ABSTRACT
Organisations can learn in order to be more effective and to critically reflect upon their strategies, but they also change in order to be legitimate, and “real NGOs”. The chapter analyses learning in development NGOs as legitimation vis-á-vis the international institutional field of development NGOs. Further, it pays attention to learning to be a modern organisation in general. The chapter first argues that learning in development NGOs is not simply a case of adaptation to isomorphic pressures, but involves editing, translating and synchronising these trends with other ongoing processes internal or external to organisations. First, drawing from an example of improving monitoring and evaluation in a number of different Finnish NGOs, the chapter argues that learning of M&E included synchronisation of activities internal to organisations, of those of partner organisations and, finally, attempts to be a better organisation. Similar processes of learning to be a modern organisation with established visions, goals and means of measurement are also illustrated by an example of “learning to be an NGO” in small Tanzanian organisations in early 2000.
