The Relationship of Learning and Performance Improvement at Different System Levels

The importance of learning for organizational effectiveness is no longer questioned. Research in the last decade has identified the central role of learning for enhancing individual development. team effectiveness, leadership. innovation, and competitive advantage. However, this acknowledgement of learning's importance has been accompanied by the lack of conceptual clarity when learning, change, innovation, and performance‐all desirable states and co‐variants of each other‐are necessarily studied together. Because learning and performance strongly influence each other, we are often left confused by which is the phenomenon of interest. This confusion is compounded when levels of analysis are considered. This paper examines learning and performance improvement first as separate constructs, then as complimentary elements in organization systems. Using a four‐level systems model, changes in the relationship between learning and performance improvement are examined at different levels of the model.