Merging the metaphors for organizational improvement: Business process reengineering as a component of organizational learning

Business process reengineering and organizational learning are two contemporary approaches to improving the functioning and effectiveness of organizations. The assumptions and prescriptions of each approach rest upon fundamentally different metaphors. Reengineering conceives of organizations as mechanisms that can be redesigned to be more efficient; learning regards organizations as complex living systems with cognitive and behavioral “memories.” Each metaphor provides valuable insights for organizational improvement, although each also contains blind spots and limitations. In this paper we systematically compare the metaphors of business process reengineering and organizational learning and propose an integrative approach that places reengineering within the context of learning. We illustrate the limitations inherent in traditional reengineering with the case study of System One, a company in the travel information services industry. The company's attempts to implement reengineered processes revealed a lack of attention to learning objectives and to planning for acceptance. Applied to System One, the integrative model for organizational improvement provides a more appropriate beginning point for reengineering efforts and more specific guidance on the role of information technology in organizational learning.