Organizasyonel öğrenme, adımları ve uygulanması

Abstract

Organizasyonel öğrenme tartışmalarının uzun sayılabilecek tarihine karşın, bu başlık yirminci yüzyılın son yirmi yılında yeniden doğdu. Kurt Lewin ve James March'tan Peter Senge'ye pek çok araştırmacı ve bilim insanı, bu tartışmalara katkı olarak günümüze dek pek çok değerli çalışmalar sundu. Organizasyon etkinliğinin niteliği ve öğrenmenin niteliği, son yıllarda dikkat çeken başlıklar oldu. Günümüzde organizasyonel öğrenme, sertleşen rekabetin ve beklenmedik belirsizliklerin olağanlaştığı piyasalarda, şirketlerin başarı yolculuklarında önemli bir yetenek olarak ilgi ve dikkat çekmektedir. Böyle olunca da organizasyonel öğrenme başlıklı çalışmalar konuya dikkat çekmektedir. Organizasyonel öğrenme, değişim yönetiminin de çok önemli başlıklarından biri hâline gelmiştir. Firmalar, kurumsallaştıkça organizasyonel öğrenmeyi daha da çok gereksinim olarak görmüşler ve organizasyonel öğrenmenin sağladığı önemli rekabet avantajlarını fark etmişlerdir. Konuyla ilgili çalışmalar, organizasyonel öğrenme sürecinin farklı adım ya da adımlarına kendi bağlamları itibarıyla işaret etmektedir. Bu tez çalışması, kapsamlı bir kaynak çalışması üzerinden, organizasyonel öğrenme sürecinin adımlarını bir arada görünür duruma getirmeyi amaçlamaktadır ve bu adımların nasıl uygulanacağına ilişkin bir öneri sunmaktadır. Organizasyonel öğrenme sürecinde uygulanması gerekenler, farklı farklı noktalardan bakılarak dile getirilmiş olan çok sayıda çalışmada önerilenler, bütünsel bir bağlamda ve organizasyonel öğrenmeye bir süreç olarak bakarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bu çerçevede beş adımdan oluşan bir süreç önerisi ortaya çıkmıştır. Ardından, bu öneri, bu adımların nasıl uygulanabileceğine ilişkin bir literatür çalışması ile desteklenmiştir. Kuşkusuz organizasyonel öğrenmeden söz edildiğinde; öğrenen takımlar, öğrenen takımların kapasitesi, öğrenen takımların nasıl tasarlanacağı ve öğrenen takımlarla öğrenme ilişkisinden de söz edilmelidir. Bu çerçevede daha önceki yıllarda ortaya konmuş bu çalışmalar, bu tez çalışmasına da hem önemli bir esin kaynağı ve hem de önemli basılı kaynaklar olmuştur. Çalışma sonunda, organizasyonel öğrenmenin öğrenen takımlar üzerinden yürütülmesi gerektiği ve başlıca sessiz bilginin ortaya çıkarılıp süreçlere taşınmasıyla ilerleyecek oluşu ortaya çıkmıştır. Gerçekleştirilen literatür çalışması sonucunda, başlıca, bilginin ortaya çıkarılması, bilginin paylaşılması, bilgide ortaklaşma, bilginin uygulanması ve kayıt altına alınması adımlarından oluşmasının önerildiği bu süreç, bir KOBİ uygulamasıyla sınanmış ve ağır kriz altındaki bu işletmede oldukça olumlu ve ölçülebilir sonuçlar vermiştir. Satış sürecine yönelik olarak uygulanan organizasyonel öğrenme sürecinin, şirketin diğer yönetim alanlanlarına da uygulandığında başka önemli, etkili ve şirket performansını yükselten sonuçlar ortaya çıkabileceği değerlendirmesi yapılabilir. "Organizasyonel öğrenme, adımları ve uygulanması" başlığı altında bugüne dek organizasyonel öğrenme konusunda yapılmış çalışmalara bir katkı olabileceği umulan bu tez çalışmasının, gelecekte, bu ya da benzeri başlık ya da başlıklar altında yapılacak başka çalışmalarla daha da zenginleşeceği umulmaktadır.

Despite the quite long history of discussions on organizational learning, this topic was reborn during the last two decades of twentieth century. So many researchers and scientists like Kurt Lewin, James March and Peter Senge have made great contributions since the beginning, till today. The quality of organizational efficiency and the quality of learning have been invincible topics during the recent years. Today, in the markets where tragically hardening competition and unexpected uncertinities are getting usual, organizational learning attracts attention and care as a major ability in the success voyage of the companies. So, the studies with the topic of organizational learning has attracted attention to the subject and organizational learning has become one of the very important topics of the change management. The more the companies get institutionalized, to more they take organizational learning as a need and the more they realised the competition advantages of organizational learning. This work came out as a result of a literature study on the studies of researchers who studied on organizational learning. Each and everyone of the researchers mentioned in this work performed so valuable works on the nature and musts of organizational learning. Our work aims defining not only what organizational learning is but also how and following which steps it happens, as a simple and easily explainable process as possible. It aims to integrate the topics defined by different researchers several times to form the steps following each other as a process and realize an application in an enterprise. No doubt such integrations may not always be approved by the processes in organizations and business systems. But still it can be thought that within this hard competitive conditions this work may have an affect on the members of the organizations to contribute the organizational learning processes and more, to become an effective part of these processes. Studies about this topic indicate, different step or steps of organizational learning within their own context. Referring an extensive literature study, our study aims to bring out the steps of organizational learning process altogether and to propose a way on how to apply them. We evaluate the steps to apply in the organizational learning process within a holistic point of view and taking organizational learning as a process, considering the proposals of so many studies that looked into organizational learning matter through so many different points. In that context, a proposal of a process with five steps emerged. Then, this proposal is supported by a literature study on how to apply them. This work starts with a beginning mainly on organizational learning and followed by the steps of organizational learning. During the literature study it has been seen that the most difficult and complicated step of the process is "sharing the knowledge". Under this topic, so many obstacles are evaluated. Of course it is also evaluated how to handle the field of these obstacles. Source of many of this complications are the obstacles due to the perceptions of the individuals. And even the solutions may have potential to create new complications but still it is possible to find solutions under even these circumstances. The step, "getting agreed on the knowledge" looks relatively less complicated step after the step of "sharing the knowledge" is handled. And this topic is subjected less amount of study accordingly. Besides many of those studies are studies in an way refering on the step of "sharing the knowledge".Though at this step as well complications may occur, those are the ones which may give more opportunities to the managements for resolution. Then, due to the determination of Senge saying "the basic learning unit is not the individuals but the teams" the next topic is the learning teams mentioning the capacity and the design of the learning teams and also learning teams and organizational learning. In the context, outstanding studies of past years have been very valuable sources both as literature and for inspiration. So, obviously understood that, organizational learning would be applied through learning teams and go forward by revealition of silence knowledge and carrying it to the processes. The organizational learning process we proposed at the end of our literature study , -revealing the knowledge, sharing the knowledge, getting agreed on knowledge, applying the knowledge and recording the knowledge- is also tested within an application in an SME which is trying to survive under a tough economical crisis and resulted with very favorable consequences. We apply the organizational learning process we propose, on sales process of the company but in case we apply the organizational learning process on the other management fields of the company, we can expect other important, effective and performance enhancing results. Basically, the following steps will be a good start for any company aiming performance developement: 1. Defining an organization or a department of an organization to apply organizational learning process. 2. Orientation of the investor(s) and manager(s) of the company and/or department on the organizational learning, steps and application. 3. Choosing an organizational learning team voluntarily to deal with the process. 4. Choosing or deciding on a field where revealed and shared knowledge will be recorded along the process and aoutorizing the team members to access. 5. Applying the steps of revealing the knowledge, sharing the knowledge, getting agreed on knowledge, applying the knowledge and recording the knowledge, as it is proposed. 6. All along the application and at the end developing the application in the context with the performance. For application,an SME scale company is preferred. In our application the sector where the choosen company producing and selling in was in such a deep crisis that organizational learning trivialized all the barriers before the organisational learning and organisational learning became a kind of instrument to survive. The investor provided a strong support and also in quite a short time the motivation of the team was strong enough to deal with the process. The first step in the application was to set the organizational learning team. So, in the meeting held in the company headquarter, sales-marketing processes to be subjected for organizational learning process. Thus, five people responsible for sales and marketing processes and the assistant of the CEO of the company were decided to be the organizational learning team. At the same meeting application period was decided to be from December the 1st, 2018 till May the 31st, 2019. In the next meeting, organizational learning team set the performance criterias of the application as in the following. 1)Total sales tonnage of the company during the application period should be more than the planned sales tonnage of the company for the same period. 2)Creating/raising the recognition of organizational learning and the relationship between organizational learning and performance 3)Saving and increasing the customer loyalty within the descending market 4)Reflecting the institutional approach of the company to the customers. 5)Knowledge should create a change in the the ways of working in the company. Finally the results of the application in the context with the performance criterias which decided at the beginning were such as in the following : 1.The first criteria was "total sales tonnage of the company during the application period should be more than the planned sales tonnage of the company for the same period". When the planned sales tonnage was 5800 tonnes for the application period, the company sold 7928 tonnes (Chart.5.4) and that result perfectly met the criteria. 2. Creating/raising the recognition of organizational learning and the relationship between organisational learning and performance was the second criteria.The sales performance % 36 more than planned had an important effect on this recognition. This value which was created under the crisis circumstances and in the ready-mixed concrete sector which is the largest part of the market and descended at the rate of %53.9 and where existing customer portfolio lost their financial credit at the rate of %40 was the success of the team. Reveling the knowledge, sharing the knowledge and getting agreed on knowledge were relatively more distressing part of the work since they in a way inappropriate in the context with the usual practice. While the results came out in such a fruitful way, the work (organizational learning application) took more attention and care and became visible and live. 3. Saving and increasing the customer loyalty within a descending market was the third criteria. Except the 65 firms which the company decided not to work due to lack of financial credit, company worked with 87 firms with almost no trouble.Though they bought smaller amounts, still they didn't stop working with the company. Besides the trusty and sustainably relation ships started with the newcomer companies. 4. The forth criteria was reflecting the institutional approach of the company to the customers. Specially not responding to the longer periods of payment was because paying attention and caring the financial security of ABC Inc.This had to be told to the customer in an appropriate way.The common reason why some of the competitors were getting closed or bankrupted in the market which was tragically descending, was mismanagement in financial relationships. This was clearly told to the customers as this was only possible within a seriously followed institutional approach. By standart pricing due to the purchased tonnage, standart payment periods, standart products and standart service to the customer, customer trust was deserved and corporate approach was reflected to the customers. 5. The last criteria was knowledge should create a change in the the ways of working in the company. Knowledge created a simple but import change in the company relationships.The company which was focused and operated as a production and finance affected a lot by the increase in sales due to the organizational learning application.Especially from the owner point of view, sales and marketing moved forward. CEO started asking "how much we sold" instead of "How much money we have*" or "When is the money coming?" During the period of application, the sentences starting with "No, because", were replaced with the sentences starting with "Yes, ,if". This is a very important and valuable difference. We deeply wish our study with the topic of "Organizational learning, its steps and application" which we hope to be a modest contribution to the studies under the topic of organisational learning, to be enriched in the future with the studies to be done under the same or similar topics.