9.4 Learning Organization

	A learning organization is the term given to a company that facilitates the learning of its members and
	continuously transforms itself.
	Learning organizations develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations and enables them
	to remain competitive in the business environment.
	A learning organization has five main features; systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared
	vision and team learning.
	In my theoretical view of a learning organization, six dimensions constitute the full set of how to become and
	to be a learning organization.
	They are, at the same time, the objectives and the ways of achieving them, the product and the process of
	producing it. Here are the six dimensions which constitute the whole theory.
	Ways and Aims:

		Customer orientation process
		Improvement process
		Learning process
		Participation process
		Decision-making process

9.4 Learning Organization

	They are based as well as culminate in what we call a general theory of (organization) quality. Each of these
	dimensions must be compatible with and applied to all the others, thus constituting

		A strategic planning tool;
		An analytical matrix of the quality dimensions of a learning organization;
		An assessment tool for all methods and instruments used in the process of developing one. The
		entrance door of this theoretical building is framed by two pillars or premises:

	Firstly, there is a general assumption that in order to do things well people must want it, be able and allowed
	to, i.e. the conditions of doing things must not be counterproductive to their own needs, interests and wishes,
	they must be trained for doing things well and have the necessary materials and tools and, finally, they must
	work in framework structures which allow, if not assist them to do things well.
	Behind this is the idea of a dialectical relationship and mutual interaction, usually called socialization,
	between behavior and environment (organization).
	Secondly, the economic assumption that in affluent societies ("the First World") with relatively saturated
	markets consumers' (and citizens') decisions are generally marked by qualitative aspects in the first place,
	to put it simply, by quality and price instead of price and quality.

9.4 Learning Organization

	This stage of demand-led or buyers' markets was gradually reached in Western Europe from the seventies
	onwards, leading to that "differentiated quality production".