1. What are some of the social, political, and economic forces that are influencing SIA’s decision to become a learning organization?

In the early years of the new century, it wasn’t hard to see that SIA Corporation couldn’t keep doing business the old- fashioned twentiethcentury way. Chief knowledge officer Jerry Seibert fully realized he owed his new position in the newly created knowledge management department to this challenge.
Headquartered in the Midwest, SIA was an umbrella organization offering a wide range of insurance products to commercial customers of all sizes throughout the country and, increasingly, to multinational corporations throughout the world. Over the years it had diversified into various types of insurance by absorbing smaller companies until it now consisted of more than 30 separate business units. Each had its own hierarchy, characterized by strong top-down administration and the well-defined rules and procedures typical of the insurance industry; virtually every employee possessed specialized knowledge about a narrowly defined market niche.