THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

A Learning Organization
A paper by Ron Bleed, Vice Chancellor Information Technologies, Maricopa Community Colleges. This paper provides background information on what is a learning organization, discusses the 3 different issues of strategic conversations, instruction, and diversity in the context of a learning organization, and introduces the concepts of new science and leadership, systems self-organization, and chaos and their effect in changing roles of individuals and the behavior of the organization.  The paper also includes a checklist that can be used to assess the readiness of an institute to evolve into a true learning organization.

Learning Organizations: An Introduction
Authored by Kai Larsen, Claire McInerney, Corinne Nyquist, Aldo Santos and Donna Silsbee, May 1996. The paper is organized according to the five disciplines that Peter Senge  Even though the paper makes liberal use of Senge's pervasive ideas, it also refers to OD practitioners such as Chris Argyris, Juanita Brown, Charles Handy, and others.  The paper is influenced by team meetings in which the five authors prepared a class presentation on the topic of learning organizations. The team worked to emulate a learning community within the group. The paper reflects the learning, reflection, and discussion that accompanied the process.

Learning Organization and Organizational Learning: New Roles for Workers, Managers, Trainers and Consultants
A paper by Barry Sugarman originally published as a chapter in EVALUATING CORPORATE TRAINING, Steven M. Brown and Constance J. Seidner, (eds.), Norwood, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishing, 1997. The field formerly known as "training" faces an onslaught of serious change. " Training" already includes much more than just classroom training; it now includes, not only self-paced, take-home learning packages, CD-ROMs, on-site coaching, and on-demand, hot-line support services. Even these interesting changes, however, still reflect the old focus on the individual worker. This will change. The LO viewpoint focuses heavily on the work team and goals of learning how to perform better as a team, including how to learn better as a team, and how to learn how they learn.

Leadership For a Learning Organization: A Program Model Utilizing Experiential and Distance Education
A paper presented by Dr. Marilyn Corbin at the 18th World Conference of the International Council for Distance Education, June 2-6, 1997. State College: Pennsylvania State University. The author describes efforts to develop leadership in the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service in the United States.

Learning Organization
An article by by Bizhan Nasseh, Computing Services, Ball State University. The paper recommends the steps that might be taken to nurture a learning organization in an information technology organization.  The author argues that if universities are to survive in the future that they must become a learning organization that embraces self-directed and life-long learning.