Introduction
Globalization has made the globe more competitive and driven it to compete for survival for finite human and financial capital resources. In this complex biosphere of interconnection, each establishment’s order to combine active learning with its architecture is crucial to its performance. Thus, organizational learning can be viewed as an element in determining whether a company succeeds or fails (Choi, 2020). The production and use of new information in an organization are organizational learning since they can influence employee behavior, which will help the organization achieve better results, assure change adaptation, grow through innovation, and generate result-oriented people. This essay uses the organizational learning theory and Apple, Inc. as an example to judgmentally examine the function of organizational learning in refining organizational performance. Corporate learning is a crucial component for effectiveness, and it should be implemented at all levels of the business, not only at the top.
Importance of Organizational Learning and Development
Employee retention is boosted when the training and teaching personnel is enthusiastic. Most employees believe that if a firm spends on their professional growth, they will stay longer. Worker retaining is a crucial HR goal; nevertheless, learning and growth have various supplementary paybacks that unswervingly impact a corporation’s lowest line (Argote & Levine, 2020). Employee education can assist them in being more productive. Career development (L&D) budgets that are higher per employee generate more income than L&D budgets that are lower. Learning and growth are fantastic experiences. Learning and development aid firms in attracting and retaining top talent, increasing productivity and revenues (Antunes et al., 2020). Firms need to define development and performance and identify the key participants to generate their performance or success. Various benefits in firms demonstrate the importance of organizational learning. These advantages include more happy staff with their jobs, reduced turnover rate, productivity, profitability, and reliability are all on the rise, the development of the influential at all heights, and improved flexibility throughout the board.
When companies invest time in continuous improvement and altering organizational learning, they become more competitive. Knowledge management is essential because it increases a company’s ability to respond quickly to rapid changes in the market (Akram et al., 2018). An organization that embraces failure as a lesson and explores its operations will better know the actual activities and be more adaptive. All employees are students at the school, there is an egalitarian exchange of information, enabling each member to make a significant contribution. Organizational learning possesses substantial and positive impacts on job gratification and structural pledge, but lack significant consequence on the worker presentation (Hendri, 2019). It improves the efficiency and productivity of the company. An organization that embraces failure as a lesson and explores its operations will better know the actual activities and be more adaptive (Antunes et al., 2020). The rate of staff turnover in an organization is reduced by organizational learning. Profits are generated through organizational learning, which improves a government’s adaptability.
Organizational learning forces internal or external changes to aid a company in attaining its goals. As a result, managers develop management processes to make sure their firms successfully use their human assets to develop knowledge and skills from various individuals in various professions. Employees are compensated for their knowledge and competence, which is recorded. The pragmatic approach also considers the need for on-the-job and off-the-job training for employees to stay up to speed on the newest information or expertise relevant to their fields of operation. Employee training on the latest technologies in their fields of operation is also required due to technological innovation (Antunes et al., 2020). A corporation that deals with public transportation, for example, might use online bus ticket booking. Employees in such an organization must be trained in this technology to boost their performance and reduce their workload.
Learning enables firms to determine their training requirements before embarking on organizational learning. The training requirements include the acquisition of task-specific abilities, the re-acquisition of achievement due to switching employment, and the improvement of current job performance. Training includes learning, which entails the acquisition of new behavioral patterns and includes four main processes. All examples are learners’ motivation to learn, the development of responsible conduct because of learning, repetition of the taught behavior, and implementation of the acquired behavior in the workplace. Organizational learning allows businesses to prepare their staff for any changes that may arise due to organizational restructuring, mergers, or the adoption of new technologies (Odor, 2018). It also enables firms to have highly skilled and dependable individuals on staff who are liberal and adaptable enough to manage any task that may arise in the course of their duties.
Organizational learning keeps businesses in a strategic position for boosting their competitiveness and developing best practices that boost productivity and brand awareness. For example, a company that provides energy could practice corporate citizenship by engaging in initiatives such as environmental conservation, poverty alleviation through scholarships to deserving students, or entrepreneurial training for communities. These socially responsible actions may improve the organization’s competitiveness, attracting and retaining more customers (Dhir et al., 2020). Employees in such an organization must have the skills to connect with communities (Antunes et al., 2020). In addition to delivering electricity, they can also teach them how to do business or raise awareness about behavior change. The firm achieves a win-win situation by offering new skills to its employees while also providing public services through similar employees.
Organizational learning boosts productivity; it aids in the development of a mindset that encourages constant progress. It promotes shared responsibility and accountability in the workplace (Tian et al., 2020). Organizational learning fosters knowledge exchange and adaptability through fostering a culture of learning. It improves and increases individuals’ and teams’ ability to embrace change successfully. Organizational learning assists businesses in adapting to the constant change that occurs in their environment, allowing them to become more competitive and inventive. It aids in understanding how to create, retain, evolve, and transfer knowledge to remain successful. It is undeniable that an organization that encourages organizational learning can quickly adjust to changing circumstances and remain relevant. Continuous improvement, excellent communication, staff growth, product and service advancement, and increased profit benefit organizational development.
Companies investing in organizational success commit to enhancing their operations and services continuously. The organizational growth process creates a continuous improvement loop by planning, executing, evaluating, refining, and monitoring solutions. The transformational structure is a fantastic strategy for accepting (internally and externally). One of the most critical advantages of OD is that it improves communication, feedback, and participation in the workplace. Better communication aligns all employees with the firm’s shared aims and values. Openness and honesty can help people understand why the company needs to change since all levels of the organization are responsive, and timely feedback is given regularly for improvement. Company objectives emphasize increased interaction to persuade employees to implement desired variations. Due to endless business and market fluctuations, member of staff progress is also essential in enhancing performance.
Learning Development Theories, Models and Practices
Learning practices signify gaining new information and understanding about a topic. It can be achieved through imitation, watching, attention, brainstorming, learning from failures, training, conferences, and studying cultural norms. Organizational learning is a strategy in organizational development that allows establishments to put themselves in prominent points to remain competitive and fulfill their objectives decisively (Chuah & Law, 2020). Globalization, which has changed the globe into a global community where everybody and everything is constantly changing, is a fundamental motivation for organizations to continue learning. The organizational learning theory argues that businesses should apply and generate internal knowledge to enhance their performance since it emphasizes establishing a learning culture within a company. According to corporate learning theory, individuals engage in learning by identifying and solving problems to enhance their success.
Institutions promote knowledge sharing, take time to understand teachings, encourage staff members to complete their studies regularly, and allow team members to confront the institution’s status quo to enhance their success. The organizational learning model can be traced back to Argyris and Schön, who published their ideas on learning in 1978. Their technique to knowledge management has been described as a “traditional technical method.” Their organizational learning paradigm includes both single and double, and learning Single-loop learning requires detecting and correcting flaws or mistakes that cause businesses to resist change. Due to internal or external influences, organizations change their strategy, known as double-loop learning (Bilan, 2020). Because it incorporates personnel, systems, or methods to attain their objectives, Argyris and Schön’s transformation model is considered a technical perspective to knowledge management to facilitate performance.
Learning comes from existing staff who have or seek out specific knowledge and experience, which they then share with other employees. The knowledge is recorded in a database utilized to inform organizational policy. The social view on organizational learning is the second school of thinking. Organizational learning is viewed as a historical and economic process resulting from social creation under this approach (Antunes et al., 2020). Unlike the technical approach, this perspective does not place a greater focus on tacit assets as a measure of strategic learning. Instead, it sees organizational effectiveness as a continuous employee engagement process, primarily in group settings. Employees can tell their experiences and knowledge during these conversations, allowing them to learn new skills, approaches, and competencies that will help them perform their jobs more efficiently. Organizations learn via communities of rehearsal, formally and informally linked together by mutual interests in knowledge and shared exercise when executing their jobs.
Businesses use social learning models when adapting one’s conduct in social situations through observing others. People are not frequently drawn to worldviews that make the most logical sense; instead, they are motivated to act in a manner that will elicit only fair criticism in a given situation. People intuitively monitor other’ acts and the ramifications to modify their behavior since it is a human inclination to want to be liked by others (Baykal, 2019). To get the desired goal, folks use the learning process to adopt the behaviors that another individual has found helpful. While social learning is frequently associated with developing new knowledge, it is fundamentally a mechanism that we use daily without even realizing it (Kendal et al., 2018). The term “social” describes the act of analyzing and altering one’s actions to other people’s observations to achieve the desired result in a social context. Motivation, work ethic, and learning tactics are observed behaviors that you might replicate to attain your objectives. Socially taught actions can inspire people in similar social situations, creating a virtuous spiral.
Learning practices and theories enable corporations to learn new skills by inspecting and replicating others. It argues that knowledge is a communal, mental procedure that may be accomplished entirely by observation or direct instruction, with no motor replication or monetary value derived from an underlying value. Learning occurs when incentives or punishments are monitored, and behavior is observed, a process known as vicarious learning (Afota et al., 2019). When an action is repeatedly acknowledged, it is much more inclined to maintain; on the other side, when a habit is constantly punished, it would be more probable to stop. The idea builds on prior theoretical approaches in which incentives drive behavior by stressing the critical functions of various standard processes in the advancing individual.
Institutions employ learning models when training or familiarizing workers with their goods. For instance, Apple’s primary industries are software development, online music streaming, electronic goods, display ads, digital video production, and laptops. Because its employees work together to attain a common goal, Apple is regarded as a learning company (Adel et al., 2021). Imagination, intelligence, originality, and invention are all encouraged in the company’s culture. Its organizational structure promotes adaptability and flexibility, and management supports forming a workplace environment that fosters change and innovation. For several reasons, Apple has indeed been recognized as a knowledge society. Through strong leadership, the production of commodities and amenities based on knowledge management, and the deployment of enterprise knowledge assets, the business promotes the development of knowledge workers. The business has mastered the art of turning corporate knowledge into valuable outcomes for shareholders.
Apple’s leadership understands how to foster an environment that fosters innovation and creativity. Employees are much more inventive in cultures that appreciate their contribution to the company than societies where staff is seen as clients. First, a business must conduct an environmental assessment to establish and maintain a learning culture (Argote & Levine, 2020). Where the association is now, where it desires to be, what it already has completed getting there, what funds are provided, what wishes to transpire to get the organization to its location, customers, and its strengths, weak points, possibilities, and risks should all be addressed in the environmental analysis. Following the environmental study, the business should engage on a fact-finding journey to determine how to employ its human resources best to achieve its goals. The organization might develop a strategy plan with two key pillars: financial and social pillars. The economic pillar should include the organization’s financial resources, while the social support should include the development of a robust corporate culture that is important for worker motivation.
How Organizational Learning Enhances Apple, Inc.’s Performance
Apple’s use of organizational design is exemplified by the iPhone’s link to other Apple devices. The business examines the demands of multiple stakeholders and the numerous channels through which consumers interact with various commodities to boost innovation. Apple employs a range of abstract concepts to support acquiring and integrating new contexts to enhance its competitive edge. Its portfolio has grown to include music, communications, and computer manufacturing. Lastly, Apple trusts collaborative learning; Apple staff regularly review how different teams are proceeding with creating new products (Tajeddin et al., 2020). The design, programming, and hardware departments, for example, meet regularly to discuss their progress. Members exchange thoughts and opinions throughout these sessions to improve their performance. Its learning tactics are successful due to solid marketing and efficient human resource processes. The organization has dominated various fields by integrating advanced and recruiting highly qualified personnel. Apple hires people with a high level of intelligence, experience, and creativity, accelerating their learning processes.
Conclusion
An institution’s staff competencies must be periodically updated to stay up with the evolving market needs, which can be done through learning, training, skill sets growth, and a workflow program. One of the most important aspects of a company’s growth is innovation, which helps to improve products and services. One strategy to stimulate innovation is to provide employee training that focuses on rewarding milestones and increasing motivation and morale. In this environment, employee involvement is excellent, which results in higher invention and creativity. Organizational development, which employs competitor analysis, market analysis, and consumer preferences, also aids product creation. The powers of organizational enlargement on the outcome are several. More fantastic novelty and efficiency enhance competence and wages. Staff revenue and absence are also abridged, ensuing in cost investments as organizational expansion unites purposes that prioritize progress, product/service superiority, and operative satisfaction recovery. The organization has a significant competitive edge due to its commitment to a continuous improvement strategy.
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