The Construct of the learning Organization: DImensions, Measurement and Validation (Yang, Watkins, Marsick, 2004)

I apologize to anyone who has been reading my blogs because my typing errors are awful.

I obviously must be in grad school because I can noiot support myself typing!

This study attempts to develop and validate a measure of the learning organization.

Approaches to defining the construct

Systems thinking – Senge’s Five disciplines a learning organization should possess
Team learning – emphasis on learning activities rather than process
Shared vision
Mental models –
Personal mastery - focusing energy, developing patience, seeing reality objectively
System thinking – see inter relationships rather than linear cause-effect chains

Learning perspective – comprehensive aspects of learning at all organizational levels
Strategic perspective – understanding of the strategic internal drivers necessary for
building learning capability
Integrative perspective – Learning is a continuous, strategically used process – integrated
with and running parallel to work


the learning organization is a multi-dimensional construct
This study shows there is an underlying structure that represents patterns of learning
activities in an organization.