Editing Organizational learning (section)

== Knowledge ==
[[Knowledge]] is an indicator of organizational learning. Organization learning happens when there is a change in the knowledge of an organization.<ref name="Argote Spektor4">{{cite journal | last1 = Argote | first1 = Linda | last2 = Miron-Spektor | first2 = Ella | year = 2011 | title = Organizational learning: from experience to knowledge | journal = Organization Science | volume = 22 | issue = 5| pages = 1123–1137 | doi=10.1287/orsc.1100.0621}}</ref> Researchers measure organizational knowledge in various ways. For example, some researchers assess knowledge as changes in an organization's practices or routines that increase efficiency.<ref name="Gherardi, Silvia 20052">Gherardi, Silvia. Organizational Knowledge: The Texture of Workplace Learning. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2005.</ref> Other researchers base it on the number of patents an organization has.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Alcacer | first1 = Juan | last2 = Gittelman | first2 = Michelle | last3 = Sampat | first3 = Bhaven | year = 2009 | title = Applicant and Examiner Citations in U.S. Patents: An Overview and Analysis | url = http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-016.pdf| journal = Research Policy | volume = 38 | issue = 2| pages = 415–427 | doi=10.1016/j.respol.2008.12.001}}</ref> [[Knowledge management]] is the process of collecting, developing, and spreading knowledge assets to enable organizational learning.

=== Nature of knowledge ===
[[Knowledge]] is not a homogenous resource. Although it is related to data and information, knowledge is different from these constructs. Data are a set of defined, objective facts concerning events, while information is a value-added form of data that adds meaning through contextualization, categorization, calculation, correction, or condensation.<ref>Davenport, T. H.; Prusak, L. (2000). Working knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press (Chapter 1).</ref> Knowledge is the applied version of information, a combination of information within experience, framing, value, contextualization, and insight. Experience is knowledge that is generated through exposure to and application of knowledge. Knowledge originates within and is applied by units of an organization to evaluate and utilize experience and information effectively. Knowledge can become embedded within repositories, routines, processes, practices, tools, and norms, depending on the relationship between information, experience, and knowledge.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Organizational learning research: Past, present and future|journal = Management Learning|date = 2011-09-01|issn = 1350-5076|pages = 439–446|volume = 42|issue = 4|doi = 10.1177/1350507611408217|first = Linda|last = Argote|s2cid = 145490839}}</ref>

Two distinct forms of knowledge, explicit and tacit, are significant in this respect. Explicit knowledge is codified, systematic, formal, and easy to communicate. Tacit knowledge is personal, context-specific, subjective knowledge.<ref>Nonaka, I., H. Takeuchi. 1995. The Knowledge Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref>
* [[Explicit knowledge]] is knowledge that is easy to transfer. Unlike tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge is declarative or factual.  It is transferred through written, verbal, or codified media. Examples of this include instructions, definitions, and documents. Among its employees, Toyota spreads explicit knowledge about its assembly line production. Toyota requires each team of workers and each individual worker to document their tasks, providing detailed descriptions on "how each task is to be performed, how long each task should take, the sequence of steps to be followed in performing each task, and the steps to be taken by each worker in checking his or her own work." This uses explicit knowledge since the knowledge is passed along using a code, which is a document of detailed descriptions in Toyota's case.<ref name="ReferenceA3">Sanchez, Ron. "'Tacit Knowledge' versus 'Explicit Knowledge' Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice." IVS/CVS Working Papers 2004-01, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy, Copenhagen Business School.</ref>
* [[Tacit knowledge]] is knowledge that is difficult to transfer. As first described by Michael Polanyi, tacit knowledge is the knowledge of procedures.<ref>Polanyi, M. (1962), Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-critical Philosophy, corrected edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.</ref> It is a personal type of knowledge that cannot be shared simply through written or verbal communication. It is learned mostly through experience over time. For example, Toyota transfers tacit knowledge whenever it opens a new assembly factory. To train its new employees for a new factory, Toyota sends a group of its new employees to work at one of its established factories, where experienced employees train them. After this long-term training, they are sent back to the new factory to transfer their production knowledge to the rest of the new employees. This is a transfer of tacit knowledge since this knowledge is too complex to be codified and passed along through a document. This knowledge can only be transferred to new employees through practice and experience.<ref name="ReferenceA3" />

=== Measuring learning ===
Organizational learning tracks the changes that occur within an organization as it acquires knowledge and experience. To evaluate organizational learning, the knowledge an organization creates, transfers, and retains must be quantified.

Researchers studying organizational learning have measured the knowledge acquired through various ways since there is no one way of measuring it. Silvia Gherardi measured knowledge as the change in practices within an organization over time, which is essentially learning from experience.<ref name="Gherardi, Silvia 20052" /> In her study, she observed an organization acquire knowledge as its novices working at building sites learned about safety through experience and became practitioners. George Huber measured knowledge as the distribution of information within an organization. In his study, he noted that "organizational components commonly develop 'new' information by piecing together items of information that they obtain from other organizational units."<ref name="Huber, George P 1991">{{cite journal | last1 = Huber | first1 = George P | year = 1991 | title = Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures | jstor=2634941 | journal = Organization Science | volume = 2 | issue = 1| pages = 88–115 | doi=10.1287/orsc.2.1.88}}</ref> He gives the example of "a shipping department [that] learns that a shortage problem exists by comparing information from the warehouse with information from the sales department."<ref name="Huber, George P 1991"/>

An increasingly common and versatile measure of organizational learning is an organizational [[learning curve]] demonstrating [[experience curve effects]]. A learning curve measures the rate of a metric of learning relative to a metric for experience. [[Linda Argote]] explains that "large increases in productivity typically occur as organizations gain experience in production."<ref name="Argote Book5">Argote, Linda. Organizational Learning: Creating, Retaining, and Transferring Knowledge. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1999. 28.</ref>  However, Argote also notes that organizations' rates of learning vary. Argote identifies three factors that affect these rates: increased proficiency of individuals, improvements in an organization's technology, and improvements in its structure (such as its routines and methods of coordination).<ref name="Argote Book5" />  Some organizations show great productivity gains while others show little or no gains, given the same amount of experience.<ref name="Argote Book5" /><!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Experience curve.gif|right|frame|Fig 1. Experience Curve]] -->The experience curves plot the decreasing unit cost versus the total cumulative units produced, a common way to measure the effect of experience. The linear-linear input form on the left is transformed into the log-log form on the right to demonstrate that the proficiency increase correlates with experience.

=== Theoretical models ===
Attempts to explain variance of rates in organizational learning across different organizations have been explored in theoretical models. Namely the theoretical models conceived by John F. Muth, Bernardo Huberman, and Christina Fang.
* The Muth model (1986) was the first to represent the learning curve in a log-linear form and focused on cost effectiveness in organization processes. This model looks at the relationship between unit cost and experience, stating that cost reductions are realized through independent random sampling, or randomized searches, from a space of technological, managerial, or behavioral alternatives. This model did not aim to explore variation across firms, but solely looked at improvements in production with experience within a single firm.<ref>{{Cite journal|last = Muth|first = John F.|date = August 1986|journal = Management Science|doi = 10.1287/mnsc.32.8.948|volume=32|issue = 8|pages=948–962|title = Search Theory and the Manufacturing Progress Function}}</ref>
* The Huberman model (2001) filled that void and aimed at explaining the variation missing from Muth's model and focuses on finding increasingly shorter and more efficient paths from end to end of an assembly process. This model is visualized best in a connected graph with nodes that represent stages in a process and links that represent the connecting routines. By way of this model, learning can occur through two mechanisms that shorten the route from the initial stage to the final stage. The first is by some shortcut that can be identified by looking at the nodes and mapping and discovering new routines, the ideal goal being able to eliminate certain touch points and find shorter paths from the initial to final node. The second mechanism involves improving the routines: the organization can work to select the most efficacious link between two nodes such that, if an issue ever arises, members of an organization know exactly whom to approach, saving them a considerable amount of time.<ref name=":03" /> 
*The Fang model (2011) shares a major goal with the Huberman model: to gradually decrease the steps towards the final stage. However, this model takes more of a "credit assignment" approach in which credit is assigned to successive states as an organization gains more experience, and then learning occurs by way of credit propagation. This implies that as an organization gains more experience with the task, it is better able to develop increasingly accurate mental models that initially identify the values of states closer to the goal and then those of states farther from the goal. This then leads to a reduced number of steps to reach the organization's final goal and can thus improve overall performance.<ref name=":03" />

=== Context and learning ===
An organization's experience affects its learning, so it is important to also study the context of the [[organizational climate]], which affects an organization's experience. This context refers to an organization's characteristics, specifically its "structure, culture, technology, identity, memory, goals, incentives, and strategy."<ref name="Argote Spektor4" /> It also includes its environment, which consists of its competitors, clients, and regulators.<ref name="Argote Spektor4" /> While this context establishes how knowledge is acquired by the organization, this knowledge modifies context as the organization adapts to it.<ref name="Argote Spektor4" /> The leader-initiated cultural context of learning has inspired key research into whether the organization has a learning or performance orientation,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Bunderson | first1 = J. S. | last2 = Sutcliffe | first2 = K.M. | year = 2003 | title = Management team learning orientation and business unit performance | journal = J. Appl. Psychol. | volume = 88 | issue = 3| pages = 552–560 | doi=10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.552| pmid = 12814303 }}</ref> an environment of [[psychological safety]],<ref name="Edmondson, Amy 19993">{{Cite Q | Q111679724
| author           = Edmondson, Amy        <!-- for "Last, First" format -->
| publication-date = 1999                  <!-- to match other cite(s) -->
}}
</ref>
the group's superordinate identity,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Kane | first1 = A. A. | last2 = Argote | first2 = L. | last3 = Levine | first3 = J.M. | year = 2005 | title = Knowledge transfer between groups via personal rotation: Effects of social identity and knowledge quality | journal = Organ. Behavior Human Decision Processes | volume = 96 | pages = 56–71 | doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2004.09.002}}</ref> and [[group dynamics]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Contu | first1 = A. | last2 = Willmott | first2 = H. | year = 2003 | title = Re-embedding situatedness: The importance of power relationships in learning theory. | journal = Organ Sci | volume = 14 | issue = 3| pages = 283–296 | doi=10.1287/orsc.14.3.283.15167}}</ref> Research into these concepts like Edmondson's study (1999) shows that an organization operating under a context promoting curiosity, information sharing, and psychological safety encourages organizational learning.<ref name="Edmondson, Amy 19993" />
"Group learning dynamics" is the subject of how groups share, generate, evaluate, and combine knowledge as they work together.<ref name="Argote Book5" />

=== Organizational forgetting ===
Knowledge acquired through learning by doing can depreciate over time. The depreciation rate is affected by the turnover rate of individuals and how knowledge is stored within the organization. Organizations with higher turnover rates will lose more knowledge than others. Organizations with knowledge embedded in technology rather than individuals are more resistant to organizational forgetting.<ref name=":03" /> Examples: In the Liberty Shipyard study, in shipyards where relative input was reduced, individual unit cost increased even with increasing cumulative output. In shipyards with no relative input reduction, individual unit cost decreased with increasing cumulative output.<ref name=":03" /> In a study of airplane manufacturing at Lockheed, unit costs declined with experience, but this effect weakened over time.<ref name=benkard/>