Organisatorisk læring gennem den værdibaserede organisations fortællinger

The article departs from an understanding of organizational learning as processes that code historical events into routines that guide behavior in organizations, and which is based on shared knowledge, insight, and mental models from the organizational memory. Focus is on knowledge-intensive organizations, which are characterized by a flat, integrative organizational structure, highly educated employees, and a management style in which management aims at creating conditions for learning and innovation in the organization contrary to telling employees what to do. The management style illustrated is value based management in which management communicates a shared foundation of values in the organization to employees and other stakeholders, and thus indirectly affects the organizational culture. Organizational stories are seen as a means for communicating the shared organizational values in order to influence the organizational memory, and thus change or maintain the organizational culture. A distinction between formal and informal organizational stories is made in the article. Formal stories are those told by management in for instance company newsletters, magazines, annual reports, and at employees meetings in order to affect the organizational culture by communicating a certain set of values, while informal stories function to make sense of ambiguous and paradoxical information and situations for the individual employee. Informal stories are told by all members of the organization. For instance by older members of the organization to new members who are not familiar with the organizational culture or a certain way of doing things in the organization that, from a strictly rational viewpoint, might seem illogical. To illustrate the above mentioned points, the high-tech company Hewlett-Packard is used as an example.