Communication, Leadership, Multicultural

< The Role of Communication in Creating and Maintaining a Learning Organization: Preconditions, Indicators, and Disciplines >

Brief Summary A learning organization provides a stimulating climate for members to continually strive for new approaches in acquiring knowledge. Specifically, organizational learning can be defined as developing new knowledge that changes behavior to improve future performance. Learning organization can be developed through enriched relationships that are created and enabled through communication. Effective communication is seen in employees collaborating, interacting, and engaging with others. With more and more time-sensitive information available to organizations, the acquisition, interpretation, distribution, and transformation into market-demanded outcomes is vital for survival. Continuous learning is needed to keep up with current and potential developments in their industry. The learning organization and its embedded communication are poised to meet most of the demands of a dynamic, ever-changing environment. The kinds of communication expressed in the relational foundations, preconditions(trust, commitment, perceived organizational support), indicators(organization-employee relationship, valuing the employee, employee empowerment, employee ownership and acceptance of responsibility), and disciplines(systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, team learning) are necessary for creating and maintaining this learning. There is an example of company(Eastman Kodak) striving to become and remain a learning organization through its embedded communication. When panic gripped all associated with Eastman Kodak, its worst-performing division(the Black and White Film Division) transformed itself into one of the firm’s major contributors to meeting the organization’s goals. The creation and maintenance of a learning organization within the division was a major factor in turning around its