Multilevel

//Multilevel Learning//
 * Organizational learning is //multilevel// in the sense that it depends on learning at individual, group and organizational levels.**
 * Understanding the levels of learning in an organization is essential
 * Individual
 * Group
 * Organization
 * Individual learning is necessary but is not is not sufficient for organizational learning. (Argyris & Schon, 1978).
 * Individual learning must be shared with a group or started at the group level and before integrated at the organizational level. (Crossan et al., 1999).


 * Video**

media type="youtube" key="V_gLOUbQZgk" height="405" width="500" The 1986 move //Gung Ho,// starring Michael Keaton tells the story of a automobile manufacturing plant worker that is given the task of negotiating the labor/ production contract for the domestic automobile manufacturing plant that was bought out by a Japanese auto-manufacturer. Keaton's characters main struggle is convincing the manufacturer that the US plant is worthy of making the Japanese cars and the current labor force can hold up to the high expectations of the Japanese management. This clip shows the final meeting between Keaton and the head of the company. The US manufacturers had agreed to a seemingly impossible quota in-order to secure their jobs at the plant. Collinson and Cook's (2007) theory on organizational learning has a facet that describes how learning needs to be multileveled. This theory discusses how organizational learning cannot be purely individual. In order for an organization to learn the the individual learning must also be part of the groups learning and further carried up to the organizational level. Wenger (1997) also discusses the relationship between local and global communities of practice and how they indirectly effect one another. Automakers cannot be defined by the individual on the production line any more than the individual on the production line can be defined as being nothing more than an automaker. The local community of practice helps define what automakers are. Each individual community of practice holds a stake in what defines the identity of automakers as a whole. The scene in this video clip helps illustrate the negotiated meaning about what it meant for the US automakers to be manufacturers of a Japanese car. The head of the company renegotiates his expectations of the US plant while the US workers find a new understanding of what it means to work under Japanese standards.

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