Article Reviewed:

Zgrzywa-Ziemak, Walecka-Jankowska “The relationship between organizational learning and sustainable performance:

an empirical examination” Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2020, pp. 155 – 179.

The article, “The relationship between organizational learning and sustainable performance: an empirical examination”

by Zgrzywa-Ziemak and Walecka-Jankowska seeks to investigate the relationship between organizational learning (OL) and

business sustainability (BS) and to carry out its empirical examination. The research problem is that that the role of

organizational learning in business sustainability (BS) is not optimally nor systemically introduced and progressed in

organizations in addition to it being fragmented.

Reflecting on the abstract and the first couple of paragraphs in this paper, the topic of business sustainability (BS)is a

complex multifaceted phenomenon integrating contradictory and conflicting aspects. The relationship between organizational

learning (OL) and organizational performance is not a straight forward matter as it involves the organizational learning (OL)

processes, including the organizational culture, leadership, structure, organizational continuity and strategy typically referred to

as organizational learning capability (OLC); making it a more complicated approach for researching. In summary, organizational

learning capability (OLC) is the management practices, structure and procedures that facilitate and encourage learning. It

involves both the tangible and intangible resources alongside their skills which the organization depend on to achieve its new

forms of competitive advantage.

According to the study, business sustainability refers to corporate participation in sustainable development. The

organization is considered as a "mesoscale social artifact worthy of study as a potentially potent way of attaining sustainable

development" in this comprehensive approach. A sustainable organization has a significant positive impact on critical societal

and environmental challenges. While it must create a profit to allow for the restoration of its capabilities and further

development, the organization's overarching goal should be to commit to the progress of the wider socio-ecological system.

However, several business sustainability models exist, including those pertaining to the survival and development of the firm as a

system. The win-win strategy focuses on identifying cost-effective areas for the firm that are both socially and/or

environmentally beneficial. Business sustainability refers to the organization's objectives – in relation to sustainable development

goals, processes or activities that comprise business sustainability, the characteristics of a sustainable organization, and results –

the contribution of organizations to sustainable development.

Organizational learning (OL) is a fundamental concept in organizational theory. The study of several scholars'

definitions leads to certain conclusions, that organizational learning (OL) is a continuous process that occurs under the effect of

the interaction between the organization and its environment, as well as as a result of internal goals; it has cognitive and social

dimensions.
 The concept of organizational knowledge is viewed as a complex phenomenon encompassing several levels

distinguished by the difficulty of their change. Learning on different levels has a different character; is inextricably linked to

action (learning affects acting and vice versa) i.e., unlearning is part of learning here.

Given the fact that the term organizational learning capacity (OLC) appears in the literature, there is no consensus on

what it means. From a managerial perspective, organizational learning capacity is defined as the capacity of the organization to

properly implement management practices, structures, and methods that support and enhance learning. The authors took a

resource-based approach to understanding organizational learning capacity (OLC), seeing it as a set of tangible and intangible

resources or abilities that the firm uses to produce new kinds of competitive advantage. The authors define organizational

learning capacity (OLC) as an organization's capacity to process knowledge - to develop, obtain, share, and utilize knowledge,

and to alter its behavior to reflect the new cognitive environment, in order to improve its performance. However, organizational

learning capacity (OLC) is arbitrarily related to the improvement of organizational results in all of these notions. As per the

authors the organizational learning (OL) is the ability of an organization to modify its knowledge in two concurrent processes -

evaluation and generation of new knowledge. It is tied to the concept of meta-learning and refers to an organization's ability to

learn rather than the course of specific organizational learning procedures.

Improving performance and overall organizational results is the aim of processing knowledge; yet what the authors are

revealing in this study, adopting business sustainability (BS) approach seems incoherent and incomplete as it only explains the

relationship between learning and positive results only and disregards the scenarios that results are not positive or as desired.

What complicated matters even further, is that no relationship between organizational learning (OL) and business

financial results while other scholars indicated that this relationship is indirect while others proved that organizational learning

(OL) does indeed increase the performance of organizations and clearly improved them in numerous cultural contexts and types

or organizations in a range of industries and under numerous conditions. The ordeal is that no research identifying the

relationship of organizational learning (OL) and sustainable performance (SP) was identified which does not support the claims

of the authors hence, whether there is a relationship whether direct or indirect or whether positive or negative i.e., not obvious or

clear.

The manner by which the researchers summarized their finding was robust as they admitted that despite their original

presumption that organizational learning (OL) is essential for the formation of business sustainability (BS), they admitted that the

conceptual solutions remain fragmented. They further criticized that the approach of increasing organization’s adaptive

capabilities to cope with sustainable development challenges is a limited approach and in alignment with other authors facing the

sustainability paradox demands not only embracing the changes to develop those referenced capabilities but also retain a coherent

and long-term identity and stability yet this is not an empirically verified point of view.
 Driven by the above, the authors explored the relationship between organizational learning (OL) and business

sustainability (BS) not only the organizational learning (OL) processes and business sustainability (BS) but also organizational

learning capability (OLC) and business sustainability (BS). Hypothesis building and testing was applied and structural modeling

implemented. The empirical studies confirmed the positive relationship between organizational learning (OL) and organizational

performance.

In conclusion, the journal is straightforward and the literature review provided the needed clarity on the definitions of

key aspect of this research yet not to the level of detail that was presented. It would be more beneficial if the results were further

analyzed and not laid out statistically. As an overall the paper is a well written piece of research work with an important message

to learning subject matter experts, business decision-makers, investing decision-makers etc. The research methodology section

provided a clear pathway as to how they intend to prove this complex and crucial learning and business relationship.