Bente Elkjaer

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Aarhus University

This article explores microprocesses and transactions during 7 months of collaboration for sustainable food education involving two teachers of home economics and a school food manager in a Finnish secondary school. Data sources included interviews and multi-professional meetings, the professional reflections of participants and a researcher’s diar...

In the article, we propose to frame organizational learning as inquiry into and resolving tensions arising from the performance of different commitments to work and its organizing. We expand learning as participation with its focus upon identity and membership to the development of work and the experiences and knowledge of its participants. The pro...

I denne artikel udforsker vi arbejdspladslæring i lyset af følgende forskningsspørgsmål: Hvad karakteriserer de situationer i arbejdet, hvori det er muligt at lære? Artiklen er et bud på at udvikle en teoretisk ramme til at arbejde med læring i arbejdet. Vi gør dette i tråd med den filosofiske pragmatisme ved at analysere empiri med afsæt i et case...

In what ways are organizational learning a relevant theoretical construct? The article taps into a debate on what is relevance to practitioners versus researchers’ responsibility. The publications on organizational learning are on the rise, but the patterns have changed and points to a bifurcation within the field of organizational learning. On one...

This collective essay was born out of a desire to honor and remember Professor Mark Easterby-Smith, a founder of the Management Learning community. To do this, we invited community members to share their experiences of working with Mark. The resulting narratives remember Mark as a co-author, co-researcher, project manager, conference organizer, res...

I det følgende præsenterer jeg først forholdet mellem praksislæring og pragmatisme, fordi jeg ser pragmatismen som et nødvendigt supplement til praksislæringen. Dernæst følger en sektion om erfaring som en grundlæggende beskrivelse af forholdet mellem subjekt og verden. Det efterfølges af en redegørelse for erfaringsbegrebets flertydighed, hvori et...

This chapter presents a case involving the organization of teams for inter-professional coordination of care. We explore knowledge-sharing processes by discussing the practical dilemmas when organizing teams, drawing on interventionist research at a hospice. Management had organized the hospice into four single-professional teams of nurses and one...

The central assumption that guides this book is that research and practice about learning at the workplace has recently lost its critical edge. This book explores what has happened to workplace learning and organizational learning and studies what has replaced it. In addition, the book discusses to what extend there are reasons to revitalize it. To...

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the debate on what is a learning organization (LO). The author proposes that pragmatist philosophy may be a source of inspiration in this endeavor. Design/methodology/approach The author revisits a 25-year-old case study in which the process of implementing an LO in a public enterprise was observed. This wa...

Proponents of the 'practice turn' in the social sciences rarely mention American pragmatism as a source of inspiration or refer to pragmatist philosophy. This strikes us as not only odd, but also a disadvantage since the pragmatist legacy has much to offer practice theory in the study of organizations. In this paper we want to spell out the theoret...

Knowledge sharing is often addressed by way of knowledge as either codified or personalised and, thus, often relying on a transfer model in order for knowledge to be shared. In this paper, we tell a story of knowledge sharing by using a combination of pictures and texts to tease out the performance of rather than the intentionality of knowledge sha...

Bente Elkjaer and Niels Christian Mossfeldt Nickelsen also address the shifting roles of universities. They highlight the impact of the Danish University Act of 2003, which converted universities into self-governing institutions administered by university boards, of which external stakeholders make up the majority. The changing role of universities...

The purpose of this article is to explore the actualisation of knowledge sharing and learning amongst organisational actors in an international management consultancy enterprise. The article argues for an understanding of knowledge sharing as an everyday practice that goes beyond the idea of knowledge sharing as a matter of customisation and codifi...

We explore knowledge sharing in light of a pragmatist understanding of organizational learning. This takes us beyond knowledge as cognition and into an encompassing understanding of what it means to share knowledge. We draw upon a case study on knowledge sharing amongst management consultants, and transcend the idea that knowledge sharing is a matt...

Organizational education, starting with John Dewey’s pragmatism, focuses on learners in their workplace and organization. Learning is ontological, it is based on the learner as being someone, a worker or a manager. Thus, it should not only be understood as a matter of acquiring skills and knowledge. This requires further that the context of work, t...

Purpose Telecare is a growing practice defined as diagnosis, treatment and monitoring among doctors, nurses and patients, which is mediated through ICT and without face-to-face interaction. The purpose of this study is to provide empirically based knowledge about the organization of the use of ICT and dilemmas of this increasingly common practice...

Currently a dilemma within organization studies seems to be represented by, on the one hand, proponents who argue for a retro-wave, to go back to the original ideas of organization studies, the core tasks of enterprises and importance of the relevance of organization studies to practitioners. On the other hand, another contemporary movement may be...

One of the political means to encourage competitive knowledge production in universities is to employ strategic management, but is this a promising method? I explore this question through a practice-based and pragmatist version of organisational learning as well as the Nordic tradition of work and education to suggest ways for sustainable knowledge...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how workplace interventions may benefit from a simultaneous focus on individuals’ learning and knowledge and on the situatedness of workplaces in the wider world of changing professional knowledge regimes. This is illustrated by the demand for evidence-based practice in health care. Design/methodo...

Organizational education, starting with John Dewey’s pragmatism, focuses on learners in their workplace and organization. Learning is ontological and is based on the learner as being someone, a worker or a manager. Thus, it should not only be understood as a matter of acquiring skills and knowledge. This requires further that the context of work, t...

Telemedicine is defined as diagnosis, treatment and monitoring among doctors, nurses and patients separated by space, but mediated through information and communication technologies. We argue that a unique experience of confidence and proximity between patient and nurse is provided through continuity and the practical setup of screen and device in...

This chapter describes how the field of organizational learning can be understood from a social learning perspective and which social learning theories add to an understanding of organizational learning that cannot be included in an individual learning theoretical approach. The main elements of an individual approach is discussed and an in-depth re...

Proponents of the 'practice turn' in the social sciences rarely mention American pragmatism as a source of inspiration or refer to pragmatist philosophy. This strikes us as not only odd, but also a disadvantage since the pragmatist legacy has much to offer practice theory in the study of organizations. In this paper we want to spell out the theoret...

In the paper, we deal with how to organize work for cross-professional knowledge sharing. We do so inspired by relational coordination theory, which is affiliated with positive organizational scholarship. Relational coordination theory is constituted by a combination of relationships marked by shared goals and knowledge as well as mutual respect an...

Artiklen er en analyse af en organisatorisk forandringsproces i en virksomhed, hvor forandring anskues som anledning til organisatorisk læring. Inspirationen hentes i den pragmatiske filosofi og casen er en virksomhed inden for medicinalbranchen. Det forskningsmæssige bidrag er at vise, at læringsmuligheder opstår som sammenstød mellem forskellige...

In the past, critics have dismissed American Pragmatism as intellectually naïve and philosophically passé, but in this chapter we argue that it still has much to offer the field of organization studies. Pragmatism is especially relevant to those organizational scholars who are concerned with understanding the dynamic processes and practices of orga...

A pragmatic theory of learning is introduced as a possible way of creating organizational learning and learning organizations. This learning theory rests upon what may be termed the inquiry metaphor. Two other metaphors of learning—the knowledge acquisition and the participation metaphor—are introduced as they are mirrored in the literature and in...

Purpose Induction is the process of newcomers entering and becoming part of an organization. In one sense newcomers represent an opportunity for organizations to learn and change, but in another sense newcomers are instigated into an existing institutional order. The purpose of this paper is to explore how induction of newcomers can be understood a...

‘Good Night and Good Luck’ This epilogue marks the end of our Editorship of Management Learning. We have handed over the role of Editors-in-Chief to Ann Cunliffe and Eugene Sadler-Smith. We have saved the final issue of our Editorship to publish a much-deserved tribute to an eminent scholar within our field, Professor Mark Easterby-Smith from the U...

“Editing is above all an imperfect activity that incorporates human weaknesses and errors and has no optimal solutions. However, editors can do more and feel better about their effects if they make realistic assessments of their personal capabilities and situations” (p. 268). This is how the editors conclude the Epilog to their collection of papers...

A theory of learning for the future advocates the teaching of a preparedness to respond in a creative way to difference and otherness. This includes an ability to act imaginatively in situations of uncertainties. Dewey’s pragmatism holds the key to such a learning theory his view of the continuous meetings of individuals and environments as experim...

The contemporary ‘practice-turn’ (Schatzki et al., 2001) of organization studies and the focus upon organizations as both actions or ‘doings’ as well as fields of practices (Gherardi, 2006; Nicolini et al., 2003) has introduced a radically new way of approaching the issue of organizational learning. The practice based perspective, however, has its...

In this paper, I report from a study of an organisation in the midst of a major restructuring from being a family oriented business to becoming a global player. This seemed an excellent site to explore how practices may change in organisations. At first I was only able to hear two well-known stories about changes - a 'for' and an 'against' changes....

In this paper I show how a study of an organisational restructuring as a change of practice may help elaborate our current understanding of the relation between organisational change and learning. The point of departure was a Danish enterprise being restructured from a family oriented R&D enterprise to become a global player in a competitive market...

The plan of the paper is that we begin in the next section with an overview of key ideas from the original pragmatist thinkers. In our view, these ideas have considerable potential to inform theories of organization, and yet they continue to be largely relegated to the shadowy margins of our field. We then proceed to draw out four key themes in pra...

Purpose – To explore whether deliberate organisational change of a public sector organisation (a local municipality) would create an avenue for organisational learning. Design/methodology/approach – A case study was set up to study the means by which the organisational change towards a digital administration was to come about. The organisational c...

When Zuboff wrote her seminal sentence in 1988 to coin the consequences of the application of information technology in enterprises: ‘Learning is the new form of labour’ (Zuboff, 1988, p. 395), she probably did not anticipate its more general applicability. The publication of Senge’s book on learning organizations (Senge, 1990) as well as the revis...

Debate about organization and workplace learning has now moved on from viewing learning as a way of fostering control, to paving the way for viewing learning, working and living in the context of organizational complexity. The book suggests that by focusing on learning as a way of living, the needs of production can be reconciled with the need for...

Book Review: Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-Based Approach. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247748452_Book_Review_Knowing_in_Organizations_A_Practice-Based_Approach [accessed Oct 09 2020]. The aim of this book is ‘to provide an overview of the work of authors who havetaken up the challenge of addressing knowing, lear...

This paper develops a ‘third way’ of organizational learning (OL) encompassing two metaphors for learning: acquisition and participation. These two metaphors can be found in the learning theories of OL. The ‘first’ and ‘second way’ of OL are identified as being, respectively, individuals’ skills and knowledge acquisition in organizations as systems...

In this paper, I introduce an understanding of organisational learning as triggered by tensions in an arena of many voices. This understanding is in turn based on an understanding of organisations as arenas made up by social worlds, which are formed by the different collective commitments to organisational activities as well as an understanding of...

The paper is a review of social learning theory in organizational learning literature. The review is made by way of comparing individual learning theory in organizational learning literature with that of social learning theory on three issues. These are 1) the content of organizational learning, 2) the method of organizational learning, and 3) the...

The article presents a case study on the development of a learning organization that did not last very long. I suggest that the reason for this result was the way in which learning in the learning organization was understood and enacted. The emphasis was placed on changing individual employees while the organization itself-its managerial structures...

This paper deals with the following conceptual issues: What is workplace or organisational learning? What is learning? What is computer-supported learning? And what is computer-supported organisational learning? The grounds for dealing with these issues are an empirical study on the organisation of IT-supported workplace learning. This study shows...

Issues about the relation between information technology (IT), knowledge and organizational learning appear more critical as IT becomes an increasingly integrated part of organizational life. We believe that in order to understand the role of IT in organizational learning, we need to focus on the relation between learning theories and understanding...

In recent years, there have been many attempts at defining learning as a social phenomenon as opposed to an individual and primarily psychological matter. The move towards understanding learning as social processes has also altered the concept of knowledge as a well-defined element stored in books, brains, CD-Roms, disks, videos or on the Internet....

In this paper it is argued that the terms, knowledge work, knowledge workers and knowledge-intensive firms point to emerging social structures and processes in organizations. This focus allows us to analyse organizations in ways that differ from the notions involving less dynamic forms of organizational configurations. It is further argued that the...

Læringsbegrebet har været til debat i en årrække, og der er blevet stillet spørgsmålstegn ved såvel de kendte læringssammenhænge som ved forestillingerne om viden, som noget der kan opbevares og overføres. Hvordan dette hænger sammen med ændrede samfundsmæssige forhold, og hvilke ændringer dette fordrer for vores tænkning omkring nye læreskabeloner...

In this paper it is argued that the terms, knowledge work, knowledge workers, and knowledge intensive firms point to emerging social structures and processes in organisations. This focus allows us to analyse organisations in ways that differ from the notions involving less dynamic forms of organisational configurations. It is further argued tha...

In recent years, there have been many attempts at defining learning as a social phenomenon as opposed to an individual and primarily psychological matter. The move towards understanding learning as social processes has also altered the concept of knowledge as a well–defined element stored in books, brains, CD–Roms, disks, videos or on the Internet....

I artiklen fortæller jeg historien om en offentlig dansk virksomhed, der ville være en lærende organisation. Virksomheden er imidlertid ikke kendt som en lærende organisation i dag, selvom det ikke skortede på den gode vilje og opbakning, da den nye organisation blev lanceret i midten af 1990'erne. I artiklen foreslår jeg, at årsagen til den lærend...

I have on several occasions tried to get hold of papers written by Sylvia Scribner. When other authors referred to her, it seemed to me that she had something to offer within my special field of interest- that is, learning at the workplace and in relation to work (today sometimes termed organizational learning). Very often I had no luck in getting...

This is an exellent book that I can recommend to all readers interested in learning more about Human Resource Managament (HRM) and its older sister, Personnel Management. The book is written by a wise and perceptive woman, Karen Legge, with a good sense of humour, which several jokes in the book reflect. Furthermore, it is a very thorough book (as...

All participation in in-service training is always part of a personal learning-project. For the individual participation in in-service training makes sense either in relation to her present job-situation or in relation to her private future career plans — or most frequently in relation to both! To include both these elements within a personal learn...

The author offers an interpretation of why we resist associating the female sex with competence on the computer, and conversely, why the male sex is not regarded as a problem in terms of learning to deal competently with the computer. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between gender and computers.

In this paper we question whether it is possible through continously refined models of systems development to reach a stage of unproblematical system use. In our view, systems development is a social practice which is often mobilized in the context of contradictory pressures where concern for “proper” systems is curtailed by “needs” for firms to su...

In this paper I present the results of developing a learning organisation based upon a dual systems thinking of organisations and a conventional theory of learning and knowledge. The point of departure is a case study of a Danish public enterprise whose management relied upon some consultants' view of a learning organisation as tightly coupled with...

In the paper, the idea is explored of organisational learning as the opening and closure of organisational space for inquiry or reflective thinking, as a way to construct organisational learning as an object for research. This is done by asking the question of whether an organisational development project contributes to organisational learning. The...

Short paper submission to the 26 th European Group of Organization Studies Colloquium, Waves of Globalization: Repetition and difference in organizing over time and space. June 30 – July 3 2010, Lisbon, Portugal. Sub-theme 16: Investigating Organization as Becoming in a World on the Move Are organizations characterized by constant change and fluidi...