concepts of the Learning Organisation and Knowledge Management has been discussed by many in the context
Human resource management emanated from personnel management, which in Britain was initially encountered in the movement of industrial welfare workers in the second half of the 19th century. One solitary factor has prevailed right through from the roots of Human Resource Management over one hundred and fifty years and that is fundamentally the necessity of people at work. ... The third stage was reached with theories of management and the adherence of management studies into general ‘social science’. ... Personnel management became more important than ever before as requirements such as multi-skilled working practices emerged to try and cope with these emerging technologies. Eventually human resource decisions were to be taken at the very highest level of management within companies. Inevitably personnel managers became more and more involved with general business management and concerned with profit-maximisation activities such as staff motivation, performance management, empowerment of workers, total quality management and organisational modification. Nowadays it can be said that the main focus and goal of organisational-based HRD has become the achievement of the Learning Organisation. The concept of the learning organisation has been the subject of interest for academics such as Morgan, Senge and Pedlar over the past two decades. However it was Peter Senges’ book first published in 1990 “The fifth discipline” that popularised the concept of the ‘learning organisation’. Senge defined a learning organisation as “organisations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, here new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspirations is set free and where people are continually learning to see the whole together”. ... (2003), People Management and Development (CIPD) However, the meaning of learning organisation is abstract, there isn’t one single definition that can be used to define it precisely. ... One truly has to experience a learning organisation first hand to understand the meaning and value of them. Learning organisations are usually concerned with organisational learning and encourage employees to continuously expand their minds and embark on a path of lifelong learning together. Learning organisations generally share similar characteristics, these being that there is constantly an opportunity for learning and improving things. This can be from off the job training courses and seminars, to on the job training such as ‘sitting with Nelly’ and learning from colleagues. ... Managers need to be totally committed to learning and accept that mistakes are all part of the learning process. Employees should feel that they have complete backing and support from management and that they will not be penalised for making the odd mistake. Learning organisations also encourage each employee to take control of their own learning and let them identify for themselves what extra training or learning they feel they need. This eliminates organisations from paying for training that employees don’t need, and promotes staff moral by letting them choose the training that would be valuable to both themselves and the organisation. ... The Learning Organisation School of management can be split into two broad types, adaptive and generative. Senge believes that “Adaptive learning is concerned with developing capabilities to manage new situations by making improvements and amendments; generative learning focuses on developing new perspectives, options, possibilities and definitions” Altman & Illes (1998). ... The environment dictates the actions, which you follow within the organisation, and training is one of the main instruments used to deal with change. ... For an increasing amount of organisations their ultimate goal is to turn themselves into a Learning Organisation through good HRD. Learning Organisation’s can be seen as the solution to unlocking employees potential and integrating learning throughout the business, which can contribute to the development of a competitive advantage and good company strategy. In management context, the word ‘strategy’ has replaced the more traditional expression, the long term planning, to signify an activity that senior management executes in order to accomplish an organisation’s goals or targets.