Porras & Robertsons Model of

Organizational Change
&

Peter Senges Model

of Learning Organisation

By:- Group 5
Billy Sam
Varghese
Vaishali
Ganesh
Nitin Tiwary
Pooja Soni

Porras & Robertsons

Model

Introduction

Jerry Porras & Peter Robertson and their associates

developed a model of how organisation development
works which focuses on change ofindividual behaviour
in relation to changes in work settings.
The theoretical framework of this OD model asserts that
change process theory should inform change
implementation theory.
They published in their seminal working paper
"Organization Development: Theory, Practice, and
Research in Handbook of industrial and Organizational
Psychology, 2nd ed., vol 3. ed. M. Dunnette and M. Hough
(Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1992).

Introduction Contd.
This study employed Quantitative statistical analysis of several
separate but similar studies to evaluate the
potential validity of this model of planned
organizational change.
Hypotheses derived from this model focus on the
relationships among planned change
Interventions and three classes of organizational
variables
Assessing work settings
Individual behaviour
Organizational outcomes.

Factor Affecting Work

Setting
Organiz
ingarra
ngemen
ts

Tech
nolo
gy

Work
settin
g
factor
s

Physi
cal
settin
g

Socia
l
facto
rs

Factors Leading to
Organisational Change
Organizational change occurs only when

Individua
l
Behavio
ur

Organisatio
n Change

Examples of OD
intervention

A technology intervention entailing the redesign of an

organization's work flow may result in changes in
organization members' job designs, an element in the
technology.

Interventions that focus on culture change,

management style and interaction ; elements in the
social factors category, may occur as an adaptation to
the new technology.

OD interventions that focus on goals strategies and

rewards will affect organizing arrangements

Model Design

Model Design

Impact of the
interventions
Porras & Robertson suggests that Plan and implement multiple types of interventions, such
that organisational characteristics will consistently affect
behaviour in desired directions
In regard to which types of interventions created the
highest rate of positive change in organisational
outcomes, it was organising arrangements (structurally
and work/task related) and social factor interventions
(e.g. improvement of interaction processessuch as 'team
building', better understanding of informal power
structure, etc.) that proved the most effective. These
interventions both produced positive change over half the
time, and neither of them resulted in any negative change
The negative impact of physical setting interventions on
individual outcomes was the highest of any intervention
on any category of dependent variables.

Peter Senges Model

Introduction
Mr. Peter Senge published a book in 1990 called
"The Fifth Discipline based on his extensive
research into what different organisations do to build
learning capacity and why some organisations use
learning better than others.
Senge popularized the concept of the Learning
Organisation through his bookThe Fifth Discipline
Later another Book was published called "The Fifth
Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for
Building a Learning Organization"in the year 1994
The Book created a language about change all kinds
of companies could embrace, & offered a vision of
workplaces that were humane and built around a

Learning Organisation
Learning organization is an organization that is
continually expanding its capacity to create its
future. For such an organization, it is not enough
merely to survive.
Survival learning or what is more often termed
adaptive learning is important, indeed it is
necessary. But for a learning organization; adaptive
learning must be joined by generative learning,
learning that enhances our capacity to create.
What Fundamentally will distinguish learning
organization from traditional authoritarian
controlling organizations will be mastery of certain
basic disciplines. That is why the disciplines of the
learning organization are vital.
The5 Learning Disciplineswere
Shared Vision,
Mental Models,
Personal Mastery,

Benefits of Learning
Organization
Maintaining levels of innovation and remaining
competitive
Being better placed to respond to external pressures
Having the knowledge to better link resources to
customer needs
Improving quality of outputs at all levels
ImprovingCorporate imageby becoming more
people oriented
Increasing the pace of change within the
organization

Five learning Disciplines

Shared
vision

Persona
l
Mastery

System
s
Thinkin
g

Team
learnin
g

Mental
models

Five Learning Discipline

This is the company
A learning organization's
culture and the
employees all share a
diverse theories &
common vision. Personal
mindsets or
goals must be in sync with
assumptions that
the goals and vision System
of the
serve as a framework
An individual
holds
Persona
Team
organization.
for the functioning of
s
Shared
Mental
learnin
l
great importance in a models
the organization.
vision
Thinkin
g
learning organization. Mastery
Learning
g
Continuous selforganizations look for
improvement holds as
how these
Learning organizations
have
much importance as
affectorganizational
facilitate team
commitment and work structures thatdevelopment
learning with features such as
for the organization.
boundary crossing and
A learning organization
openness. TL Starts with
has been described as
dialogue, its the capacity of
the sum of individual
members of a team to
learnings, but there
suspend assumptions and
must be mechanisms
enter into a genuine thinking
for individual learning

System Thinking

Systems Thinking is
the Fifth Discipline that
integrates the other four.
It is a framework for seeing inter-relationships that
underlie complex situations & interactions rather than
simplistic linear cause-effect chains.
It enables teams to unravel the often hidden influences,
leverage points & intended/unintended consequences of
change plans and programs and leads to deeper, more
complete awareness of the interconnections behind
changing any system.
Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing the "structures"
that underlie complex situations, and for discerning high
from low leverage change. systems thinking offers a
language that begins by restructuring how we think.
Learning organizations use this method of thinking when
assessing their company and have information systems
that measure the performance of the organization as a
whole and of its various components. Systems thinking
states that all the characteristics must be apparent at
once in an organization for it to be a learning organization

Criticism
According to Matthias Finger and Silvia Brgin Brand (1999)
that it is not possible to transform a bureaucratic organization
by learning initiatives alone.
They argue that the concept of the learning organization:
Focuses mainly on the cultural dimension and does not
adequately take into account the other dimensions of
an organization.To transform an organization, it is
necessary to attend to structures and the organization of
work as well as the culture and processes. Focussing
exclusively on training activities in order to foster learning
favours this purely cultural bias.
Favours individual and collective learning processes at
all levels of the organization, but does not connect
them properly to the organizations strategic
objectives. Popular models of organizational learning
assume such a link. It is, therefore, imperative that the link
between individual and collective learning and the
organizations strategic objectives is made. This
shortcoming, Finger and Brand argue, makes a case for some
form of measurement of organizational learning so that it is
possible to assess the extent to which such learning
contributes or not towards strategic objectives.

Thank You