Learning within the European Commission: the case of environmental integration

This article analyses how the Directorates-General for Transport and Energy (DG TREN) and for Enterprise (DG ENTR) of the European Commission reacted to the demand to integrate environmental aspects into their activities. In doing so, we study the DGs – as suborganizations within an organization – through the lenses of organizational learning concepts.

To reveal if, and to what extent, the observed reactions of both DGs towards environmental integration can be described as organizational learning, we develop a heuristic model that allows for a distinction between single-loop and double-loop learning as well as between compliant and non-compliant learning. Our empirical study detects different types of organizational learning by DG TREN and DG ENTR in three time periods between 1986 and 2004. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the modified strategies to foster environmental integration by the DG for Environment were important triggers for organizational learning in both DGs.