Rademakers M. (ed.) (2014)
Rather than a case, ‘The New Learning in Organizations’ is an opinion article by guest authors Mieke Posthumus and Pim Verheijen, who look at the evolution of learning in organizations – from inkpot to iPad. With the widespread use of digital technology, people and organizations are reacting faster to each other than ever before. Mieke and Pim suggest that the methods stemming from the time before the digital revolution are no longer suited to meet the needs of a world in which everything is connected along the digital highway. In that context, this opinion article explores the “New Learning” phenomenon in organizations. The term revolves around the connection of individual and organizational goals, individual responsibilities for learning and demonstrating results, plus deploying digital technology and social media as a means and not as a goal in itself. In their conclusion, the authors implicitly pose the question of who can and should determine what needs to be learned in a learning organization:
“Learning in organizations cannot and should no longer be seen as a centrally directed industrial process– including corporate universities of any sort or type. Working and learning by individuals in organizations are becoming increasingly intertwined entities, which drives decentralization of organizational learning.”
Keywords: strategy, corporate university, organizational learning