Organisational Learning (OL) describes the collective learning in organisations that is aimed at meeting or exceeding organisational goals. Dodgson (1993, p. 377) describes organisational learning as "the way firms build, supplement and organise knowledge and routines around their activities and within their cultures and adapt and develop organizational efficiency by improving the use of broad skills of their workforces."
From Organisational Learning the ideal of the "Learning Organisation" has been created (Watkins & Marsick, 1993; Chawla & Renesch, 1995; Field, 1995). The Learning Organisation consciously establishes an environment to promote learning throughout the workplace to achieve shared goals.
The Learning Organisation has been popularised by Peter Senge (1992) and is described by him as places:
where people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to live together (1992, p. 14).
Eric Tsang (1997, p. 75) more prosaically states that "a Learning Organisation is one that is good at organisational learning".
Huber (1996) depicted OL as four constructs:
Knowledge acquisition- how knowledge is obtained Information distribution
- how information is shared Information interpretation
- how distributed information is
viewed or interpreted Organisational memory -
how knowledge is retained for future
use.
According to Huber (1996) Organisational Memory (OM) is important in the learning process "... to demonstrate or use learning, that which has been learned must be stored in memory and then brought forth from memory; both the demonstrability and utility of learning depend on the effectiveness of the organisation's memory" (p. 150).
OM can be shown to be both advantageous and disadvantageous to the organisation. Rebecca Henderson (1996) depicts the Xerox company as caught in a "competency trap" where the organisation had become very skilled at creating photocopiers that had been superseded by the organisation's competitors. Xerox had great difficulty in discarding the memories that were causing them to lose market share. On the other hand, where an organisation chooses to ignore past lessons, the organisation can continually "re-invent the wheel", repeat mistakes and build processes from the beginning (Krippendorf, 1975).
This paper discusses how the concept of OM is useful in gaining an understanding of the Learning Organisation. Also, the results of a study of a small state council of a professional association will be examined to provide a real life example of the utility of the construct.
The concept of the organisation as a collective that stores information is not new. Levitt and March (1996, p. 524) believe that:
Rules, procedures, technologies, beliefs and cultures are conserved through systems of socialization and control".
I suggest that Organisational Memory can be viewed as a structure of repositories in which different forms of knowledge are stored, and from which knowledge can be retrieved.
It should be noted that the retention structures do not work in isolation. They interact with each other and often overlap. However, for the purposes of investigating an organisation's memory they act as a useful tool of examination. Retention structures have been examined by Moorman and Miner (1997), Walsh and Ungson (1991) and Stein (1989). I have developed the models described by these authors as follows:
Organisations are complex, and their complexity means that work routines need to be consistent with other work routines across the organisation so that a desired result is achieved (Cyert & March, 1963). These work routines become entrenched in the organisation and often influence the organisation's future (Levitt & March, 1996).
Work routines, when examined on the individual level are the part of the individual's skill that can be done without thinking - the procedural memory (Cohen, 1991). Organisational routines emerge over time to reduce complex decisions to simple solutions (Cyert & March, 1963; Cohen & Bacdayan, 1994) which means that problems may arise when a non-routine issue is not suitable for the routine decision, or when the environment changes so that the routine is obsolete. A tragic example of the former is where a surgical team, working from a reversed x-ray, removed a patient's healthy kidney (Cohen and Bacdayan, 1994).
Thus, work routines may be viewed as a "double edged sword". Too great an emphasis on work routines can lead to errors, too little emphasis may mean greater expenses in completing tasks.
Another characteristic of work routines is that they are typically stored in the individual memory as procedural memory, which has low verbal accessibility, i.e. people may not be able to articulate why or how they do things, or even be aware that they do certain things to complete a task.
The physical surroundings of the organisation encode information about an organisation. According to Walsh and Ungson (1991) employees' interpersonal experiences have been affected by organisations' physical layouts and the physical environment often reflects the power hierarchy.
Edgar Schein (1985) gives a very clear account of how the ecology of two organisations encodes information about their cultures:
Action, with its assumptions about truth through conflict and the importance of open communications, has chosen an open office layout with partitions only high enough to permit a sense of privacy when one is sitting down. Private offices are given only to a few people who need them, and then typically have glass door so that one can always see who is in.....Managers at Multi spend much more time thinking things out alone, having individual conferences with others who are centrally involved, and protecting the privacy of individuals so that they can get the work done. What the visitor encounters in this organization is a lobby manned by a guard and closed doors on all sides. (pp. 240-241)
The physical ecology of the organisation may include posters on the wall, logos and other physical artifacts. It also includes technical systems such as assembly line layout and tools (Moorman & Miner, 1997).
"Culture: a pattern of basic assumptions - invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration -- that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems." (Schein 1985, p. 9). Culture is stored and transmitted via stories, shared scripts and schema.
An organisation's culture not only stores information about the organisation, it also affects how the organisation's members utilise other OM structures. Brown and Starkey (1994) illustrate how Candy Inc.'s informality caused problems in the adoption and implementation of a new Management Information System and other new computer facilities.
The structure of organisations will vary according to the uncertainties that they have to cope with, the information that is available and how it is gathered and utilised by the decision makers (Stinchcombe, 1990).
The structure of an organisation gives rise to various roles, each involving expectations of behaviour. When two people in an organisation interact, they decode information according to the rules associated with each role which have been constructed in the past (Walsh & Ungson, 1991; Krippendorf, 1975). This allows the organisation to operate whether or not specific individuals remain members of the organisation. The organisation will replace individuals with other individuals who fit into the specified roles.
Physical records and documents may be retained via paper records, electronically or both. Yates (1988) illustrates how organisational memory developed in the years from 1880 to 1920 from knowledge stored mainly in people's own heads to systems of paper records supplementing the knowledge and expertise contained in management.
The increasing sophistication of information technology and information management systems, the requirements of government and other third party bodies, and the globalisation of the world economy has led to a greater emphasis being placed on how information is stored for access by significant groups of people.
OM is a collective concept which by definition means that knowledge is held in the minds of groups of people.
It is important to note this distinction: a person may access their personal memory, and they may access the organisational memory they share with others (Stein, 1989). Where a single person leaves an organisation, the organisation has lost only that person's personal knowledge; the knowledge retained in OM should still be available through other members. The OM will be diminished through turnover only if whole layers or teams leave the organisation.
Three types of individual long term memory have been identified (Morris, 1998):
|
Procedural memory - |
contains learned associations between stimuli and responses. |
|
Semantic memory - |
stores general facts and information |
|
Episodic memory - |
specific information that has personal meaning such as personally experience events |
It has been postulated that personal memory has equivalents or approximations in Organisational Memory. According to Cohen and Bacdayan (1994) work routines are the organisational equivalent of procedural memory. El Sawy et al. (1986) believe that organisational semantic memory records facts such as personnel and accounting records, policies and so on. Episodic memory would include stories and myths, critical incidents and other information relating to a specific event or time.
Examples of how these repositories impact upon each other has been previously illustrated. OM is a construct that demonstrates in a holistic way how stored knowledge can be both useful and destructive in an organisation. If Learning Organisations require an environment that promotes collective learning in the workplace, it seems a necessary step to ensure that the mechanisms for transmitting and storing knowledge do not impede and, if possible, actively support the achievement of organisational goals. For the researcher, the construct of organisational memory gives an opportunity to investigate the retention of knowledge from a variety of aspects.
It is suggested that by investigating the breadth of OM "stores" in an organisation, the researcher may draw conclusions about the way they interact and the effect of those interactions on how the organisation learns. It is also suggested that the link between personal memory and Organisational Memory can provide insight into how knowledge can be most effectively shared throughout the organisation in a variety of situations.
A preliminary study was undertaken to:
The exploration of OM undertook to provide a greater understanding of:
The ABCD Association was established in 1971. The Association aims to address the needs and concerns of its members who are mainly involved in certain aspects of education. The Association is managed by a National Board of Directors.
The South Australian Division of the Association is governed by a Council comprised of members of the Association. The positions on the Council are honorary. The Council is comprised of two Service Teams. Each Service Team elects a Vice-President who assists the President. The Division's day to day administration is conducted by a paid part-time Administrator. The Council meets once a month on a formal basis to resolve matters relating to the Division. The Service Teams meet approximately every two months.
The current Council is comprised of nine Councillors including the President, and the part-time Administrator. At the time of the study two of the Councillors had been absent for about three months with little contact with the Council, and were considered inactive.
Each Councillor had been appointed to the Council for the following approximate period:
|
Less than six months - |
two Councillors[1] |
|
Eighteen months - |
six Councillors |
|
Two years - |
the President |
The Administrator had been employed for nine years.
This study was comprised of interviews with the President and the Administrator, questionnaires sent to all Councillors except the President and content analysis of a range of documents dealing with vision, ethics, policy, strategic direction and operations.
This report is therefore based on:
The instruments used in the study were formatted to capture information with reference to OM repositories.
When asked how much of their job would be routine, three Councillors answered "Half" and one Councillor answered "Little". Further questions about work routines in the organisation were not responded to, which makes drawing inferences difficult.
However, the majority of Councillors having performed in the role for less than two years may suggest that considerably more routinisation may be possible.
In the case of the Council, premises are borrowed from one of the Council Members which means that artifacts are not generally displayed around the meeting room. However, correspondence and faxes are generally on ABCD Association letterhead, and ABCD Association stick pins are often worn by male Councillors.
All Councillors and the Administrator were asked to choose words from a list that were most like the Council. They were able to add additional words if they wished.
The respondents answered as follows:
Number of Responses
Words Most Like Council
No of Responses
Team-oriented
5 Ethical
3 Achievement-oriented
2 Dynamic
2 Innovative
2 Political
2 Formal
1 Individualistic
1 Competitive
1
They were also asked to give examples of how these traits were demonstrated. Most of the examples given of these characteristic were positive. These examples included:
One example that was less positive was where one person believed that the meetings were very formal in a way that held up things that needed to be done. It was stated that there was a tendency to "dither" about how things to be done were approached. Another example was cited was "Key decision making processes impacting on the organisation" which was linked to the terms "Individualistic", "Political", and "Competitive".
It should be noted that two out of four Councillors cited Council Meetings as the major source of knowledge that enabled them to process work routines. The other Councillor cited "Chair/President and documents", the Administrator and "Peers", which may refer to interactions during the Council Meetings, as there appears to be little interaction between the President and other Councillors between Council Meetings.
Respondents were also asked to tick the three words on the same list that were most unlike the organisation. One respondent chose to tick more than three, hence the large numbers of words chosen:
Word Most Unlike Council
Number of Responses
Entrepreneurial
3
Money-driven
2
Hard-nosed
2
Achievement oriented
1
Individualistic
1
Innovative
1
Political
1
Structured
1
Autocratic
1
Competitive
1
Formal
1
Councillors disagreed in relation to whether the Council is Achievement-oriented, Political, Individualistic and Formal. This may be due to different interpretations of the words. In one interview, the respondent clearly indicated that they believed political to mean active in government and other influential circles.
The structure of the Council is very simple. The Administrator fulfills the roles of Secretary and Treasurer, while the President has a mentoring/coaching role, described by the President as a "pastoral care" role.
The Vice Presidents are effectively the heads of the Service Teams, and in the past few years, have shared the load of the Presidency when the previous two Presidents had to resign due to a change in work circumstances.
Physical records and documents can be divided into paper and electronic records/documents. The Councillors have easy access to their own paper records/documents, and may access the ABCD Association Home Page via the Internet. Copies of documents are kept at the home of the Administrator.
When a new Councillor commences he/she receives a folder containing:
which are documents generated by the National Board. The Memorandum and Articles of Association and Regulations are 61 pages in length, and written in the legal format required in 1971 when the Association was formed.
In addition, the new Councillor receives:
These Policy and Charter documents were created several years ago when Service Teams were first formed. According to the Administrator "the policy and charter for the service teams are not all applicable but I still include them as I guess its a bit of a guide' on what others have done/ or not done."
On an ongoing basis, the Council receives agenda and minutes for all meetings. In addition, all Councillors receive the financial and membership reports for the Division, and national information that will impact on the Division. It was questioned whether the Councillors actually find time to properly read and absorb minutes and reports before each meeting due to the busy lives that each Councillor leads. Also, the Code of Ethics was referred to several times in interviews.
The central files are kept at the home of the Administrator. All documents generated by the Administrator have a footer with an index that relates to a file. The Administrator does have guidelines with regard to administrative issues such as processing money, but described them as "vague".
All of the documents shown above which would require review are documents generated by the National Board. This means that while the Council may request review, it does not have the power to ensure that review occurs.
Each Councillor is responsible for the storage of the documents issued to them. Two Councillors spend 1-2 hours each month on personal filing and organisation while two Councillors spends 0-1 hour per month.
The need to retrieve documents occurs Occasionally (3 Councillors) and Seldom (1 Councillor). Difficulty in locating the documents is experienced Occasionally (2 Councillors) and Seldom (2 Councillors).
It is worth noting here that a common problem for the Council is one of lack of time. Both interviews noted that Councillors tended to be busy people.
When individuals learn something, it is retained in that individual's memory. By making the information accessible to others in the organisation, they add to the organisational memory. The Councillors tended to add to the Organisational Memory more through verbal means than by written means, which is consistent with the descriptions of culture noted before. It should be noted however, that while the information is shared by verbal means, there would usually be a documented "backup" in the form of the minutes prepared by the Administrator.
When the Councillors need to solve a problem, the resources most commonly used are, in order of preference:
When respondents were asked to describe a single event that had the most effect on the organisation, four people replied. The events were as follows:
"EFDG vs ABCD Association - Debate on ABCD Association left culture of poor cousin fighting an uphill battle to compete." This quote was heard about from previous members. It related to an episode some years ago where members in all states were asked to vote on a proposal to merge with another association. Another member gave the same example stating "Divided member loyality in two camps. Member numbers fell significantly when merger did not take place."
Another person described a very successful Conference which "People still talk about from time to time". Another Conference was also mentioned as it attracted international speakers and raised the Association's profile, but the organisation "lost a lot of money".
Finally, one person cited the implementation of the Service Teams. This person also cited the trend from having stable Councils over a period of years to the current situation of relatively high turnover, where the past three Presidents could not finish their terms.
The SA Division of the ABCD Association has the following characteristics:
It is suggested that because of the high turnover of Councillors, the Council spends a significant amount of time in forming a culture and there seems to be a need to "start again" every couple of years.
Work routines may come into being slowly, due to the comparatively small amount of time spent on Association matters,which means that each decision may be carefully thought out and evaluated by the Council or the Service Teams. The advantage of this is the Council would not fall into error due to treating non-routine things in a routine way. The disadvantage is that it can take some time to come to a decision and to implement it.
It is suggested that if half or more of the work is non-routine to the Councillors, any new Councillors will find it more difficult to learn the tasks, as the Councillors generally do not yet have the skill level to effectively teach the tasks.
While the Council has access to documents from the National Board which may increase their knowledge level, in many cases the documents are long and relatively difficult to understand, and are not really an appropriate mode of communication or source of knowledge for busy people. It is suggested that the Councillors may be reluctant to wade through the materials, which may lead to confusion and lack of understanding of the roles of the Council and the National Board which again may lead to some difficulties in making decisions.
It is also noted that the major resources used to solve problems related in all cases to the respondent's colleagues or "thinking it through by myself". In most responses, the Administrator was cited as an expert. The knowledge and experience of the Administrator is a major resource for the Council. However, the major part of the knowledge transmitted to the council is episodic, in the form of events and episodes in the past that worked well. There appears to be a significant amount of semantic knowledge which the Council probably knows little about. It is suggested that if the Administrator become no longer available the Council would suffer a significant diminishment in available knowledge.
The current Administrator performs most tasks as work routines which means that they are done quickly and cheaply. A new Administrator may take some time to reach this degree of efficiency.
It is worth noting that in each case, the related incident seems to be connected with an emotional response by the respondent. The person relating the implementation of the Service Teams is very enthusiastic and committed to their continued operation, and was a member of one of the first Service Teams. The turnover of Councillors particularly presidents, it is believed, has caused this Councillor some degree of personal trouble in the past.
The successful Conference is obviously a source of pride and satisfaction to the person who described it, and she appears to enjoy hearing people still talk about it.
One Councillor who raised the proposed merger appears not to have experienced it herself, but it appears to be an issue that causes her some anger and annoyance at previous members who "were short sighted and politically focussed" in voting against the merger. The other Councillor was a member when the merger was proposed and "felt confused initially then believe political and individualistically motivated."
Most of the respondents agree that the culture of the Council is team-oriented. The current President commented often on the need for collaborative cooperation and team work, and that has appears to have become a value for the current Council. This team culture is manifested by the crucial role that the Council Meetings play in the operation of the Council. Meetings are used not only to ratify the decisions of the Service Teams, but to plan broad policy and strategic directions. It appears that attendance at all meetings is necessary for each Councillor to play an effective role and to feel involved. The style of the meeting process appears to be consensual in nature, with any disagreements thoroughly explored and resolved.
It is suggested that some difficulties may arise when Councillors miss meetings as they may feel alienated from the decisions made. Also, if new Councillors are appointed, time and effort will be necessary to not only induct them into the strategic directions and objectives of the Council and the Service teams, but to have them make an active commitment to all aspects to continue with this consensual approach.
It is worth noting that, as to be expected, each president brings their own style to the role. While this President supports the appointment of Vice-Presidents, other past Presidents have decided to dispense with them. Similarly, other past Presidents have not fostered a culture with such a high degree of team work.
It is suggested that the role of the President and the culture of the Council is defined largely by the President in power at the time. Because of the high turnover in Council Members, the presidency role in the last three years has been filled by the Councillor of longest duration who is willing to take on the work. The structure is then determined by the Council, with the President's influence more or less affecting the decision according to the style of the President.
It is suggested that the structure of President/V.P.s is more conducive to increased OM, as there appears to be a greater emphasis on the President sharing the Executive responsibilities which means that the knowledge is shared by three people in the organisation rather than only one. This shared knowledge has probably been useful in the past where, as mentioned before, previous President had to leave without completing their full term.
In conclusion, the Council places a heavy emphasis on face to face meetings and interactions to transmit and store knowledge amongst the members. They also rely heavily on the Administrator for her insights on past events. Both these mechanisms have a flavour of episodic organisational memory. The semantic repositories such as the documents supplied by the National Board, on the other hand, seem to be used much less because of their unwieldy nature. This means that Councillors discover this knowledge only when it forms part of an event, i.e. becomes episodic in nature. Finally, it is suggested that procedural organisational memory probably cannot be used to full advantage as the Council lacks the experience. On the other hand, the Administrator draws on her individual procedural memory extensively.
Organisational Memory is still a relatively unknown concept, which is surprising considering its importance to the constructs of Organisational Learning and the Learning Organisation. In the trial study completed it is expected that the organisation will gain insight into the advantages and disadvantages inherent in the way it uses its OM repositories. The examination of how the repositories interacted particularly in terms of how culture affected OM and therefore OL may enable them to examine their operations with a view to improving them.
It is suggested that there would be considerable value in further research aimed at clarifying the construct and its role in organisational learning.
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[1] One of these Councillor
has served on a prior Council for a period of 2 years.
[2]It should be noted that five
completed questionnaires were returned, however one questionnaire was
invalid as the respondent had answered the questions with regard to
his/her place of employment rather than the Council. Also another two
issued were sent to the inactive Councillors.