Characteristics of learning organizations within the military

In order to survive in a complex and risky environment, military organizations are expected to develop characteristics of Learning Organizations (LO). To verify this, differences between mission units of the Belgian Armed Force vs. units engaged in territorial activities were observed, with respect to the five dimensions of LO defined by Peter Senge (systems thinking, team learning, shared vision, mental models, and personal mastery) and to the 11 dimensions of the Learning Company identified by Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell (learning approach to strategy, participatory policy making, informating, formative accounting and control, internal exchange, reward flexibility, enabling structures, boundary workers as environmental scanners, inter-company learning, learning climate, and self-development opportunities). Findings were consistent with the hypothesized results. Additional analyses on the mission units also revealed that mission context and mission success can be related to several LO dimensions. This paper explores these relationships and identifies areas for future research. Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2012.