learning organization

First used to describe a firm that learns as it goes along, adjusting its business methods responsively. The term was coined by US academic Chris Argyris, from Harvard Business School, in the 1970s. The concept was taken up and extended by US author Peter Senge, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center of Organizational Learning, in his book The Fifth Discipline (1990). Senge maintained that successful companies of the future would be learning organizations, distinguished from other organizations by mastery of key disciplines such as systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning.