From Rover to Nowhere: A Case Study of a Management Fad

On the ground of the Rover case, the authors were observed criticism of learning organization from the perspective of postmodernism and from the perspective of critical realism, excluding the perspective of positivism as disadvantageous. Postmodernists perspective is twofold, either an ideal that is close to a dream or a nightmare for its members. Learning organization is a postmodern approach to work that requires a paradigm change in the organization, but all postmodernist theses based on the paradigm change are problematic. From the perspective of critical realism, learning organization has failed to meet three objectives which are essential for any well-founded theory: a clear definition, practical operational advice for managers, and tools and instruments for measuring. The concept of learning organization ignores the fact that management rewards those who contribute to the success and punishes those who make the damage, the terms measurable purely in a financial form. The political question in business organizations is related to the fundamental question: for whose interest does the business organization exist, whether the interest of workers or the interest of capital? The legitimacy of managerial authority is a function of maximizing efficiency and effectiveness in the interests of capital. In a contemporary social context where capital dominates, the concept of a learning organization is naively apolitical. Therefore, the authors concluded that simplified recipes, as learning organization, are simply not relevant for modern organizations and they warn about useless journals that continue to promote the learning organization model.