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Organizations and Learning: A Critical Appraisal
Abstract
Discussions about organizations and learning continue to attract critical interest. Since the emergence in the 1970s of the notion of the “learning organization,” notions of systems’ learning, knowledge management and lifelong learning have progressively entered into the debates. Earlier debates, which drew on education and psychology fields as well as organization and management studies, frequently explored plural objectives for learning occurring within organizational and workplace arenas. They included emphasis on workers’ as well as managerial interests in various forms and objectives of learning. Latter debates on organizational learning appear predominantly shaped by a distinctive economic rationality and management interest. This article, from a sociological vantage point, reviews key thematic issues and critically explores some current questions in regard to organizations and learning. It proposes that a prevailing economic model in accordance with generalized policy objectives evident across the advanced economies for a neo-liberalized “knowledge-based economy” and “learning society” poses a particular set of contemporary issues and problems. The current juncture may, however, stimulate further innovation in models of learning organizations that widen agenda and prospects for learning.
... The learning organisation (LO) as a concept has in recent years been subjected to robust criticism (Grieves 2008;Rebelo and Gomes 2008;Eijkman 2011;Casey 2012). There are two broad critical perspectives. ...
... One calls for the concept to be abandoned (Grieves 2008;Rebelo and Gomes 2008), and the other for alternative LO discourses. The latter explores "conditions of possibility", which are informed by humanistic values and ideas about social justice (Eijkman 2011;Casey 2012). According to Eijkman (2011), such conditions are likely to be found in non-business and non-Western contexts. ...
... Learning organisation theory began in the 1970s; it emerged out of a much older tradition of activism which sought to promote workers' education and skills development (Casey 2012). It became extremely popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. ...
Amidst criticism of the concept of “the learning organisation” there is a perspective which is both critical of, and open to, innovative ways of developing the notion of a learning organisation. This article contributes to this perspective by examining the learning practices of a feminist NGO which operates across Southern Africa. The ways in which this NGO has interpreted the idea of a learning organisation and put it into practice are an example of a bottom-up approach which is informed by humanism. The findings of this qualitative study demonstrate both innovative possibilities for organisational learning and potential pitfalls.
... Another issue that ecological thinking highlights is the difficulty of including the perspectives and ideas of marginalized members of an educational community (Cho et al., 2013;Gow, 1997), some of whom are so disenfranchised that they do not even see value in being part of the reform efforts (Ogbu & Simons, 1998). Finally, ecological approaches value transforming imbalances between collective imperatives for schools and personal or intrinsic priorities of people affected by education systems (Casey, 2012;LotzSisitka et al., 2015). Such imbalances can come about through impersonal and technocratic instrumentalizations of learning, which value standardized assessments within resultsbased management approaches to education (Biesta, 2007;Klees, 2012;SteinerKhamsi, 2012;Westheimer, 2015). ...
... This rhetoric advocates for educational systems to reorient their focus towards these shifting and uncertain economic ends. This reorientation may often be based on a neoliberal push for technoscientific management that limits learning in organizations (Casey, 2012). However, the insistence on a knowledge and technology focus can be appropriated towards transdisciplinary models that go beyond disciplinarily discreet divisions to focus on knowledge and technology as the organizing tools of curriculum. ...
This article analyzes the potential for reshaping disciplinary divides by engaging with theories and movements that relate to educational change. Generating educational structures that diverge from conventional discipline-based models are a common way of attempting contemporary educational reforms. Interdisciplinary approaches are analyzed in this paper relative to theories of change in the context of secondary level education, with a focus on Québec, Canada. The purpose of this article is to understand and give meaning to the concept of interdisciplinarity within educational change and reform. This exploration proposes a conceptual map for understanding educational change efforts that aim towards rethinking disciplinarity. A model case, NEXTschool, is included to illustrate the applied relevance of the theories and ideas explored in this paper.
... These 'failures' to meet the targets added a degree of frustration, especially in the initial days of the second cycle. Those teachers who would not entertain change used this 'muddy water situation' to find excuses to return to the 'habitual comfort' of the dominant, pre-ordained pedagogical design (Casey 2012) and refuse to move beyond it. Despite this, as evident in the latter days of the second cycle, continuous dialogues, flexibility, and openness seemed to provide bounce-back strategies to maintain the innovative spirit of the practitioners. ...
This paper reflects upon and discusses the case of a participatory action research project in a public school in Nepal with the aim of exploring the possibilities for participatory approaches to contextualised teaching and learning. We discuss how research-degree students and school stakeholders involved in participatory needs assessment identified the need for contextualised teaching and learning and the participatory and generative model of contextualised teaching and learning we initiated in response. However, at the end of three different participatory action research (PAR) cycles, we came to an understanding that, for sustainable pedagogical reforms, even buzz words like ‘participatory’ and ‘shifts in perspectives’ have some limitations. In a bureaucratic schooling structure, like that in Nepal, pedagogical innovations for contextualised teaching and learning have to negotiate pre-structured schooling cultures, and therefore, any change in individual and group perspectives has to be accompanied by a shift in regular schooling design, from linear closedness to ecological openness. Otherwise, the innovations for contextualised teaching and learning are unlikely to be sustained in the face of the dominant practice architecture.
... A continuous back-and-forth exchange of information in virtual discussions is self-correcting because this exchange creates shared meaning between participants (Carter, 2015;Espinosa et al., 2015;Lai, 2015;Morgan et al., 2014). Eventually, members come to understand a similarity in words, phrases, and concepts exchanged; a valuable learning community benefits from an active, quality communication process (Casey, 2012;Oh & Lee, 2016;Wenger, 1998). ...
The reduced range of online communication means that less information is available for the parties in a communication to acquire an accurate meaning of words, phrases, or concepts in an exchange process. In online communication, encoded emotional information is often subtle and difficult to interpret with any degree of accuracy; this interpretation is even more difficult in academic discussions that are lacking in emotion. The resulting misunderstandings contribute to a degree of uncertainty and confusion with some students, and to full-blown conflict with others. Uncertainty is problematic because it can inhibit or altogether collapse a conventional trust perception. The most valuable communications, therefore, develop on a foundation of trust. This study was designed to explore swift trust, a lesser form of trust that can form instantly from the initial communications expressed in a community. A swift trust perception can bridge social development and allow communicants to ignore the communication and environmental challenges that impede a conventional form of trust from developing for virtual communities. This quantitative study utilized multiple regression analysis to predict relationships between the predictive variables and examine the criterion variables in focus. The multiple regression analysis was used to interpret the survey data and provide insight into the trust-inducing potential of a fragile swift trust perception for elevating online discussions to a higher level.
Keywords: swift trust, online learning, critical dialogue, knowledge sharing, multiple regression
... Todavia, apesar da diversidade de perspectivas, a aprendizagem organizacional desenvolveu-se pautada numa visão fundamentalmente utilitarista, baseada numa racionalidade instrumental, cujo foco visa melhores resultados. Manteve-se, portanto, sob forte influência dos modelos macroeconômicos da economia do conhecimento, em que o foco da aprendizagem está voltado para o estímulo à inovação através da geração de conhecimento e utilidade estratégica (Casey, 2012). Entretanto, o reconhecimento do lado social e cultural das organizações tem buscado redirecionar o estudo da aprendizagem organizacional, deslocando-a de um processo estritamente cognitivo para visualizá-la como um processo cultural e baseado em práticas, com destaque para a fonte informal das relações sociais (Gherardi, 2000a(Gherardi, , 2009aAntonello e Azevedo, 2011). ...
This qualitative study aimed to discuss organizational learning in public service, trying to analyze its configuration from the elements that constitute social work practices. By adopting a social practice perspective for the analysis of organizational learning, it was decided to carry out a case study on Integrated Unit. The result analysis was based on the assumptions of the interpretative approach. The main results indicate that the social practice learning is still distant of management practices in the public service in the analyzed unit, mainly due to the prevalence of bureaucratization and centralization, as elements whose nature blocks the social practice flow in the management and organization of everyday activities in public service.
This chapter reveals the roles of lifelong learning and knowledge management (KM) in global higher education, thus explaining the theoretical and practical concepts of lifelong learning and KM; the application of KM; and the significance of lifelong learning and KM in global higher education. The utilization of lifelong learning and KM is necessary for higher education institutions (HEIs) that seek to serve students and faculties, increase educational performance, strengthen competitiveness, and achieve continuous success in global higher education. Therefore, it is essential for HEIs to examine their lifelong learning applications, develop a strategic plan to regularly check their practical advancements, and immediately respond to lifelong learning and KM needs of customers in modern HEIs. Applying lifelong learning and KM in global higher education will significantly enhance organizational performance and reach strategic goals in the digital age.
In recent years, efforts to understand learning for and throughout working life have moved away from a focus on workplace training to concerns about learning as a component and outcome of engaging in work and work-related activities and interactions. This shift acknowledges a broader set of workplace factors that shape workers’ learning and development. Yet equally, it acknowledges that this learning through engagement is also necessarily shaped by the diverse ways that individuals elect to engage or participate in workplace activities. Central here is the issue of individuals’ subjectivity and how this is shaped by but shapes engagement in work and, therefore, what learning flows from their participation. It is in considering the relations among subjectivity, learning and work that it is possible to advance both the conceptual and procedural bases for understanding learning through and for working life. Moreover, the focus on relations among subjectivity, work and learning represents a point of convergence for diverse disciplinary traditions and practices that are provided by the book’s contributors. In this way, the contributions represent something of the emerging perspectives that are elaborating the complex relations among subjectivity, work and learning, and circumstances in which they are played out.
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, and learning as participation in communities of practice. The ‘third way’ of OL is defined as the development of experience and knowledge by inquiry (or reflective thinking) in social worlds held together by commitment. One of the practical implications of the ‘third way’ of OL is to bring intuition and emotion to the fore in organizational development and learning. The implication for research is to work with situations and events as units of analysis in order to understand individuals and organizations as being mutually forming and formed.
Despite the growing popularity of organizational learning and the proliferation of literature on the subject, the concept remains elusive for researchers and managers alike. This article argues that enduring uncertainty about the meaning and practice of organizational learning reflects its so-called mystification. It attributes mystification to five features of the field: (a) ever-increasing conceptual diversity, (b) anthropomorphizing organizational learning, (c) a split in the field between visionaries and skeptics, (d) the reification of terminology, and (e) active mystification of the concept. The article explains and illustrates how the literature on organizational learning has contributed to these processes of mystification. It concludes by specifying a number of strategies that researchers and practitioners can employ to demystify the concept of organizational learning.
The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers. Uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the relative security that characterized the three decades following World War II. Precarious work constitutes a global challenge that has a wide range of consequences cutting across many areas of concern to sociologists. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the new workplace arrangements that generate precarious work and worker insecurity. A focus on employment relations forms the foundation of theories of the institutions and structures that generate precarious work and the cultural and individual factors that influence people's responses to uncertainty. Sociologists are well-positioned to explain, offer insight, and provide input into public policy about such changes and the state of contemporary employment relations.
Purpose – The intentions of this article are to contribute reflections of an empirical account of working with critical reflection within an organisational development programme, addressing the following questions: What space is there for critical reflection in organisational development? What issues are raised for in-company developers and providers by advocating critical reflection in organisation practice? Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach is taken, presenting an empirical account of a management and organisational development programme that integrated action learning and critical reflection. Findings – The account illustrates difficulties of employing critical reflection within the workplace arising from the more complex power relations between the multiple stakeholders in a commercial context. In particular, dissonance provoked by critical reflection confronts the client with a tension over whether to see organisation members primarily as customers to please or as participants in a change process which inevitably will disrupt. Practical implications – In making sense of the perspectives of different stakeholders a model is presented to help practitioners in development of this kind to anticipate potential issues. Originality/value – The paper presents a rare account of employing critical reflection in a work organisation development programme.
Global pressures present similar challenges to companies in different countries, but how those organizations deal with them depends on the social and institutional framework in which they develop and operate. In this book, leading academics explore and explain variations in governance systems, focusing in particular on European trends. In Governance at Work: The Social Regulation of Economic Relations the authors ask: · Are structures of work and business organization changing? Are we seeing a move away from large-scale (Fordist) mass-production systems that have dominated the industrialized world in the 20th century? · What are the local/national determinants of business organization?.
What is the link between working life and the nature of production on the one hand, and the changing organization of the firms and institutions in which work and production take place? In this book leading socio-economic theorists analyse how these have changed over the last two decades. They look at changing employment practices and systems of work, and link these to political, social, and institutional reforms; the degree of continuity and change in working life, the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of recent changes in the world of work, and the implications of these changes for worker health and well-being.
How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.
Companies and work have undergone significant change, and a new productive model has emerged. This book shows how the model works, showing its high degree of coherence in terms of the integration of functions within companies. This book creates a new and challenging theory of services, rooted in the concrete experience of workshops and offices. © Jean-Pierre Durand and Nikhil Virani 2007. All rights reserved.
For decades, the idea that more education will lead to greater individual and national prosperity has been a cornerstone of developed economies. Indeed, it is almost universally believed that college diplomas give Americans and Europeans a competitive advantage in the global knowledge wars. Challenging this conventional wisdom, this book forces us to reconsider our deeply held and mistaken views about how the global economy really works and how to thrive in it. Drawing on cutting-edge research based on a major international study, the chapters show that the competition for good, middle-class jobs is now a worldwide competition-an auction for cut-priced brainpower-fueled by an explosion of higher education across the world. They highlight a fundamental power shift in favor of corporate bosses and emerging economies such as China and India, a change that is driving the new global high-skill, low-wage workforce. Fighting for a dwindling supply of good jobs will compel the middle classes to devote more time, money, and effort to set themselves apart in a bare-knuckle competition that will leave many disappointed. The chapters urges a new conversation about the kind of society we want to live in and about the kind of global economy that can benefit workers, but without condemning millions in emerging economies to a life of poverty. The book is a radical rethinking of the ideas that stand at the heart of the American Dream. It offers an expose of the realities of the global struggle for middle class jobs, a competition that threatens the livelihoods of millions of American and European workers and their families.
As human capital is the source of innovation, one of the policy principles of the OECD Innovation Strategy is to "foster innovative workplaces". Education and training systems must rise to the challenge of providing people with the means to learn and re-train throughout their life. Companies and organisations need to maximise the human resources they have at their disposal.
Do employers make the best use of people’s skills for innovation? Are some work organisations more associated with innovation than others? If so, are these organisations more widespread in some countries than in others? Are they associated with particular labour market policies, managerial practices, learning cultures or certain levels of education? What are the challenges for innovation within organisations?
This volume shows that interaction within organisations - as well as individual and organisational learning and training - are important for innovation. The analytical tools and empirical results this study provides show how some work organisations may foster innovation through the use of employee autonomy and discretion, supported by learning and training opportunities.
Innovative Workplaces will be of interest to policy makers in the fields of education, employment and innovation as well as business leaders, academics and all readers interested in social issues.
This book critically assesses the learning that is required and provided within a learning society and gives a detailed sociological analysis of the emerging role of lifelong learning with examples from around the globe. Divided into three clear parts the book: looks at the development of the knowledge economy; provides a critique of lifelong learning and the learning society; focuses on the changing nature of research in the learning society. The author, well-known and highly respected in this field, examines how lifelong learning and the learning society have become social phenomena across the globe. He argues that the driving forces of globalisation are radically changing lifelong learning and shows that adult education/learning only gained mainstream status because of these global changes and as learning became more work orientated.
Organization design processes can take many forms from the simple "off-the-peg" standard solutions to carefully tailored solutions characterized by many iterations of experimentation, evaluation, and collective reflection by various stakeholders. To key contextual factors affecting such processes are culture and decision-making authority. These variables are complex in themselves and their influence on the redesign process can b e moderated by specific factors. The chapter presents a case which illustrates how efforts to accommodate collective reflection within an organizational redesign program were affected by organizational culture and centralized decision-making and how these effects were heightened by a "secrecy factor".
Prologue Part I. Practice: Introduction I 1. Meaning 2. Community 3. Learning 4. Boundary 5. Locality Coda I. Knowing in practice Part II. Identity: Introduction II 6. Identity in practice 7. Participation and non-participation 8. Modes of belonging 9. Identification and negotiability Coda II. Learning communities Conclusion: Introduction III 10. Learning architectures 11. Organizations 12. Education Epilogue.
Ikujiro Nonaka e Hirotaka Takeuchi establecen una vinculación del desempeño de las empresas japonesas con su capacidad para crear conocimiento y emplearlo en la producción de productos y tecnologías exitosas en el mercado. Los autores explican que hay dos tipos de conocimiento: el explícito, contenido en manuales y procedimientos, y el tácito, aprendido mediante la experiencia y comunicado, de manera indirecta, en forma de metáforas y analogías. Mientras los administradores estadounidenses se concentran en el conocimiento explícito, los japoneses lo hacen en el tácito y la clave de su éxito estriba en que han aprendido a convertir el conocimiento tácito en explícito. Finalmente, muestran que el mejor estilo administrativo para crear conocimiento es el que ellos denominan centro-arriba-abajo, en el que los gerentes de niveles intermedios son un puente entre los ideales de la alta dirección y la realidad caótica de los niveles inferiores.
This article explores and appraises Gregory Bateson's theory of “levels of learning” and its implications for Human Resource Development, with reference to issues of organizational learning. In Part One, after briefly reviewing Bateson's biography, the origins and contents of the theory are described. In Part Two, three particular features of the theory are explored, together with their implications for Human Resource Development: (i) The significance of the recursive relationship between the levels; (ii) It not being a stage theory of learning; “higher” levels of learning are neither superior to, nor necessarily more desirable than, lower levels; and (iii) Its emphasis on the notion of context. In Part Three, the discussion emphasizes the holistic nature of Bateson's theory, in that the levels of learning combine cognitive, embodied, and aesthetic dimensions. Some limitations of the theory are reviewed and then concluded by considering its perspective on the question, “do organizations learn?”
It has long been acknowledged that adult and lifelong educators have exercised little influence over national education policies. This article addresses the issue, with particular reference to the research elements of policy advocacy. Researchers and policy‐makers are distinguished and related as communities of practice and intellectual categories of social function. It is argued that the concept ‘policy‐maker’ is too ambiguous to be of either theoretical or practical use, especially since the focus has shifted over the years away from the advocacy of adult education to the implementation of lifelong learning. Also, the concepts of both ‘policy’ and ‘research’ have undergone significant shifts of meaning, so that traditional ideas of the relation between research and policy are now outdated. We live in an age of public scepticism about the political uses to which research is put, and this also needs to be taken into account in the case of lifelong learning. Thus, the relation between research and the policy process needs to be reconceptualised in a future beyond lifelong learning in order to be meaningful, with the focus much more upon process than outcome. Only in this way could adult and lifelong educators expect to have any influence upon national policies.
A current turn of interest in notions of the ‘learning economy’ and the ‘learning society’ is fuelling discussions on promoting education, training and learning in contemporary organizations and workplaces. Although the education of workers has been variously theorized and practised throughout the 20th century, the current debates are marked by a prevailing economic perspective that places emphasis on constructing ‘learning organizations’ and on ‘human resource’ learning in service of organizational strategies for innovation and competitive advantage in economic activities. Critics point out that economic and managerial models scarcely attend to the human subjectivity of the learner‐worker and the worker's diverse learning interests. Broader socio‐cultural ends of worker learning such as lifelong human development and participatory citizenship in democratic society are very often overlooked. This article offers a critical discussion of current conceptions of learning organizations and learning workers. It argues that the prevailing focus on techno‐economic imperatives and of obscured managerial elite interests in organizations currently circumscribe and delimit learning in production organizations. It proposes that a more comprehensive approach to learning in organizations attends explicitly to the needs and interests of workers as learning persons. Taking a longer view, it proposes that organizational and worker learning may generate not only improved work practices but may regenerate links between lifelong learning, societal democratic citizenship and civilized organizations.
Contents: Professional Knowledge and Reflection-in-Action: The crisis of confidence in professional knowledge From technical rationality to reflection-in-action. Professional Contexts for Reflection-in-Action: Design as a reflective conversation with the situation Psychotherapy: The patient as a universe of one The structure of reflection-in-action Reflective practice in the science-based professions Town planning: Limits to reflection-in-action The art of managing: Reflection-in-action within an organizational learning system Patterns and limits of reflection-in-action across the professions. Conclusion: Implications for the professions and their place in society.
Drawing from critical management studies and critical pedagogy, this article proposes principles and practices to support the emerging critical human resource development (HRD) field as one stream among existing theories and practice of HRD. A critical HRD would challenge the subjugation of human knowledge, skills, and relationships to organizational or shareholder gain and focus on transforming workplaces and HRD practice toward justice, fairness, and equity. Because both HRD practices and critical perspectives themselves are so diverse, a critical HRD must be formulated in sufficiently broad terms to encourage a variety of conceptual developments including discursive, gendered, materialist, and anti-racist lines of analysis. Theoretical dilemmas of a critical HRD are discussed, such as ideological contradictions between the radical orientation of critical theory and the managerialist or performative frames to which much HRD practice is accountable. Possible configurations of a critical HRD are described, as these might play out in contexts of HRD practice.
This book first took shape in my mind as little more than a study of occupational shifts in the United States. I was interested in the structure of the working class, and the manner in which it had changed. That portion of the population employed in manufacturing and associated industries—the so-called industrial working class—had apparently been shrinking for some time, if not in absolute numbers at any rate in relative terms. Since the details of this process, especially its historical turning points and the shape of the new employment that was taking the place of the old, were not clear to me, I undertook to find out more about them. And since, as I soon discovered, these things had not yet been clarified in any comprehensive fashion, I decided that there was a need for a more substantial historical description and analysis of the process of occupational change than had yet been presented in print. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.
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This fully revised and updated edition takes account of recent research and policy. It will be essential reading for academics with a scholarly interest in adult learning, as well as for teachers, managers and others who want to understand one of the most critical and fast-moving areas of modern educational policy.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to outline the aims for this journal with the new editor.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper gives an overview of TLO in the past and the possible future direction for the journal.
Findings
– It is found that: first, the LO as a prescription for organizational change “writ large” has little relevance to contemporary practitioners, consultants, and researchers; second, that the LO concept is in effect a contradiction in terms and therefore fatally flawed to the point it should be abandoned; third, if the journal is to continue the use of the LO concept that it does so pragmatically with a refocusing on tried and tested informal work‐integrated action learning and critical analysis and adopt a distinct critical edge; fourth, that if so, it must adopt broader and more culturally sensitive perspectives that recognise the limitations and biases inherent in this Euro/American‐centric concept and its practices; and fifth, that this of all journals needs to acknowledge and respond to the irresistible tide of the democratisation of information in the digital age and the growth of informal learning both in terms of the papers published and in the way it, as a journal, operates.
Originality/value
– The author believes that as an international journal The Learning Organization is eminently placed to engage practitioners, professionals and academics in a progressive dialogue that, though characterized by a questioning stance, recognizes the opportunities to enhance not just organizational productivity and managerial power but also the quality of work environments for all personnel.
Learning in workplaces is always mediated through talk. It is tempting for management to seek to utilise everyday talk as part of learning and therefore enhance productivity. This paper examines the responses of workers to interventions that aim to formalise informal conversations at work as part of an explicit workplace learning strategy. It draws on interviews with managers and workers in a public sector organisation to examine their experience of these practices. The paper raises questions about whether interventions in the name of fostering informal learning may well be hindering what they seek to promote.