of cultural, technological, executive and learning imperatives that permeate dynamic, knowledge-based environments. Learning is a dynamic process between the needs of the individual, its leader, operational environment and the demands of the organisation.

Methodology — An initial quantitative study of 101 successful multinational companies with manufacturing facilities in Ireland the findings from which were reinforced by five case studies randomly selected from the ten firms identified from the quantitative research actively developing towards becoming learning organisations.

Findings — The findings of the quantitative and qualitative research are undertaken in the development of the learning imperatives presented in the body of the chapter under: Host Location, Culture Shock, Cross-Cultural Understanding, New Technology, Intellectual Capital, Dissatisfaction with the Traditional Management Paradigm, Nature of Global Business, Executive Challenge of Multinational Assignments, Learning Imperatives in Dynamic Multinational Environments.

Research implications — The research spanned 18 years and has relevance for all organisations irrespective of size operating in culturally diverse environments or simply planning to expand their operations.

Social implications — Are many and varied; however, this chapter, due to word constraints, only examines nine key attributes from the 35 identified. Nevertheless, every one of them will resonate to a greater or lesser extent with leaders from every walk of life.

Originality — The research work outlined in this chapter constituted an important element of the author's doctoral thesis, and its primary value is in the manner in which it simplifies complex issues that consciously or unconsciously affect groups or individuals in their respective working environments.

Here is a new conceptual framework for organizational learning (OL) that applies to both planned reform and emergent change. It integrates strategic and operational, micro and macro perspectives. It has three parts: (a) a revised definition and typology of OL, (b) seven reform stories that define stages and tasks, (c) a management and assessment guide demarcating four areas of OL: (i) action learning within core operations; (ii) sharing learning and innovations across the organization; (iii) mission/s-beyond ambidexterity; (iv) integration-managing mission conflicts and other paradoxes, which ensure endogenous change. Dynamic capability is therefore intrinsic to this view of OL that is illustrated from two cases: NYPD and public school reforms.

The literature on organizational learning is very rich and complex. Although most research on learning suggests that it involves individual cognitive, cultural, social, and institutional changes and development, there are slight variations in terms of the number of factors various authors associate with these changes. We discuss the work of several authors as providing a contextual framework for viewing learning as involving both the adoption and diffusion of innovations.

Students of organizations are beginning to recognize the importance of continuous learning in organizations, but to date the concept is not well understood, particularly in terms of how the learning of individuals is related to the learning that takes place in groups, which is related to the learning that occurs in organizations (and all other combinations). To further our understanding, we offer the idea of continuous learning in organizations from a living system's perspective. We view individuals, groups, and organizations as living systems nested in a hierarchy. We propose that living systems can learn in three ways: they can adapt, they can generate, and they can transform. Learning triggers from the environment spark learning, and this relationship is moderated by the system's readiness to learn. Readiness to learn is a function of the permeability of the system's boundaries, the system's stage of development, and the system's meta-systems perspective. Additional research questions are presented to explore learning flow between levels and to determine how the match between one system's pressure for change and another system's readiness to learn affects the emergence of adaptive, generative, and transformative learning. In addition, research questions are offered as a means to test these ideas and build grounded theory. Finally, using this model, the chapter presents three case studies and suggests diagnostic questions to analyze and facilitate continuous learning from a multi-level perspective.

Increasing market pressures require organizations to rethink the development of change capability. Building a sustainable and flexible organization capable of responding in a timely manner to quickly changing customer demands without compromising technological excellence and quality is a complex task. This chapter builds on a five-year study of transformation efforts at a product development unit of Ericsson. The complexity of designing and managing learning mechanisms as both a transformation engine and a way to improve new product development is captured. The chapter points toward the challenges of designing and managing learning mechanisms that enhance organizational agility.

The environment in which businesses operate today is uncertain, chaotic, and changing at a more rapid pace than ever before. In this new dynamic world, current approaches to organizational design and processes are not as effective as they have been. Recent research has provided insight into organizational agility as a method to help organizations survive and thrive in these environments. A divergent body of literature is presented that explores agility, learning, and thriving. An exploratory mixed-methods study was conducted at the team level to examine the relationship between these constructs as well as their relationship to performance. Based on the results, we present a series of propositions for future research and provide an illustration of the Components of Agile and Thriving teams to be used as its foundation. The discussion serves to synthesize these initial findings and provide both implications for practice as well as theory.

Strange and Soule (1998) outlined the processes of innovations as follows. “Innovations are novel (at least to the adopting community), making communication a necessary condition for adoption. Innovations are also culturally understood as progressive, strengthening the hand of change agents. And since innovations are risky and uncertain, adopters carefully weigh the experience of others before acting” (p. 267).

This chapter defines a learning culture and discusses the relationship between knowledge and learning. The authors explain why learning is essential to bringing knowledge to life and incentivizing knowledge flows and use. The chapter addresses the interplay between knowledge and learning cultures. A key point in the chapter is the value of mistakes as learning opportunities. The authors explain how mistakes are viewed in the industrial economy and how this perspective impedes critical organizational learning. Specifically, we define mistakes, explain the double cognitive bias of mistakes, explain the tendency and impact of hiding mistakes, the side effects of double mistake bias, learn to learn from mistakes, and take on the challenge of reconciling mistake acceptance and avoidance. Finally, the chapter addresses the importance of cultivating a learning climate to realize your learning culture.