1 Some cultural considerations for applying the Learning Organization model to Iranian organizations

It has been argued that some management theories and models may not be universal and are based on some cultural assumptions. It is suggested that the effectiveness of the Learning Organization (LO) model across different countries may be associated with cultural differences in terms of some dimensions such as individualism, collectivism, power distance, and future orientation. Given that some Iranian managers have reported high levels of power distance and in-group collectivism and low levels of societal collectivism and future orientation in a recent cross-cultural study, it is argued that aspects of LO such as systems thinking, managing mental models, team learning, and developing shared visions, may face some problems in Iranian organizations. Some theoretical propositions are developed for further empirical investigations