Organisational learning: purpose, thinking & practices

This survey was conducted for the Thematic Learning Programme ‘Organisational learning and social change’, supported by PSO, VSO and CDRA. The Programme was started because learning lies at the heart of sustainable social change. The ability of people to learn from their own and each others’ experiences, to guide, improve and rethink future action, is central to resilience, sovereignty and empowerment. Learning is not merely a support to transformation, but a central ingredient. Social change practice is proving to be more complex than ever imagined, defying academic theories and instrumental manuals, models and tools. This complexity requires social actors and organisations, from the ground up, to invest more in conscious thinking and learning processes informed by their own and each others’ experience, out of rigorous processes of action learning or action research.