Organizational Change from Learning Perspective

The management challenge for the 21st century, according to Drucker (1999), is the integration of what were once several procedures into a single analysis. This paper is an attempt to combine change research with theories of learning. During the last decade Estonia has transformed from being an authoritarian, centralised, totalitarian socialist state, to a democratic country with a free market economy and different attitudes and values. This type of transformation provides members of society with a very ambiguous and uncertain period. There are connections between the institutionalization stage at the societal level and types of change within organizations. During this period only 10% of the companies studied had made no transformational changes (Alas, and Sharifi, 2002). Organizational change has been seen as an individual-level phenomenon because it occurs only when the majority of individuals change their behavior or attitudes (Whelan-Berry et al., 2003). In 2005 interviews were conducted with members of top management teams of 105 Estonian organizations about implementation of organizational changes after joining European Union. The results of these interviews are compared to the results of 137 interviews in 2001. The theories of learning from Dewey (1933), Mumford (1999), DiBella and Nevis (1998) and Probst and Büchel (1997) are applied for deeper analysis of elements of process of change. The article starts with a theoretical framework for studying organizational changes and learning followed by an analysis of the interviews about changes in Estonian companies. The author then proposes the model connecting changes and learning in organizations during societal transience.

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