Management Learning current issue

Learning Fusion: Introduction to the Dedicated Organizational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities Issue

Elliott, C., Rouse, M., Vera, D. — 2008-08-15

Compelling Identity: Selves and Insecurity in Global, Corporate Management Development

Gagnon, S. — 2008-08-15

Adopting a post-structuralist analytical framework, this article fuses two seminal notions, Alvesson and Willmott's identity regulation in organizations and Collinson's emphasis on insecurity within processes of identity construction, to unravel subjectivities and the production of identity in two global, corporate management development programs. Drawing on interviews and observation in the settings, the article contrasts discursive practices in the two programs. It then examines the micro-processes of program participants' identity work in each context, using as a heuristic tool Collinson's theory of conforming, dramaturgical and resisting selves. Contributing to critical studies in management education, this framing draws attention to the dynamics of power in shaping identities within management development. The study suggests new notions of how identity regulation and insecurity interact, relating to two `ideal types' or models of management development emerging in the fieldwork.

Effects of Newcomer Practicing on Cross-level Learning Distortions

Branzei, O., Fredette, C. — 2008-08-15

This article fuses variance generation and suppression arguments with the micro-underpinnings of collective learning to bring the socio-emotional context of learning to the foreground. We take a practice-based perspective on cross-level learning distortions to explore non-recursive trade-offs between variance generation and variance suppression as newcomers adapt to established groups and as groups react to newcomers. Our typology first disaggregates the effects of sociality and emotionality to describe four patterns of context-contingent individual practicing: experimenting, emulating, bracketing and impersonating. We then explain why groups operating in distinct contexts may systematically ignore or discount two specific types of individual departures from collective norms: outliers (infrequent, significant deviations) and clusters (frequent, incremental changes). Our theoretical predictions add value to managers by unpacking the contextual contingencies that systematically pattern individual and collective learning and by suggesting specific interventions for preventing or alleviating learning disorders.

Cognitive and Practice-based Theories of Organizational Knowledge and Learning: Incompatible or Complementary?

Marshall, N. — 2008-08-15

Cognitive and practice-based approaches to organizational knowledge and learning are typically portrayed as incommensurable, with the result that there has been little positive dialogue between the two traditions. This article argues that the incompatibility of the two sets of approaches has been overstated and that there is actually much that each can learn from the other. Cognitive approaches, which have often been accused of offering an effectively individualized, static and representationalist understanding of organizational knowledge, can benefit from taking on board the practice-based view of knowledge as historically, culturally and socially situated. However, the article also suggests that practice-based theories would do well to draw insights from cognitive approaches, particularly regarding the role of cognitive frameworks or schemas in guiding knowledge processes. To provide an example of how cognitive and practice-based approaches can be integrated, the latter part of the article offers an empirical illustration of how a team of consulting engineers represent and perform alternative schemas of project work through their day-to-day practices.

Leading Organizational Learning Through Authentic Dialogue

Mazutis, D., Slawinski, N. — 2008-08-15

This article explores how authentic leaders enable learning in organizations through the mechanism of dialogue. Using Crossan et al.'s multi-level framework, we examine how top managers who exhibit the authentic leadership capabilities of self-awareness, balanced processing, self-regulation and relational transparency can shape an organizational culture characterized by authentic dialogue. This culture then supports feed-forward and feedback learning across individual, group and organizational levels, promoting and reinforcing double-loop learning. We develop propositions that integrate the leadership and organizational learning literatures and offer suggestions for future research.

Shared Knowledge and Understandings in Organizations: Its Development and Impact in Organizational Learning Processes

Schulz, K.-P. — 2008-08-15

This article considers the meaning of background assumptions in the process of learning and development in organizations, and builds on actor and activity theoretical views. Learning is assumed as collective development in social systems as stated in Engeström's theory of expansive learning. The question is answered as to how background assumptions change and develop in the expansive learning cycle. Therefore, Engeström's model is fused with the concepts `theory in use' by Argyris and Schön, and `local theory' by Baitsch. The inter-relation between the change in background assumptions and expansive learning is discussed in a case study from the pharmaceutical industry. The case study describes a process simulation designed for staff training in the production area. Results are based on a qualitative empirical survey of process simulation and its effect on daily work.

Erratum

2008-08-15