ORGANIZATION CULTURE AS A LEARNING PLACE

Abstract

The aim of this article is to look at the work environment as a place of learning. Organization culture is a term referring to the system of informal patterns of behavior and thinking that become established in a given organization, and which may have effect on the organizational aims of that company. Learning

within the workplace is described in andragogy as situational learning. It is learning that takes place in everyday situations, where the knowledge comes from the situational problem and as its effect is the solution discovered by all the participants of a given situation.
I have characterized various types of organization culture through the context of situational learning, taking also into consideration the social context and interpersonal relations. I have based my deliberations on the Czesław Sikorskis typology who distinguished four types of organization culture: domination, competition, cooperation and adaptation. Assuming that the process of organizational identity acąuisition, which takes place through various social processes, is the basie outeome of the learning, the best conditions for such learning are cre- ated in the organizational cultures of adaptation and cooperation. These cultures are characterized by: innovation, creativity, tolerance and openness to other people’s views, which make the factors of the situational learning. Whereas in the cultures of competition and domination, the lack of flexibility and free exchange of thoughts, as well as the lack possibility to experiment and the high level of formalization and routine activities, may effectively błock the effect of finding the Solutions through the situational learning.