The essence of any organization depends on the thought and interaction of its members " Senge
The growth and development of a knowledge-based economy has become a key objective of economic policies in advanced countries, and in our country as well. The issue of measurement and comparisons is imposed to assess the impact on efficiency and productivity, rather than on the methodological aspects of applications; not to mention business strategy and culture, and thus, it is difficult to get to the essence of the problem.
This forces a deep revision and creation of new own conceptions, at macro and micro level, without falling into the reaffirmation of debatable theories or in the emphatic denial of those.
In the world, and in our region, both in the academic environment and in a certain business environment, in recent years, there has been a fascination for fashionable topics and approaches, such as Knowledge Management (GC), of Intelligent Organizations., Organizational Learning (AP) and Learning Organizations, as well as Human Capital, Intellectual Capital, or Innovation Management, all concepts ultimately interrelated and with interconnections whose gestations began many before the nineties, as many times is written. It would have to be said that it is the way of ideas and proposals on the improvement of organizations from decades ago (Lewin, Mc Gregor, Trist).
It should also be noted from the beginning that the treatment of people, if you like human resources, and the place they occupy in the organization, is practically the same as in the past; and this is the most worrying.
But this is not the only problem. The problem, or one of them, lies in the great distance between the theoretical-conceptual approaches and the practices, the good and the best practices, which do not go deep enough and necessary to make changes profound and lasting changes; consequently, many times it is also not possible to speak of Organizations in Learning and Knowledge Management, whether it be improvements at the primary or elementary level of 5 S or much more complex TQM.
They are simply applications of this or that technique or tool, without interest in global management, much less manager-directed relationships or the direction of processes.
Another problem would be that of conception and interpretation, and that is that Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management are rarely thought of when it comes to traditional activities, or when it comes to understanding, interpreting, learning, transforming at the level of the complexities of activities, even if they have a relatively low level of knowledge or component. So GC as AO or Learning Organizations become exclusive concepts.
Of course, in advanced technology activities, to generate new knowledge, the approaches will be qualitatively superior, and the impacts, both internal and external, will be greater.
It is not possible that an organization that produces new knowledge abroad does not also apply innovative management to the interior; but it happens more times than you can imagine.
The misinterpretation of these concepts, when considering it only from the perspective of new tools and techniques, leaving aside the management and behavior of organizations, far from considering it as “a framework that accompanies all activities (Wigg, 93); that is, only as part of the technical dimension of work, as part of new technologies, without considering that they imply, the productive restructuring, even of the external environment, but above all of the necessary resizing of the social dimension of the organization, leads to failure or limitations on impacts.
By definition, these organizations, including companies, must work and develop a new innovative management, and unquestionable new methods of leadership and business management with a broader social base in our society.
In order to have a broader and deeper vision of what, the how and the why of things that happen and that are proposed, it is necessary to establish broad starting points, integrative approaches, that allow visualizing the links between the proposals and administrative and organizational theories with the macroeconomic ones.
The use and instrumentation of knowledge as a productive resource, at the same level as traditional factors, Work-Capital, is understood to "have profound implications for factors of production, the organization of production and its effects on employment and the required skills" (OECD, 1998).
Although our interest is to stop at the organizational level, we will see very briefly some of the fundamental approaches from the economy and administration.
Macroeconomic approaches
The conceptions of each and every one of the concepts mentioned above have their origin and presence in macroeconomic theories since the 1950s and 1960s, models that laid the methodological foundations for growth, neoclassical models and endogenous growth, which is not It is possible to ignore, due to the profound not only technical, but ideological, political and social implications.
The neoclassicals of economic theories (Solow, R. Swan, T. 1956), which consider only two factors, Capital and Labor, raise the relationship between capital accumulation and economic growth.
They base economic growth on savings and the accumulation of Physical Capital, taking into account its diminishing returns as the main component of production growth; supply rules, savings and investment are stimulated, a continuous increase in productivity is planned based on greater time savings and resource savings in the production-input relationship.
It is evident that Capital does not include Human Capital, and the individual work factor is fundamental, although its quality is not relevant.
A question arises when Solow himself verifies that the growth rate of production per capita grew much more than the accumulation of Physical Capital per worker. Other factors such as technical progress are beginning to be considered. Endogenous growth models emerge.
The production function, without sufficient development of the service sector yet, begins to consider the combination of Physical Capital and Human Capital. Human capabilities were still measured quantitatively, in physical terms, but not capabilities; that is, in terms of qualification level today (Human Capital = Formal Education) that is already known does not necessarily mean competencies.
Production is then established based not only on Physical Capital and Human Capital, but also on Technological Capital and Social or Cooperation Capital: P = f (Kfis. KHum. KTec. KSoc.). This goes beyond the simplistic scheme that explains Human Capital based only on investments and technology.
Then, the problem begins to become more complex, both from conceptions and from a practical and methodological point of view, which leads to the development of systemic approaches and tools.
But between the two previous historical moments there are more than three decades. Two are the most representative models of endogenous development, and we quote the theories of Romer, P. (1986, 1990) and Lucas, R. (1988).
The first, although it does not explicitly allude to Human Capital but to technological progress as a fundamental determinant of growth, it does speak of the accumulation of knowledge, and that like this it can increase income per capita without limits.
With evident economic consequences at the individual level, although they are not always demonstrated in practice, and bearing in mind that Economic Individualism, remains one of the two fundamental pillars of current Capitalism, together with the Social Division of Labor, authors such as Fischer, Schmalensee and Dornbusch point out in the late 1990s that Human Capital "is the value of individuals' income-earning potential…. which includes innate ability and talent, as well as education and skills acquired."
In 1990, Romer proposed a model with four variables: Capital, Labor, Human Capital, Technological Capital.
Lucas's model explicitly raises Human Capital (CH) as the engine of growth, understanding CH as "the capacities that the individual is capable of acquiring, which decisively contributes to factor productivity". This does not mean that the accumulation of Physical Capital is not important, and says: "you cannot acquire computer programmer skills without a computer."
Other authors like Aghion, P. and Howit, P. (1998) point out that both the growth of Physical Capital and Technological Innovation, understood as the application of knowledge, tools, systems, are determining factors.
The part of growth that is not attributed to tangible factors, is attributed to intangibles and leads to the measurement of these. And here it is necessary to move to more pragmatic theories and approaches at the company level, as part of organizational approaches and business economics.
At macro levels, macroeconomic methodologies and indicators have been proposed. As more extended examples, we cite those of the World Bank (WB) and that of the OECD. The latter has identified up to 160 indicators, especially those for which complete and comparable information is available.
The WB bases its method on 4 factors related to the Acquisition, Creation, Dissemination and Use of Knowledge. The factors are: Economic Incentive Regime; Institutions; People and their Skills; Information and Communication Infrastructure, totaling 76 structural and qualitative variables.
The latest version proposes 12 basic parameters, namely:
Economic incentives: tariff and non-tariff barriers, quality of the regulatory framework, legal framework.
Educational level and Human Resources Preparation: School enrollment rate, secondary education and university education.
Innovation System: Researchers linked to R&D / million inhabitants, Patents registered in the US. Scientific articles published.
Information and Communication: Telephones / 1,000 inhabitants, Computers / 10,000 inhabitants, Internet Users / 10,000 inhabitants.
The number of jobs in which Human Capital is treated as a flow variable is not negligible (Razin 1976; Hicks 1979; Landau, 1980; Blanchet 1988; Romer, 1989,1996; Barro 1991; De Grégorio 1991; Barlow 1992; Ghura and HadjiMichael, 1995; Gould and Ruffin 1995; or as a stock variable (Kyriacou 1991; Benhabid and Spiegel 1994; Bloom and Mahal 1995; Dessus and Herrera 1996; Easterly and Levine 1997.
Company-level approaches
The concept of Intangible Assets was introduced by Sveiby, E. in 1997. All authors recognize the need for individuals, or companies, to invest in their talent, or in the development of their capacities and skills, and that this is a condition necessary to carry out the proposals for change.
But most also understand this on an individual level. There is a revaluation of information, communication, learning, the contribution of people, and how to coordinate these processes in different organizational approaches.
The concept of Knowledge Management and other terms referring to an organization with the need for greater participation of workers, greater Capital-Work cooperation, according to some authors, arises and develops, in which the knowledge component has a high level, and the concepts in vogue of "identification", "belonging" and "involvement" come to the fore as a managerial need.
The concept of the company itself begins to be treated in greater depth as "organization", a forgotten or limited concept, emphasizing social relations and social systems, and this is undoubtedly a positive aspect, which must be assimilated from critically and go much deeper between us, as we will see later.
Of course, these proposals come with conceptual and theoretical traps, sometimes very subtle, which are often ignored, based on the voluntary or involuntary forgetfulness on the part of those who assimilate and transmit these ideas, that we are talking about theories established in and for a capitalist society, in which, to begin with, Labor Relations with differentiation for workers and for managers and executives prevail.
Thus, when wanting to deepen and model complex social systems and relational organization, there are not a few practical, methodological problems from the labor actors in our region.
The Theory of Intellectual Capital is developed fundamentally from the works of Edvinsson, L. (1991), to measure asset creation in the Swedish company Skandia. It is known as Skandia Capital Prototype Report (1998), and is the most widespread.
This author divides the Intellectual Capital (CI) into: Human Capital and Structural Capital. Structural Capital in turn is subdivided into Client Capital and Organizational Capital. Organizational Capital is broken down into Capital of Processes, Culture and Innovation (intangible rights, trademarks, patents, knowledge, business secrets).
This last aspect of Innovation is highly controversial and the one that has been tried the most, and many times it is spoken and calculated as an aspect that sums up the IQ, which is not true, seen from this theory. This is the only model that considers Trademarks and Patents together as part of the Innovation.
The not less known Intangible Assets Monitor of the Swedish company Celemi is also developed, by Sveiby (1997) shown below, which divides it into “Our clients” (clients, brands, contracts), “Our organization” (structure, patents, information systems, support) and "Our people" (staff skills), among others.
Hall, R. and Andriani, P. (1998) present another classification of intangibles that is illustrated below, and that takes more into account the business situation:
| Legal protection | Position of the company | Functional capacity | Organizational culture |
| Patents | Company reputation | Individual skills | Ability to manage |
| Copyright | Product reputation | Staff knowledge | Ability to innovate |
| Secrets | Distribution networks | Experience | Ability to work in a team |
Other proposals are: Steward (1997) that divides the IC into Human Capital, Structural Capital and Client Capital; Euroforum (1998) that considers CI as Human Capital, Structural Capital and Relational Capital.
In the United States, the tool known as BSC or Balanced Scorecard was developed in 1992 by Norton and Kaplan, which has been quite widespread in recent years, since it controls, through sophisticated software systems, a group of indicators, referring to investments, clients and employees, but above all it is used to align the strategy with the actions and operational decisions.
In Spain, the Competency Strategic Management Model (Bueno, 1998) integrates Organizational Capital, Human Capital, Technological Capital and Relational Capital, and reflects the three basic pillars of competences: knowledge (Co), capabilities (Ca), attitudes and values (A).
Finally, Brooking, A. (1996) develops in the United Kingdom an intangible assets model known as Technology Broker, which comprises four categories: Market assets (brands, customers, image, order book, collaborative capacity); Human Assets (education, professional training, knowledge, skills); Intellectual property assets (patents, rights, secrets); Infrastructure Assets (organizational culture, information system, existing database, business philosophy).
Like the Skandia Model and other authors, which we will see below, consider that the sum of tangible Assets plus the IC configures the market value of the company.
With the pragmatic philosophy always prevailing, the North Americans took to the task from the mid-1990s on measuring the value of Human Capital, and HR management. CH and HR are related in the first place because they say that the Human Resources function should change, and go from being considered a service area to an area with the possibility of measurement in reliable financial terms with an impact on the effectiveness of the organization, considering Knowledge-object is a priority, so training becomes the central axis of formulas and measurements.
Thus the Saratoga Institute with Fitz-ens J. (1995) consider themselves pioneers. This author proposes the Added Value of Human Capital, in which the Income is divided subtracting the expenses less the referred expenses directly related to the personnel, between a concept of time. It is based on the idea that workers' income reflects productivity well, which in practice, and research shows that this is not true.
HCVA = Income - (Expenses - Wages, Salaries and Benefits) / ETC
It also proposes another indicator of return on investment in CH:
HCROI = Income - (Expenses - Wages, Salaries and Benefits) / Wages, Wages and Benefits
In this way, the utility is obtained on each peso invested in CH, as long as there are no changes in total expenditure, for each 1.00 peso spent on direct personnel costs, 1.x is obtained.
The Saratoga Indices is a list that measures: Organizational Effectiveness, HR Structure: Efficiency of Salaries and Wages; Training Efficiency, which totals more than thirty indicators.
On the other hand, in the USA. The SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management) has used the following indicators since 1984:
| Income / Worker | Expense / Worker |
| (Compensation / Income) * 100 | (Compensation / Expense) * 100 |
| Dept. Expense HR / Worker | Dept. Expense HR / Total Expense |
| Benefit / Income Plan Cost | Benefit Plan Cost / Expense |
| Benefit Plan Cost / Total Compensation Cost | Cost of each HR area / Total Cost |
| Direct Personal Payroll / Total Personal Payroll | Rotation Cost |
| Personal Dept. HR / Total Staff | Absenteeism Cost |
| Time to fill vacancies | |
| (Hiring of Candidates / Offerings to Candidates) * 100 | |
| Time in which the hired people begin to work |
Other recognized authors who have worked on these aspects are: Van Horne, J. (1998), Phillips; J. (1996), Cascio, W. (1991).
The truth is that practical efforts have not led to a valid universal tool or instruments to arrive at a reliable measurement, without considering theoretical-conceptual proposals. Many consider CH as an “indicator of the capacity that an individual has to carry out a job” (Jiménez, G. and Simón, B. 2002), but this vision clearly starts from a narrow conception of CH, as we will see later.
At this point, it is necessary to underline that the essence of all the previous approaches, both at the macroeconomic level, as well as at the company and organizational level, is that they consider knowledge as an object, as a thing, which makes it possible to speak of the ownership of the thing or object, and can also be individualized, and can be exchanged as merchandise. As the famous scientist pointed out our Lage, A. (2001) is "a step back towards the property of the people".
Cognitive theories
According to the scientific theories and analyzes of knowledge grouped into what is known as Cognitive Sciences, as well as the still scarce developments of Complexity, which are beginning to have a great influence on organizational approaches, especially in the light of Learning Organizations and Knowledge Management, Information together with Knowledge and Communication are the most treated aspects (Varela, 1998), to the point that new disciplines are proposed such as Informatics that focuses on the Information-Organization relationship (Le Moigne, JL. (1990).
But, this is also an alert, since knowledge cannot be substituted for information or reduced to information either. The implications, from a methodological and practical point of view, are observed in the presentations that are made of the experiences in the companies.
Nor does knowledge behave like an object, and although it can certainly take tangible form of material content of a patent, it can be stored, it can be socialized, it can be outsourced and it can be managed, understanding management as coordination, it is not an object that is managed not knowing the carrier.
From this perspective, Knowledge Management can even be considered as a short and inaccurate concept, also questioned, just as when speaking of “technological package” instead of Technological System, since this is not only a set of scientific knowledge, technological and empirical, that may explicitly ignore the person, the organization, the context, the place and the specific conditions where it is or will be used.
Knowledge Management in fact has the person implicit, as carrier of the knowledge-object, but this is not enough. If we speak of Knowledge Management as a management model, the definition of “creation of value of intangible assets” falls short (Davenport, 98), and must be developed as an “integrative process in which information management converges, the technology and human resources that implies the improvement of processes and the intensive use of technologies (Soto and Barrios, 2006).
For this reason, it is essential to take into account organizational relationships or the "relational configuration of the network", that is, the coherence of the organization's structure and its decision-making process. This relational configuration will facilitate the interrelationships between the different levels of behavior (individual-group-organization).
Senge, P. (1992), an author who has set standards, and who has deeply studied Systemic Thought, had announced that knowledge is the “capacity to know how to do”, but this the individual cannot do by himself; you need organization.
For this reason, it develops a model of change based on the Five Learning Disciplines of the Intelligent Organization: Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, Systemic Thinking or the Fifth Discipline that integrates everything.
Only the coherent and harmonious integration of the different management objects and procedures that currently exist, beyond the traditional functions or how they are grouped and organized in the company, but seen in their new qualitative dimensions, can guarantee the Successful implementation and development in an organization that has a Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning or Organizational Learning culture.
In this regard, Senge has said: "The true role of executive leadership is not to drive people to change, but to create environments that inspire, sustain, and empower the imagination and initiative that already exist at all levels."
To this we add: "A value is only a value when it is voluntarily adopted" (Senge). Not understanding this and not working accordingly leads to ephemeral experiences and never to profound changes.
With the ability to "know how", we must add, with the development of recent years, "knowing how to interact" and "knowing how to produce". It is what allows and demands the dynamics of knowledge, which is created from the interaction of levels of behavior, the interaction between individuals and the minor or major group.
These conceptions oblige to treat the training and development of people as complex processes that respond to other processes and the global system. So, for an organization to change its management paradigm and become a Lifelong Learning Organization, it is not enough to seek alignment between the strategy-personal training needs.
The systemic nature of the training implies, from a practical point of view: “taking care of the proportion of the people participating; the treatment of non-traditional themes and their complexity, which must combine the special and general technical aspects with the social aspects; the learning-knowledge-skills methodology; and the evaluation systems to be used ”(Novick, 1999).
Learning Organizations are those in which "the development of new knowledge is not a special activity of a particular group, but a form of behavior in which anyone is a knowledgeable worker" (Nonaka, 1994).
From the more general approaches (Nonaka 1991,2001; Coleman 1999; Bollinger 2001, others more related to the company (Roberts, 1998; Grayson and O'Dell, 1998), or with an emphasis on innovation (Mc Adam and Reid, 2001; Meso and Smith 2000), the concept of “form of behavior” is essential, and it is the concept that has been more neglected or less followed.
Therefore, even if Knowledge Management is carried out, it rarely really leads to the establishment and development of a Learning Organization; it seldom becomes profound changes that lead to innovative management. Smart Organizations are organizations open to learning (Senge, 1992).
From these approaches, branches such as the one known as System Dynamics (Wolstenholme, 1985, Senge 1992), and the Systemic Modeling of social processes within organizations, have been developed, which allow deepening relationships (density, closeness, centralization and intermediation), and the analysis of Social Networks (ARS, Hanneman, 2000).
The emphasis is on the process, and knowledge is treated as a process. Even within the Cognitive School, there are those who consider cognition as representations, reduce it to symbols and possible operations for its representation, which provides the theoretical-conceptual basis for formulating and calculating Human Capital in terms of object-knowledge.
But other currents, which we are interested in highlighting, are non-representationists, because they work knowledge as a process, which cannot be separated from the network that generates it; consequently the type of management plays a fundamental role, and in fact it is evaluated.
Knowledge cannot be represented as an object, but to account for its relationship, and it is necessary to insist on referring to the value of the relationship as a process. "It is then the activity of the network and the structure that supports it that constitutes intellectual capital" (Arenas, T. and Lavanderos, L. 2006).
As an example, the NICKS (Networks of Intellectual Capital Knowledge Systems) model of Lavanderos and Malpartida (2001,2005) is a new development, to evaluate the Intellectual Capital of an organization based on the configuration and structure of the network of relationships of the actors, mainly in small groups; In short, it is about deepening social relations as a determining factor in organizational efficiency, as Gary Becker, pioneer in the 1960s and Nobel Prize for the theory of Human Capital in 1992, also pointed out in recent writings.
Knowledge as a human act, as action, as a dynamic human process, as a collective process, requires the knowledgeable person, possessor of conscience, ethics, values, motivations, and an organizational means or disposition, of a certain relational organization. and social relations that enable its use. They are the essential elements to take into account for Knowledge Management, for the Learning Organization, and for the valuation and measurement of knowledge.
The fact that the role of the individual within the work process must change radically, and that it is the individual as part of an organization that decides when and how to use knowledge, and that knowledge is considered as action, as a process As a relationship, it radically changes things, for people and for organizations.
“Knowledge Management (KM) is a management approach (not just another task), aimed at creating an organizational culture in which you learn how to be in the solution of each opportunity and each problem, addressed in teams, with open and fluid communication, in a climate of trust, optimism, self-esteem, satisfaction, sense of identity and belonging, and other more specific capacities, values and principles… ”(Núñez, 2001).
Consequently, it is necessary to search for new ways and assessment tools, which take into account at the object level "decision support, organizational information systems, organization theory, computer programs, logistics, group decision support systems, strategic management, organizational and business modeling ”(LMS de Le Moigne, 1990).
Implications for the company
For a better understanding, especially of entrepreneurs, we would say that first and foremost, and without going into conceptual depths, to support the configuration of the organization that manages knowledge and becomes an organization in learning, it is necessary:
A new context that enables management change management of social systems in the organization a new organizational dynamic
A Learning Organization, which manages knowledge, requires a context of innovation. Therefore, it is necessary to move from continuity management, characterized by the hierarchical structure, from pre-established procedures without flexibility for initiatives, and traditional division of labor, to innovation management, with a systemic approach, with an environment conducive to initiative and creativity., with consolidation and cohesion of values of being and having, with integration of functions and autonomous organizational forms with collective and social responsibility.
Knowledge, and knowledge that generates value, requires the understanding, interpretation and transformation of the social system that is the organization, the social processes within organizations; because it is built, it is developed socially. This is carried out through Dialogue and the systematic and systemic active participation of all workers.
Neither the flow of problems nor the flow of solutions is exclusive to anyone, nor can communication-information be "managed" from "top to bottom" or vice versa.
To be truly a management model, knowledge that is dynamic also requires a dynamic organization.
In conclusion, to support the configuration or architecture of a new context for a profound change in management, it is necessary to materialize the potential of the relationships of the social systems that constitute organizations, and to use the dynamics of knowledge itself in the dynamics of changes.
To these approaches, two more problems and proposals are added.
In the social process that constitutes knowledge, it is essential to attend to the three constitutive phases that contribute to feedback in organizational learning (Mertens, 2002). The first phase establishes the link with training, and leads or not, to new knowledge. The second phase is the understanding and interpretation of the phenomena; and the third phase is the skills or knowledge put into practice through an effective learning process.
Training-learning-new knowledge (understanding-interpretation-transformation) -competences
The main problems that are confronted is that at present there is very little training in training skills, and then in the company, it is not followed or complemented by a learning process.
It is here that both Senge's method and Covey's habits take on special importance. The incorporation of the subjectivity of the collective actors is a necessity, it is not a conjunctural fascination. Otherwise the learning phases have no support or cohesion. (one)
The Shared Vision is not only a common idea, nor an idea of a person, it is an inspiring and driving force, because it is an idea that translates into collective actions. Consequently, it begins to be seen by everyone as if it existed. Few forces are as powerful as a Shared Vision (Senge, P 1994), and few things are done as little in a company as the development of shared visions.
It is difficult to achieve the "Shared Vision", common direction, synergy, if the "Personal Domain" is not worked, if the individual goals are not known, neither by the individuals themselves nor by the organization that undergoes conscious recognition in the satisfaction of needs, if you do not have "personal leadership habits", which gives meaning to life; if the "Mental Models" that determine the way of perceiving the world, the company, the way of acting and feeling are not worked on. Effective habits, effective communication, interdependence are not achieved; the interconnection of processes.
It is necessary to insist over and over again on the shared and effective Vision, that responds to ethical humanistic values, to the needs of the being over the needs of having, without ignoring these, and that the needs of the individual and the organization are met, Because it is the way to achieve the effective Mission and this in turn becomes the terrain where the Vision becomes effective.
In everyday practice, they are missing links for most organizations. Perhaps for a simple reason: the changes must be produced as quickly as possible, so that the environment does not “cool down”, and because the documented and auditable terms of solution are short-term to work on individual, group behaviors. and organizational.
In this way, far from “cooling”, what ignites the fire, which lasts as long as the combustion materials last, and sooner rather than later goes out.
To establish the lasting interconnections between processes, and continuous improvement, it is necessary to work on the interconnections between people, habits of responsibility, self-awareness, interdependence, personal leadership, social awareness, among others.
Is it possible that a staff without habits of interdependence and cooperation that leads to Innovation, of effective Communication that leads to coexistence, of mutual benefit that leads to common well-being, to teamwork, of personal leadership that leads to making sense of life, be aware of the importance of activities and their contributions to the objectives of the organization?
Definitely not.
An organization can aim for change when it is guided by a vision, when it has support and understanding of the external environment that sustains social responsibility, when it has a leader that is not only technical, that encourages learning and professional growth, and when all the members of the organization they themselves are aware of the role they must perform; but it cannot change if the members of the organization lack the previous qualities.
And all the above qualities or habits are part of the Organizational Climate to drive the organization towards innovation and learning management.
Lastly, taking into account that the widely accepted determinants of systemic competitiveness (Esser, 1996) at the micro level are: "management capacity, business strategy, innovation, cooperation networks, business logistics, internal-external integration", In addition to others at the meta, macro, and meso levels, evaluations and indicators may refer to these same factors, which best reflect the superior quantitative and qualitative results at the global level of the entity.
Conclusions
A Learning Organization, by definition, would be one where the learning approach prevails with such management that leads to knowledge and these are translated into competencies, greater productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, and all this as part of the policies and strategies of the organization.
Its greatest potential lies in the learning capacity that translates into superior performance at the individual, collective and organizational levels, and the critical mass of ideas translates into greater innovation, greater initiative and creativity, based on greater autonomy and responsibility..
Knowledge is not an object; it is human activity, it is process, they are relationships, they are individual and collective actions. Therefore, the consequences and indicators, quantitative and qualitative, should be assessed at the organization-wide level. The indicators that best reflect this are the level of innovation, of changes and transformations that are required and carried out, continuous improvements that lead to superior quantitative and qualitative results, rapid adaptations to changing circumstances.
Knowledge is socially constructed, it needs a certain management and business environment, and it is dynamic, which requires attending to and working on each of these aspects as a whole at the individual and collective level.
Knowledge should not be reduced to valuation or measured in individual financial terms; it must be evaluated qualitatively at the global level and in terms of relational organization.
Knowledge Management is not coordination of object-knowledge or knowledge only; it is an integral part of organizational management and organizational behavior.
Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management is not the amount of training or the improved or optimal training plan; it is the collective capacity to apply knowledge to management, it is the capacity for continuous improvement, the capacity for innovation, which requires certain social relationships for its application.
(1) In “The Fifth Discipline in Practice” Senge points out the new skills of the learning organization:
“Aspiration: the ability of larger individuals, teams and organizations to target their true interests, and to change because they want to, not just because they need to. (All learning disciplines, but especially the practice of self-control and the development of a shared vision, encourage these skills.
Reflection and conversation: the ability to reflect on deep premises and patterns of behavior, both individually and collectively. Developing skills for dialogue is not easy. In contemporary society, dialogue is often confused with a ping pong game where there is no conversation or joint thought.
Each individual exposes his perspective, the others respond. We often prepare our response even before we have heard what the other person is saying. In a way, we throw the ball before we have caught it. Smart conversations require individuals capable of reflecting on their own thoughts. (These skills are especially strong in the disciplines of mental models and team learning.)
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