Managerial perceptions of barriers to becoming a “learning organization”

This paper is concerned with identifying, from an organizational perspective, the concept of a “learning organization”. The first section briefly reviews the organizational learning, and business and management literature. The second part describes the research activity and outcomes from a group of middle managers employed in a large international company who are also postgraduate management students. These managers provide interpretations of a “learning organization” within the context of their working lives. The research was followed up three months later and explores whether there had been an attempt to introduce the concept (or aspects of it), the managers’ roles in this (if any) and barriers to its introduction. Finally the implications of adopting the concept for their PLC are examined. The paper concludes that institutions of higher education can have significant impact on introducing, through postgraduate study, concepts such as the “learning organization” to managerial practice.