External factors facilitating development of the learning organisation culture

Abstract

The last decade has been extremely demanding towards organizations – the years of steep growth were changed by the global recession, which is now followed by slow recovery. To sustain competitiveness organizations have had to learn fast and adapt to th efast changing environment. The ability to learn has become competitive advantage on its own. Nevertheless learning in an organization’s context was highly developed during 1990s, when a concept of the learning organization prospered, the organizations of today would be willing to revisit their practices to incorporate the learning organization culture.

The purpose of the paper is to define external factors, which facilitate organizations to develop the learning organization culture today. It is commonly accepted that organizations culture, collective behaviour are mainly influenced by internal factors - owners, top management, and history of the company. However recent recession showed that behaviour can be shaped also by situation. What are the factors (macro economical, legal, social), which shapes organization behaviour towards learning?

The paper is based on a theoretical review of papers linking external environment to organizational culture development, and a comparative study of the macro economic, legal and social data study of three Baltic States.

The paper presents new propositions, where the external environment factors influence development of the learning organization culture.