Regarding Pascal's question:
Through reading on this subject, I have found David Garvin's definition as
a comprehensive, however broad explanation of what a learning organization
is about:
"A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating,
acquiring and transfering knowledge, and at modifying its behaivor
to reflect new knowledge and insights"
- David Garvin, "Building a Learning Organization"
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, July-August 1993.
To enhance this definition, maybe Ikujiro Nonaka's depiction of learning
organizations as places where:
"inventing new knowledge is not a specialized activity...it is a
way of behaving, indeed, a way of being, in which everyone is a
knowledge worker"
- Ikuiro Nonaka, "The Knowledge Creating Company"
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, November-December 1991.
I personally think that a Learning Organization is a place where teamwork
helps individual to enhance their personal potential by means of creating
a synergic accumulation of personal knowledge, which is transferable to
every individual.
I hope this might be of help to Pascal.
-- Jose-Antonio Espin aespin@rs550.mor.itesm.mx