The Misconception Between Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management

The present work assumes the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge management are related, although not identical. Through literature review, we provide clarification on the specificities of each conceptual construct: even if the basic processes and objectives of knowledge management and organizational learning are mutual, we contend that knowledge management refers to a conceptual construct which primarily focuses on knowledge content, while organizational learning entails all aspects of data, information and knowledge. So, clear differences can be presented when comparatively analysing such conceptual constructs, which we summarized into five distinctive core vectors, operating at the level of the conceptual approach (interest of academics vs. interest of practitioners), the goal (process vs. result), the scope (system vs. subsystem), the agents (individual level vs. collective level) and the products (individual memory vs. organizational memory). Nonetheless, based on the common elements vividly detected, shared purposes are identified, once such notions jointly thrive towards enhanced information and knowledge that allow organizational behaviours, impelling on superior organizational performance, objectives which guide the solidification and the expansion of a knowledge value chain model able to incorporate and objectivize the basis for a framework towards the progress in knowledge management programs and in the enhancement of a learning organization.