In Chinese paintings, the Dragon Emperor stretches out to grasp the ever-elusive pearl of knowledge - he never reaches it but he never stops trying. Bob Garratt sees learning organisations in the same light; the education process is ongoing.

Mr Garratt argues that an organisation can only be effective if there is continuous learning between three groups - the leaders directing the enterprise, the staff delivering the product and the customers.

Henry Ford once complained: "When I hire a pair of hands, I get a person as well."

Management thinking still is often locked into hard, unemotional, analytical methods, which exclude the importance of people and their development. Learning should be seen as an asset rather than a training cost.

In the age of the knowledge economy and "intellectual property", few will argue with that. But translating acceptance of the theory into action is a different kettle of fish.

"It is not another management fad that leads to organisational bulimia, where executives binge on it for a year or two, get bored, throw up and then try something else."

Mr Garratt says the board of directors is the group ultimately responsible for ensuring the learning process is thriving.

If becoming a learning organisation is vital to survival in today's knowledge economy, how do enterprises survive without adopting this model?

Mr Garratt points out that many under-performing businesses take a long time to die and survive on a life-support system until someone, usually a banker, turns off the switch.

The question of how to value the "knowledge worker" gives rise to the issue of involvement in the enterprise. Mr Garratt argues for more democracy in the modern workplace.

But he points out that the word "participation" derives from a Latin root, with two meanings. Participation means both "joint responsibility" and "joint ownership".

The Learning Organization was first published in 1986 and the business world has changed a lot since then. What was seen as new-fangled nonsense then is accepted as desirable now, if not necessary.

However, like so many other volumes on management theory The Learning Organization is often heavy going, peppered with complex diagrams that would give an expert a headache. It is hard to imagine it having much appeal outside college courses, despite the fact that much of what Mr Garratt has to say is relevant in a world where the pace of change is accelerating.

jmulqueen@irish-times.ie