Chapter 105 Measuring Organizational Learning as a Multidimensional Construct

The traditional way of measuring learning as a result has been through the so-called learning and experience curves. The learning curves, developed within the production framework (Levitt & March, 1988), relate the manufacturing cost of a product to the accumulated experience in its production. This establishes that its cost decreases as the number of units made increases. At first, although this relationship was limited to the direct labour cost, it later extends to the total production cost. In the 70s, the Boston Consulting Group applied this idea to the manufacturing sectors with experience curves. These curves expand the learning effect to activities other than those typical of production (Albernathy & Wayne, 1974). They describe the influence that experience acquired through the repetition of a specific activity has on the variable cost and/or price. Another form of learning evaluation is the half-life curves that measure the time taken in obtaining an improvement of 50% in a determined measurement performance: The greater slope curves indicate a faster learning (Garvin, 1993). These systems of evaluation are, nevertheless, incomplete for a learning organization. The cognitive level, changes in conduct, and its influence on performance improvement must be taken into account in assessing a company’s learning. Surveys, questionnaires, and interviews are, in this case, more useful (Garvin, 1993).