Double-loop learning: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:09, 11 May 2023

Revision as of 21:38, 4 December 2023

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File:smycka3eng.png|Double-loop learning

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===Western Approaches Tactical Unit===

{{Main|Western Approaches Tactical Unit}}

The [[Western Approaches Tactical Unit]] of the Royal Navy during WW2 is an example of an organization that received information and takes action, but the result is not desirable. The development of corrective measures requires an assessment of the organization's essential characteristics, is double loop learning. This means that errors are detected and remedied in ways that change the organization's basic standards, policies, and goals.

The [[Western Approaches Tactical Unit]] was able to develop and update anti-submarine tactical doctrine between 1942 and 1945 as new technology and assets became available. WATU enabled the Royal Navy to "replicate a learning organization that successfully could challenge existing norms, objectives, and policies pertaining to trade defense even when applied to geographically diverse theaters of operation."

<ref>[https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8066&context=nwc-review] The Royal Navy And Organizational Learning | The Western Approaches Tactical Unit and the Battle of the Atlantic | Geoffrey Sloan | Naval War College Review, Vol. 72 [2019], No. 4, Art. 1 | Pages 27</ref>

== Historical precursors ==

''[[A Behavioral Theory of the Firm]]'' (1963) describes how organizations learn, using (what would now be described as) double-loop learning:

{{Blockquote|text=An organization ... changes its behavior in response to short-run feedback from the environment according to some fairly well-defined rules. It changes rules in response to longer-run feedback according to more general rules, and so on.|author=[[Richard Cyert]] and [[James G. March]]| source=''A Behavioural Theory of the Firm''<ref>{{cite book |author1=Cyert R.M. |author2=March J.G. |title=''A Behavioral Theory of the Firm |year=1963 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |___location=New Jersey |pages=101–102|title-link=A Behavioral Theory of the Firm }}</ref><ref>Quote taken from p. 9 of ''The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management'' (2003) which describes this quote as "an early version of the distinction between single and double-loop learning." and refers to the 1963 edition.</ref>}}

In a 2019 article, Geoffrey Sloan said that the double-loop learning framework can be used to understand how the [[Western Approaches Tactical Unit]] (WATU) of the Royal Navy during [[World War II|WW2]] solved a critical tactical problem by changing the organization's basic standards, policies, and goals.<ref name=Sloan2019/> WATU was able to develop and update anti-submarine tactical doctrine between 1942 and 1945 as new technology and assets became available, enabling the Royal Navy to "replicate a learning organization that successfully could challenge existing norms, objectives, and policies pertaining to trade defense even when applied to geographically diverse theaters of operation".<ref name=Sloan2019>{{cite journal |last=Sloan |first=Geoffrey |date=Autumn 2019 |title=The Royal Navy and organizational learning—the Western Approaches Tactical Unit and the Battle of the Atlantic |journal=[[Naval War College Review]] |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=9:1–25 |jstor=26775522 |url=https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol72/iss4/9}}</ref>

== See also ==

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* {{cite book |last1=Argyris |first1=Chris |author-link1=Chris Argyris |last2=Schön |first2=Donald A. |author-link2=Donald Schön |year=1978 |title=Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective |___location=Reading, MA |publisher=[[Addison-Wesley]] |isbn=978-0201001747 |oclc=394956102 |url=https://archive.org/details/organizationalle00chri }}

* {{cite journal |last=Argyris |first=Chris |author-link=Chris Argyris |date=September 1976 |title=Single-loop and double-loop models in research on decision making |journal=[[Administrative Science Quarterly]] |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=363–375 |doi=10.2307/2391848 |jstor=2391848 |citeseerx=10.1.1.463.4908 }}

* Lenart-Gansiniec, R., Czakon, W. and Pellegrini, M.M. (2022), "In search of virtuous learning circles: absorptive capacity and its antecedents in the education sector", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 26 No. 11, pp. 42-70. [https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-04-2021-0310]

[[Category:Learning methods]]