Organizational Learning in a Hospital

The authors present a case study of organizational learning in an internal medicine ward and a cardiac surgery ward of a university-affiliated hospital. The study is based on a structural and cultural approach to organizational learning. The structural facet of this approach consists of organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs), which are institutionalized structural and procedural arrangements that allow organizations to systematically collect, analyze, store, disseminate, and use information relevant to the performance of the organization. The cultural facet consists of shared values without which OLMs are likely to be enacted as rituals rather than as mechanisms to detect and correct error. Based on semistructured interviews and unstructured observations, the authors identify the OLMs that operate in the two hospital units and the cultures in which they are embedded.