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p.88 The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more complete understanding of organizational learning.
p.89 learning does not always increase the learner's effectiveness, or even potential effectiveness. Learning does not always lead to veridical knowledge. Sample data are not always representative and new findings sometimes overturn what was previously "known to be true." Entities can incorrectly learn, and they can correctly learn that which is incorrect... learning need not result in observable changes in behavior.
p.89 An entity learns if, through its processing of information, the range of its potential behaviors is changed. This definition holds whether the entity is a human or other animal, a group, an organization, an industry, or a society. [JLJ - or a machine...] The information processing can involve acquiring, distributing or interpreting information.
p.93 Experimenting organizations. "Adaption to a particular niche... while it leads to short-run survival, is never adequate for survival in the long run... Adaptability is the capacity to expand niches or to find new niches" (Boulding 1978, p. 111). Organizational experiments and self-appraisals are generally directed toward enhancing adaptation, while maintaining organizational experiments is generally directed toward enhancing adaptability.
How can organizations obtain and maintain adaptability? One group of researchers has suggested that organizations should operate themselves as "experimenting" or "self-designing" organizations, i.e., should maintain themselves in a state of frequent, nearly-continuous change in structures, processes, domains, goals, etc., even in the face of apparently optimal adaption (Nystrom, Hedberg, and Starbuck 1976; Hedberg, Nystrom, and Starbuck 1976; Starbuck 1983). Hedberg, Nystrom, and Starbuck (1977) argue that operating in this mode is efficacious, perhaps even required, for survival in fast changing and unpredictable environments. They reason that probable and desirable consequences of an ongoing state of experimentation are that organizations learn about a variety of design features and remain flexible. Experimenting organizations would thus be less resistant to adopting unfamiliar features or engaging unfamiliar environments, i.e., they would be adaptable.
p.103 Media richness is a determinant of the extent to which information is given common meaning by the sender and receiver of a message. It is defined as the communication "medium's capacity to change mental representations within a specific time interval" (Daft and Lengel 1984; Daft and Huber 1987, p. 14). It has two underlying dimensions - the variety of cues that the medium can convey and the rapidity of feedback that the medium can provide. Research supports the notion that managers who consider media richness when choosing a communication medium are more effective (Daft, Lengel, and Trevino 19871, and thus provides some support for the idea that media richness affects the development of common understanding.
p.104 Presented with a complex stimulus, the subject perceives in it what it is ready to perceive; the more complex or ambiguous the stimulus, the more perception will be determined by what is already "in" the subject and the less by [what] is in the stimulus (Bruner 1957, pp. 132-133). [JLJ - this quotation is also credited to Simon and Dearborn, 1958. Which one is correct? Actually, Simon and Dearborn cite Bruner in their 1958 article]
p.105 unlearning opens the way for new learning to take place
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