Organizational learning as an organization development intervention

Organizational Learning as an Organization Development Intervention in Six HighTechnology Firms in Taiwan: An Exploratory Case Study
Bella Ya-Hui Lien, Richard Y. Hung, Gary N. McLean
Organizational learning (OL) is about how individuals collect, absorb, and transform information into organizational memory and knowledge. This case study explored how six high-technology firms in Taiwan chose OLas an organization development intervention strategy. Issues included how best to implement OL; how individuals, teams, and organizations learn; and the extent to which OL activities contributed to organizational performance. Five themes emerged as findings: (1) using language with which employees are familiar, (2) implementing OL concepts that are congruent with employees’ work or personal life,(3) putting individual learning first and diffusing it to team learning and organizational learning, (4) using the knowledge management system to create an opportunity for individuals, teams, and the organization to learn, and (5) linking OL to organizational strategy to improve organizational performance. Organization development (OD) is a planned change approach to help organizations grow andimprove their performance (Beckhard, 1975; Beer, 1980; McLean, 2006). In order to improve performance in the knowledge economy era, organizations are encouraging employees to embrace change, take risks, break from the bureaucracy, and find revolutionary ways to ensure the company’s future. This involves eliminating barriers to communication between individuals and groups and helping people engage in thetype of decision making that is most appropriate for the situation (Korth, 2000). OD provides processes by which organizations can manage such change.

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 18, no. 2, Summer 2007 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.1200

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Most organizationsmust relate to their environments to gain the resources and information needed to function. These relationships influence organizational strategies to deal with their environments (Cummings & Worley, 2004). From a strategic change perspective, organizational learning (OL) has become an important OD intervention by which to transform organizations (Cummings & Worley, 2004; Marsick & Watkins, 1994;McLean, 2006). OL is the process of how learning occurs in organizations; it facilitates greater alignment among an organization’s strategies, culture, and competitive environment. Strategic OD involves organizational transformation and is often associated with significant alterations in the firm’s business strategy, which may require modifying the corporate culture, as well as internal structures andprocesses to support new directions for the organization. Garvin (1993), for example, suggested that the highest stage of OL is the learning that results when it is tied to the strategic objectives of the organization and is targeted at performance improvement. OL is important in today’s knowledge economy (Argryis & Schön, 1996) and usually involves different ways of perceiving, thinking, andbehaving in organizations. Yet few studies have discussed how individuals collect, absorb, and transform information into organizational memory and knowledge. While the growth and sharing of knowledge is recognized as one of the most important elements in becoming a learning organization (Easterby-Smith & Araujo, 1999; Marsick & Watkins, 1994; Senge, 1990), what has been missing for many researchersand practitioners in the OD field is an expanded theoretical foundation for describing how people learn and perform in an organization (Raybould, 1995; Salisbury, 2001). The research reported in this article addresses this gap.

Research Purposes
In order to develop an expanded theoretical foundation and understand better how the existing theory can be put into practice, the purposes of this...