Organizational Psychology and the critical issues for learning theory

How does learning occur?

 

Organizational learning theory seeks to study and understand the processes that lead to changes in organizational knowledge. These changes in organizational knowledge lead to better outcomes for the organization and could encompass a wide range of processes such as environmental, social, and cognitive processes. From the perspective of organizational theory, learning occurs when an organization utilizes new information in a way that results in observable changes in both organizational outcomes and individuals who make up the organization. In this sense, organizational learning theory can be subsumed under the behaviorist perspective because it places emphasis on both observable behavior and the environment - "specifically, how stimuli are arranged and presented and how responses are reinforced."

 

What is the role of memory?

 

As a subset of the behaviorist perspective, organizational learning rests on the assumption that organizations possess corporate intelligence which makes them to be responsive to their environment. As such, information that is considered as useful is retained as part of the organizational repertoire. Within the organizational learning environment, the learner's memory is tested and renewed through periodic, spaced reviews that "maintain the strength of responses in learners' repertoires".

 

What Is the Role of Motivation? 

 

Organizations thrive on the repeated performance of routine tasks in an ever improving manner. Motivation is therefore enhanced by the continuing reinforcement of previous behavior. As such, learners within the organizational setting display motivated behavior because "of the presence of effective reinforcers". Effective reinforcers make it possible for individuals within an organization to recognize certain stimuli and to respond to them. Through the recognition of such antecedent stimuli, individuals within an organization are able to perform tasks either better, faster, or longer.

 

How does transfer occur?

 

According to Schunk (2012), "transfer refers to knowledge and skills being applied in new ways, with new content, or in situations different from where they were acquired". Within an organization therefore, transfer is measured by the ability of individuals to translate new knowledge and information into observable changes. As such, transfer is said to have occurred only when what is learned influences the organization in such a way that visible changes are observed in organizational behavior.

 

Which processes are involved in self-regulation?

 

Self-regulation within the organizational setting describes the various processes through which learners are able to channel their thoughts and behaviors towards the achievement of the organization's goals. Schunk (2012) describes self-regulation at the individual learning level as the capacity for "setting up one's own contingencies of reinforcement; that is, the stimuli to which one responds and the consequences of one's responses". For self-regulation to occur within the organizational environment, systematic procedures must be in place for monitoring learning processes and for ensuring that such learning processes are directed towards desired outcomes.

 

What are the implications for instruction?

 

The function of learning theory is to provide frameworks for studying, understanding, and interpreting learning processes. Within an organization, learning theory describes the spectrum of activities and processes through which new information is acquired, processed, and utilized. In an organizational setting, the implications of theory for instruction are reflected in the methods for passing new information to learners. Theory therefore influences the mode of transferring new information from the instructors to the learners.

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6^th ed.). Pearson Education