Organizational Learning Approach To Process Innovations

Discusses the organizational processes and structural barriers to the diffusion and adoptions of innovations. This book addresses the organizational learning strategies of adoption and diffusion of process innovation approaches. It also presents the theoretical framework of organizational learning and process innovations.

Discusses the organizational processes and structural barriers to the diffusion and adoptions of innovations. This book addresses the organizational learning strategies of adoption and diffusion of process innovation approaches. It also presents the theoretical framework of organizational learning and process innovations.

This book discusses the successes and challenges of leveraging organizational learning in effective strategy development and execution. The authors introduce a framework that helps organizations develop core capabilities to enable them to shift direction rapidly and proactively shape future environments. They also offer a wide selection of cases to illustrate this framework. While some cases highlight fundamental strategic change over time, others are snapshots of mechanisms gradually put in place to jointly optimize learning and performance. There is no one best or right way to leverage strategic organizational learning; different practices may lead to the same outcome and similar practices may lead to different outcomes. The system dynamics underlying such learning — not the simple adoption of one or other practice — are key to success in institutionalizing a performance-based learning approach.

This book was written as a response to the positive and heartening reception to a series of articles published (online and print) on innovative interventions in organizations. The core message of We Tried to Warn You is that every day, micro-failures of communication and their cover-ups can accumulate, and enable a network of decisions that lead to systemic-level failures of organizations. I report on first hand experiences as an organizational participant, and more recently as a design/management consultant, informed by the substantive research published over the years by key authors I have learned from, and cite in the book. We Tried to Warn You presents a case study in compact form, with identifying details obscured to protect the great and the guilty alike. I focus emphasis on the knowledge-based practices that enable organizations to sense and make decisions from critical feedback from customers in the field, especially the multidisciplinary field now known as "user experience" (or UX). UX has become a primary conduit for understanding "real users" and their needs in current organizations worldwide. UX is often involved throughout all phases of a project, from user research, to product concept design, to final design and user testing. As a still-emerging knowledge discipline, UX practices were developed in the case organization as a response to a systemic failure, with outstanding positive results. The book also shares lessons learned from a process called socialization, which distributes leadership and skill development among organizational players in the formation of key strategic practices such as UX.

This book establishes constructivist, interpretivist, and linguistic approaches based on conventions about the nature of qualitative and text data, the author’s influence on text interpretation, and the validity checks used to justify text interpretations. Vast quantities of text and qualitative data in organizations often go unexplored. Text analytics outlined in this book allow readers to understand the process of converting unstructured text data into meaningful data for analysis in order to measure employee opinions, feedback, and reviews through sentiment analysis to support fact-based decision making. The methods involve using NVivo and RapidMiner software to perform lexical analysis, categorization, clustering, pattern recognition, tagging, annotation, memo creation, information extraction, association analysis, and visualization. The methodological approach in the book uses innovation theory as a sensitizing concept to lay the foundation for the analysis of research data, suggesting approaches for empirical exploration of organizational learning, knowledge management, and innovation practices amongst geographically dispersed individuals and team members. Based on data obtained from a private educational organization that has offices dispersed across Asia through focus group discussions and interviews on these topics, the author highlights the need for integrating organizational learning, knowledge management, and innovation to improve organizational performance, exploring perspectives on collective relationships and networks, organizational characteristics and structures, and tacit and overt values which influence such innovation initiatives. In the process, the author puts forward a new theory which is built on three themes: relationship and networks, knowledge sharing mechanisms, and the role of social cognitive schema that facilitate emergent learning, knowledge management, and innovation.

Presenting an innovative concept and approach for organization management, this book serves to document an organization’s journey towards the ultimate goal of learning organization. This book also shares the experience on how a OL framework built on established learning theories, could be used effectively, overcoming many of the barriers in a real industrial setting. Utilizing a ready-to-use tool called Project Action Learning (PAL) to analyze real life case studies, the authors introduce a framework that allows teams of people to work and learn over the course of business projects. Equal emphasis is placed on the achievement of pre-set project outcomes and the learning objectives of the participants. In addition, a long term organizational learning strategy is put forward and the necessary supporting infrastructure, in the form of four ‘PAL Pillars’, is described. The concepts and development of the PAL driven Organizational Learning model are inspired by and grounded in, Western and Eastern business philosophies and case studies which offer important insights into the management of organizations who are keen to develop sustainable business practices.

"Lessons Learned" is a knowledge management approach for organizational learning and improved performance and productivity. However beneficial this approach is, few organizations have been able to implement the processes necessary for organizational success. Utilizing Evidence-Based Lessons Learned for Enhanced Organizational Innovation and Change links the theoretical foundation of the “lessons learned” approach with current tools and evidence-based research in support of organizational development. Outlining best practices and emerging research in organizational learning, this publication is ideal for project managers, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students looking to implement these processes into their project management cycle, particularly in the risk management and quality control processes.