Table 1: Adaptive and Generative Learning
Adaptive Generative
Strategic Characteristics
• Core competence • Better sameness • Meaningful difference
• Source of strength • Stability • Change
• Output • Market share • Market creation
• Organizational perspective • Compartmentalization • Systemic
• Development dynamic • Change • Transformation
Structural Characteristics
• Structure • Bureaucratic • Network
• Control systems • Formal rules • Values, self-control
• Power bases • Hierarchical position • Knowledge
• Integrating mechanisms • Hierarchy • Teams
• Networks • Disconnected • Strong
• Communication flows • Hierarchical • Lateral
Human Resources Practices
• Performance appraisal system • Rewards stability • Flexibility
• Basis for rewards • Short-term financial rewards
• Long-term financial and human
resource development
• Focus of rewards • Distribution of scarcity • Determination of synergy
• Status symbols • Rank and title • Making a difference
• Mobility patterns • Within division or function • Across divisions or functions
• Mentoring • Not rewarded
• Integral part of performance appraisal
process
• Culture • Market • Clan
Managers’ Behaviors
• Perspective • Controlling • Openness
• Problem-solving orientation • Narrow • Systemic thinking
• Response style • Conforming • Creative
• Personal control • Blame and acceptance • Efficacious
• Commitment • Ethnocentric • Empathetic
Source: McGill, M., J. Slocum, and D. Lei. 1992. Management Practices in Learning Organizations. Organizational Dynamics. 22 (1), pp. 5–17.
Relating Human Nature to Organizational Context
Social capital is the stock of active connections among people, that is, the mutual understanding, shared values
and behaviors, and trust that bind members of networks and communities, making cooperation possible. The
social cohesion that results is critical for societies to prosper and for development to be sustainable. The literature
on social capital is vast but the idea of looking at social capital in organizations, not society, is relatively
new. Here, the argument is that social capital makes an organization more than a collection of individuals.
Charles Ehin offered a comprehensive framework to understand how human nature supports or undermines