Levitt+&+March

=**Levitt & March 1988** (p. 24-26)=

**Principal belief:**

 * History establishes routines that affect how organizations make decisions and operate
 * Routines may be in the form of rules, practices, procedures, conventions and strategies
 * In this clip a teacher explains how things are done in their district regarding the classes teachers teach in their high school.

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Other Concepts of Levitt and March's theory of Organizational Learning:

 * **Organizational Memory**is the way organizations maintain information from past experiences
 * Information is passed on to new members of the organization to avoid the need to unnecessarily recreate what is already available.
 * A school finds a way of moving students from the classroom to the lunchroom in an orderly fashion. When new teachers come to the school, the process is spelled out in the staff handbook and presented at orientation.
 * The phrase "[|Don't reinvent the wheel]" comes to mind.
 * There are possible drawbacks:
 * Tacit knowledge in teaching may not be as widespread as familiar rules of the organization (setting up literacy centers vs. procedure for walking in the hallway)
 * High personnel turnover (The lead member of the learning team leaves over summer and no one knows where information is stored.)
 * People forget or remember events differently. (The youngest students in the school are never at school assemblies. Some thought it was because the information was not age appropriate, others thought it was because of their short attention span: both, either, neither)
 * Information that isn't frequently used may be difficult to remember or have flaws (Since closing classrooms happen once per year, teachers may forget parts of the process and need reminders when the closing procedures are handed out.)
 * Levitt and March's theory differs from other theorists in that they downplay the inquiry and interpretation process
 * They caution that the interpretation process is difficult and can:
 * Lead to **Superstitious Learning -** linking a specific action to an outcome even if there is no definitive correlation between the two
 * In the Dilbert comic strip, the new marketing strategy demonstrates the concept of superstitious learning by using data to come to a conclusion without proper analysis.
 * "[B]e tainted by the organization's frame of reference, which limits how history is seen and interpreted." (Collinson & Cook, 2007, p. 26)
 * Failure can be interpreted differently, as a problem with the idea or the implementation of the idea
 * Success may have a different definition for different members
 * Being successful has its own problem:
 * Can lead to **Competency Traps**- an organizations success with a procedure may lead them to continue with that procedure rather than exploring other options
 * Think about the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". (Having Literacy in the morning may produce adequate results, but school may not consider that the afternoon may yield even greater success.)
 * If the way the organization has operated in the past works and leads to success, why consider another way.
 * There may be little or no reflection.


 * FIVE CORE ASSUMPTIONS with LEVITT and MARCH:**
 * 1. Multilevel Learning**
 * Levitt and March's theory involves sharing the organization's historical information that guides current practice through the use of the routines and procedures created from past practice.
 * In their theory, there members must share information across levels (in schools: teachers, support staff and administrators for example).
 * This also supports Wenger theory where everyone needs to be active participants in their community of practice.
 * 2. Inquiry**
 * Levitt and March underplay the importance of inquiry focusing more on routines.
 * 3. Shared Understandings**
 * Levitt and March's theory would follow Collinson and Cook's idea of shared learning in that members of the organization would rely on others in coming to agreement about the meanings of current procedures based on their history in the organization.
 * If there was need to change their established procedures, rules and practices, the organization would come together to get an understanding of the history and target.
 * According to Wenger's theory, they would use their shared repertoire (their common language) and mutual engagement (participants being actively involved in the process)
 * 4. Behavioral And Cognitive Change**
 * Their theory doesn't involve the necessity of cognitive change, focusing on behavioral change only for learning to occur.
 * 5. Embedding New Knowledge﻿**
 * According to Levitt and March, "organizational routines conserve experience" (Collinson & Cook, 2007, p. 35).
 * Past learning becomes an integral part of the school and new members learn in many ways such as in written rules or observing others.
 * There was an elementary school where the teachers had the practice of spending their lunch period eating with their students. New teachers learned this through observation.
 * It occurs when new members are trained in the ways of the organization, therefore preserving the history of the way the organization does business.
 * Even if the person who initiated the routine has left the school, the procedure lives on.

[|Click if you would like to read about what authors Vivienne Collinson and Tanya Fedoruk Cook have to say about Levitt and March's theory of Organizational Learning].
 * Sensemaking** - making sense of the unknown
 * The sensemaking process seeks to make uncertain ideas clear.
 * Levitt and March's theory downplayed the processes of inquiry and interpretation which would be involved in the sensemaking process.
 * Levitt and March's theory focuses on behavioral change as organizational learning.