Assignment Title:
Information technology has a prominent role in facilitating organisational learning and establishing better communication between the people and the leadership.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the role of information technology in facilitating organisational learning. The concept behind this is to place information technology in a context of management and examine its effect on organizational learning in an organization. Organizational learning is an effective theory for the organizational development to enhance and improve performance and capabilities of the company to gain competitive advantage.
Introduction:
Organizations are carrying out business in an ever changing and fiercely competitive business environment. The working environment is considerably changing as a result of numerous technologies that are continuously updating which allow employees to share information, working from distant locations and being more productive in or away from the workplace. Organizations are encouraged by enhanced and latest systems of information to move beyond familiar territories towards emerging world markets.
Organizations pay a lot of attention to the concept of organizational learning and focus on how they can learn to increase their performance to gain innovativeness, competitive edge and effectiveness. Organizational learning is a process and tool that an organization can use to produce state of the art products and create services. It can also be helpful in better satisfying its customers and improve the overall quality of working environment. Information technology has a capability of offering good enough support to the organizational learning by creating a learning environment for both organizations and employees to learn in new, innovative ways which mobilizes them to share, distribute, transfer knowledge and experiences and ultimately enhance the overall organization’s performance to accept the challenges. Information technology, if implemented properly and effectively can support organizational learning functions and can change the business nature of the way organization is managed leading the organizations towards strategic advantage.
Literature:
“Organizational learning (OL) is a social affair of knowledge, experiences, routines, relationships and organizational rules to increase organizational capacity to take effective actions to change the range of organizational behaviour. Information technology (IT) is an infrastructure to Information system in promoting organizational learning”
Organizations are always learning but the learning speed have magnified by the rapid pace of changes in market conditions. Organizations, in this business environment, must learn to understand these changes whether it is of pure business nature, technological or any other kind of change, in order to effectively sense and respond to it as quickly as possible. For this, information technology has a capability of offering good enough support to the organizational learning by creating a learning environment for both organizations and employees to learn in new, innovative ways which mobilizes them to share, distribute, transfer knowledge and experiences and ultimately enhance the overall organization’s performance to accept the challenges.
The field of information technology and organizational behaviour tend to focus upon organizational learning and understanding many of the same related phenomena but from different perspectives. Each discipline has a great deal in informing the other about the causes of work group and company performance e.g. Information business value theory suggests that company’s performance is closely related to information technology that can contribute to such performance by improving a firm’s ability to coordinate work, solve problems, administer and manage work, share knowledge and/or communicate. Information technology, if implemented properly and effectively can support organizational learning functions and can change the business nature of the way organization is managed leading the organizations towards strategic advantage. In fact, organization is not only affected by information technology but it also indirectly affects its capabilities and performance via organizational learning. This suggests that information technology helps to improve the organization’s capability in recognizing the new knowledge, adopting it in a quick manner and applying it to improve the organization’s performance. It also helps to respond to changes which, further enables employees to better help themselves as well as improve collaboration with partners and relationship with customers helping the organizations to gain competitiveness.
Organizations are increasingly depending on information technology for setting the new platforms for business operations. The most significant change of the past few decades is this technological impact. The arrival of information technology made it possible for workers to build complex personal networks, carry out work across distances and have access to world of information. Information technology tools can be used to analyse, search, interchange and present information reliably and without discrimination. Organization can have rapid access to ideas and experiences from a variety of resources with the help of information technology. Information technology impact organizational learning as proven by many researches by the scholars. It also provide considerable assistance to facilitate an organization in creating knowledge which eventually enables organizations to enhance capabilities and improve performances to successfully manage competition. The role of information technology on organizational learning often coincides with the strategic objective set by the company. Organizations use different knowledge combinations in respond to this issue. It is the leadership and/or management that have to determine the right combination to create the maximum impact of information technology on organizational learning and performance.
Information technology has also improved organization interconnectivity and the process of communication and coordination between the leader and the people. It is true that information technology does have impact over organizational as it facilitates it for a number of reasons, however, information technology does not directly have an impact on all learning processes but rather assist the learning. Information technology is the platform to store knowledge as well as it assists knowledge creating through various means such as communications among people. The technology has helped speed up the communication process and has enabled more effective cooperation between leader and the employees. Information flows between the colleagues as well as the management freely across organisational boundaries. Teams of personnel have the opportunity to operate from anywhere anytime often using latest information technology tools like laptops and mobile phones. Organizations that have established better communication channels between its employees and management gets a business edge over other companies that helps in gaining market share as well as competitive advantage. Leaders can control and manage people using teleconferences and/or video conferences instead of meeting in personal. The effect of Information technology is changing what it means to be a good leader in today’s workplace. They can direct the workforce more effectively using the latest technology although it is not easy to judge employees or monitor their performance working from remote locations. Information technology has created the need for new approaches to manage work. Organizations use various information technology applications and tools to promote organizational either through knowledge depository database, online training, staff rotation, planning or various IT based communication channels. Many organisations undertake a wide range of activities aimed at improving its understanding of how Information technology contributes to sustainable business growth and social well-being of its employees.
Conclusion:
Information technology is very important for the success of an organization as it facilitates the organizational learning. The speed and increased efficiency gained from effective information technology implementation are changing the way organizations perform their businesses. This suggests that information technology can play a major role in enhancing organizational learning. By integrating information technology with organizational learning research, it enables organizations to be more effective. It can translate the knowledge gained through cumulative experience into actionable, tangible productivity and quality improvements continuously over time. It not only results in increased productivity and quality but also affects the rates of organizational learning and knowledge transfer. It is clear from this essay that information technology has an impact over organizational learning as it facilitates organizational learning at both the individual level and the organizational level in creating knowledge which ultimately enables organizations to improve capabilities and enhance performances to cope with competition and change.
References:
Smith, M. and Lyles, M. (2005), The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management, Wiley-Blackwell
Langer, A. M. (2005), IT and organizational learning: managing change through technology and education, Routledge Publishers
Hunt, J. and Osborn, R. (2010), Organizational Behaviour (11th edition), John Wiley & Sons
Scales, J. and Snell, J. (2002), Information and communication technology (2nd edition), Heinemann
Aspinall, A. and Murray, D. (2008), Getting IT: using information technology to empower people, Jessica Kingsley Publishers