Open Change as Organizational Learning: The Case of a Tourist Company
In: G. Sroślak (Ed.), Contemporary Science. The Theory and the Practice, AMR, Krakow, pp. 7-14, 2016
10 Pages Posted: 21 Nov 2016 Last revised: 22 May 2018
Date Written: 2016
Abstract
Nowadays organizational change started to play more and more important role in existing organizations. Complexity of the environment in which companies have to function results in creating very complex changes. Efficient change management became one of the most crucial and important abilities that all companies should have. It is strongly dependent on knowledge resources, brought to a company by its employees and managers, as well as the experience gathered throughout the years of functioning on a market. Gathering a wide scope of those information helps companies to prepare themselves for upcoming turbulences and let them learn and evolve. If a company is capable of creating appropriate organizational culture that supports employees' self-improvement, occurring change proceeds smoothly and becomes a valuable opportunity instead of a threat. The paper presents a relationship between change, particularly open change, and organizational learning. Organizational learning may be understood as assumption sharing. It is interpreted as a social construction which transforms acquired cognition into accountable abstract knowledge. Sharing assumptions or cognitive maps among organizational members constitutes the base of learning. Organizations are considered as artifacts based on cognitive maps members use to orient themselves in their organizational interactions. Organizational learning consists of the process of modifying these maps. Creation of an open change necessitates a strengthening of organizational learning; such strengthening is possible if the business satisfies specific conditions. The aim of the paper is to introduce a project of organizational change in a company called Nautica Safari, using the concept of an open change.
Keywords: open change, tourist enterprise
JEL Classification: D83, L83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation