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The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge

opinion Essay
653 words
653 words
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Indeed, not all external knowledge may be easily used and transformed into new artefacts. If external knowledge is easily accessible, transformable into new artefacts and exposed to many actors (such as customers and suppliers), then innovative entry may take place (Winter, 1984). On the contrary, if advanced integration capabilities are necessary (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989), the industry may be concentrated and formed of large established firms. Third, the domain relates to the degree of accessibility of knowledge (Malerba and Orsenigo,
2000), i.e. opportunities of gaining knowledge that are external to firms. Knowledge that is accessible may be internal or external to the sector. In both cases, greater accessibility of knowledge decreases industrial concentration. Another dimension states that knowledge may be also cumulative, i.e. the degree to which the generation of new knowledge builds upon current knowledge (Malerba, 2002b). He identifies three different sources of cumulativeness. The first source is learning processes and dynamic increasing returns at the technology level. The cognitive nature of learning processes and the past knowledge constrain current research, but also generate new questions and new knowledge. The second source is related to organisational capabilities.
These capabilities are firm specific and can be improved only gradually over time. They implicitly define what a firm learns and what it can hope to achieve in the future. A third source is the feedbacks from the market, such as
ʻsuccess-breeds-success’ processes. Innovative success yields profits that can be reinvested in R&D, thereby increasing the probability to innovate again.
Indeed, even if there has been a growing culture of evaluation over the ...

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...oriented predominately towards controlling rather than learning, rewarding individuals for performing for others rather than for cultivating their natural curiosity and impulse to learn.
Successful organisations encourage employee innovation as a way to produce measurable improvements in quality, quantity, and cost-effectiveness (Hale, 1996).
In The Fifth Discipline, Senge (1990a) identifies five new ʻcomponent technologies’ that he claimed were gradually converting to learning organisations – systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning.
Also, as seen in the previous sub-chapter, innovation and risk taking are inseparable in a learning organisation, which Spear (1993: 14) defines as “a place of truth-seeking and speaking without fear of reprisal or judgement … a place where curiosity reigns over knowing and where exp

In this essay, the author

  • Opines that the key component of a high-performance organisation is dynamic learning mode.
  • Opines that individuals perform for others rather than for cultivating their natural curiosity and impulse to learn.
  • Explains that senge's the fifth discipline identifies five new component technologies’ that he claimed were new.
  • Explains that not all external knowledge may be easily used and transformed into new artefacts, but if advanced integration capabilities are necessary, the industry may concentrate and form of large established firms.
  • Explains three sources of cumulativeness: learning processes and dynamic increasing returns at the technology level; organisational capabilities are firm specific and can be improved only gradually over time.
  • Opines that even if there has been a growing culture of evaluation over the last two decades in most advanced economies, many public sector organisations are still essentially navigation blind when it comes to real-time.
  • Opines that public sector organisations spend 80 per cent of their energies on understanding the past and managing the present, and perhaps only 20% on exploring future directions for better policies and services.
  • Opines that an important influence is to give someone a new and more ambitious task, which requires more effort and external knowledge accruing.
  • Quotes senge's belief that we have been systematically destroying the very attributes needed by a high performance organisation.
  • Explains that innovation and risk taking are inseparable in a learning organisation. spear defines truth-seeking and speaking without fear of reprisal.
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