Yes, but does LO work? LO19235

Mnr AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 17:26:15 GMT+2

Replying to LO19109 --

Dear Organlearners,

Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com> writes:

(on measuring people's satsifaction with a LO)

(snip)

> No single
> measure will be effective. Short term measurement is not valid. Stock
> price is universally available, and so it is appealing. Unfortunately, it
> is heavily influenced by market issues that have little to do with
> learning. Witness the dither over Viagara. Of course, there is research
> there, but that is not corporate learning. They just have a
> market-beating idea, and it is having a big influence on stock price.

Hi Rol,

I wanted to comment long ago on using stock prices as an indicator of
"degree of LO". You have said much of what I wanted to say. Thanks.

But the reason why I replied to this contribution of yours, is that I
want some clarification. It seems that you imply (by ommision) that
there is no organisational learning taking place among the (at least)
majority of participators on the stock market. Will you please
explain? I interpret you as follows: When an insurance company or a
pension fund dealing on the stock markets become a LO, they would
qualify for "corporate learning" according to you.

If a stock market cannot ever emerge to a LO, then it is a quite
dangerous place to invest any money, especially for "security
corporations" such as pension funds or insurance companies. I am not
refering to the bull-bear cycles, but the melt downs every two to
three decades or so. With every such a melt down a whole
generation of people are being flung into misery.

This is exactly opposite to
"The rationale for any strategy for building a LO revolves around
the premise that such organizations will produce dramatically
improved results, compared to more traditional organizations."

This makes me wonder. Can a pension fund or an insurance company be a
LO when they invest on the stock market?

Best wishes

-- 

At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

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