ABSTRACT
E. Wenger explains that learning organisations expect learning to be more than the accumulation of knowledge. This chapter describes some of the stages in the learning organisation story. Responding in 1996 to criticism of learning organisation theory, Chris Argyris and Donald Schon distinguished between the literature of 'the learning organisation' and the scholarly literature of 'organisational learning'. They describe three types of productive organisational learning: single-loop learning; double-loop learning; and deuteron learning. Peter Senge described five disciplines of a learning organisation. The five disciplines are: personal mastery; mental models; building shared vision; team learning; and systems thinking. Work-based learning is routine in learning organisations. People learn from their everyday work. Work-based learning includes experiential learning. This means more than simply accumulating facts from daily experience. David Kolb, whose experiential learning model underpins modern thinking about how individuals learn, wrote in 1996 how the model can be applied to organisations.
