Management Learning recent issues

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

Understanding Relations of Individual--Collective Learning in Work: A Review of Research

Fenwick, T. — 2008-06-03

A review was conducted of literature addressing learning in work, focusing on relations between individual and collective learning published in nine journals during the period 1999—2004. The journals represent three distinct fields of management/ organization studies, adult education and human resource development; all publish material about workplace learning regularly. In total, 209 articles were selected for content analysis, containing a range of material including reports of empirical research to theoretical discussion. Eight themes of individual—collective learning were identified through inductive content analysis of this literature: individual knowledge acquisition, sense-making/reflective dialogue, levels of learning, network utility, individual human development, individuals in community, communities-of-practice and co-participation or co-emergence. The discussion highlights similar issues stated in the different journals about understanding individual—collective learning, the apparent lack of dialogue across the fields, the ontological and ideological differences among the themes of learning currently in circulation and the low frequency of analysis of power relations in the articles reviewed.

How Power Dynamics Impact the Content and Process of Nonprofit CEO Learning

Sherlock, J. J., Nathan, M. L. — 2008-06-03

Demands and challenges facing the nonprofit chief executive officer (CEO) are at least as substantial as their compensation and perquisites. Although it is assumed that the CEO must engage in extensive and continued learning in order to meet these demands and challenges, we know little about their actual learning experiences. Thus, a qualitative research study of the learning experiences of 12 CEOs of nonprofit organizations was conducted, using Mezirow's theory of adult learning as an analytical frame. A dominant theme in the CEOs' learning experiences concerned learning about the power dynamics which they perceived as pervasive in the CEO context. The CEOs also described how the power dynamics impacted the way they learned, making dialogue difficult and requiring greater reliance on private reflection.

Emancipating Assessment: Assessment Assumptions and Critical Alternatives in an Experience-based Programme

Elliott, C. — 2008-06-03

This article aims to make a contribution to management education by proposing a critical alternative to assessment on experience-based programmes that has emerged from a study of an MBA programme based on action learning principles. The article discusses the programme's learning and assessment design and students' responses to their learning experience. It analyses elements forming the MBA design, including Revans' action learning model and Kolb's learning cycle, as well as its assessment procedures, to put into context a discussion of learners' responses to these pedagogies. The article concludes by suggesting how a critical perspective might be introduced through the adaptation of collaborative assessment methods, currently more common in adult and professional education. This would lead to a repositioning of the student's experience in which the experience of the MBA itself becomes a source for knowledge. The article ends with the suggestion that `being assessed' could form the basis of an experientially based examination of a practice of institutional power.

Managers' Learning in a UK Local Authority: The Political Context of an In-house MBA

Thursfield, D. — 2008-06-03

Public sector learning is often described as individualistic and operational. This article investigates an in-house MBA that was created explicitly to promote collective learning among managers in a UK local authority. The MBA was envisaged as an innovative programme and incorporated situated learning theory and reflective practice into its teaching and learning strategy. It failed, however, to achieve its aim and managers' learning remained focused on individual competencies. This is because the political context of a UK local authority is an impediment to collective learning. In particular, new public management initiatives such as `Best Value' and `Public Private Partnership' prevented collaboration between individual managers and departments.

Learning and Tensions in Managerial Intercultural Encounters: A Dialectical Interpretation

Fisher, C., Doughty, D., Mussayeva, S. — 2008-06-03

The article develops the literature on the dynamics of intercultural encounters in the context of western-led management learning in post-Soviet countries. The article is conceptual but the frameworks it proposes are informed by the authors' `learning histories' of their participation in a project to start a new management college in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. It is suggested that the various perspectives, or stages, in such encounters that are identified in the literature may be understood as a dialectical process that parallels Hegel's dialectics of self-consciousness. It is argued that this interpretation strengthens existing conceptualizations by adding new insights; such as that movement through the dialectic occurs by diminishing the horizons of intercultural conflict from inter-group through inter-personal to intra-personal tensions.

Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning Based on Rule Changes

Kieser, A., Koch, U. — 2008-06-03

A basic problem of organizational learning is recombining members' knowledge into innovative solutions. This article shows that extant approaches tend to position this problem in the organizational members' minds, thereby neglecting the problem of limited rationality. In some approaches of this type, organizational learning is conceptualized as the result of members learning from each other. In contrast to these concepts, some authors are convinced that a mode of organizational learning that is dependent on cross-learning between specialists cannot be effective because of the limits of an individual's cognitive abilities. These authors therefore try to identify organizational mechanisms that partly substitute for or support cross-learning between specialists. This article builds on this approach by developing a concept of `transactive organizational learning', which takes organizational rules as repositories of knowledge and relies on organizational mechanisms that allow the direct transfer of specialists' knowledge into rules. Empirical support for this concept was found in case studies from two German companies.

Review Section: Skills, Training and Human Resource Development; A Critical Text IRENA GRUGULIS. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 1--4039--4802-X. 261 pp

Craven, V. — 2008-06-03

Review Section: The Making of Modern Management: British Management in Historical Perspective JOHN F. WILSON and ANDREW THOMSON. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 978--0--19--926158--1

Greener, I. — 2008-06-03

Review Section: The Consequences of Decision-Making N. BRUNSSON. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 978--0--19--920628--5

Lowe, A. — 2008-06-03

Review Section: Organization at the Limit -- Lessons from the Columbia Disaster WILLIAM H. STARBUCK and MOSHE FARJOUN (eds). Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 387 pp. {pound}39.95 (hbk). ISBN 1--4051--3108--7 (hbk)

Vendelo, M. T. — 2008-06-03

Introduction: Constructionist Approaches to Management Research

Thorpe, R. — 2008-03-18

Orientations to Social Constructionism: Relationally Responsive Social Constructionism and its Implications for Knowledge and Learning

Cunliffe, A. L. — 2008-03-18

This article maps the various interests and orientations of social constructionism as a basis for: (1) situating work in the field, (2) understanding differences in its interests and scope, (3) making deliberate choices about our own approach to social constructionist research and (4) thinking about how these choices might play through our teaching. The article suggests that these orientations are based on various underlying assumptions about the nature of social reality, which influence how we conceptualize and study organizations and management. It offers an example of one such orientation—relationally responsive social constructionism—and explores its implications for knowledge and learning.

On Managerial Knowledge

Chia, R., Holt, R. — 2008-03-18

This article investigates what it means for a manager to be knowledgeable. It identifies, on the one hand, a rational tendency to sublimate knowledge as something more exact, definitive and logical than mere learning, and, on the other hand, a practical tendency to subjugate knowledge to social conventions. Articulating a third way between these views, the article critically develops the work of those management scholars for whom the objectivity of knowledge claims is perpetually upset by the recurring influence of environmental context, novel use and localized, community agreement. The influence of what Wittgenstein refers to as background conditions is identified and this background is woven into personal, empirical experiences of events as the bedrock upon which knowledgeable conditions rest. It is not profound, or inaccessibly `deep', but right there before us; it is ordinary belief. It is argued that very often it is these everyday settings that are most revealing when it comes to investigating and understanding what goes by the name managerial knowledge.

Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management: Whence and Whither?

Spender, J.-C. — 2008-03-18

Draws together theorizing in learning, organization and management studies in order to consider the nature of the problems by which the practice of knowledge management is animated. Though in places propositional, the points being made remain deliberately suggestive insofar as they invoke a wide-ranging past to consider what might be probable futures. The conclusion invokes a return to the past, in suggesting that the potential for knowledge management lies with its returning to a time when theorizing was grounded in what we now choose to ignore, namely managers' experiences and practices as they use their imagination in wealth-creating activity.

Object-mediated Learning and Strategic Renewal in a Mature Organization

Macpherson, A., Jones, O. — 2008-03-18

Knowledge transformation between practice-based communities is reported through a 2-year longitudinal case study. The company, PresMed, was transformed from a moribund and divided organization to one where different practice-based communities engaged in collective learning. However, the transformation involved conflict, politics and power to overcome the influence of localized and embedded knowledge. The nature of practice-based learning means investment in past activities and different organizational communities create tensions. It is suggested that mediating artefacts, or boundary objects, provide an opportunity to develop new shared conceptions of activity and new modes of action. However, at the heart of this transformation, communication, politics and power are central to pragmatic engagement in new practices. Thus, it is the social activities and the political will and skill to influence, cajole and institutionalize systemic changes and not the artefacts or objects per se that are at the heart of knowledge transformation.

Learning and Network Collaboration in Product Development: How Things Work for Human Use

Miettinen, R., Lehenkari, J., Tuunainen, J. — 2008-03-18

This article studies the learning and capability formation of a biotechnology firm by analysing its development path, which is composed of successive product development and innovation processes. In collaborative product development work, network collaboration, as well as the acquisition of new competences and learning, evolves simultaneously and interactively. Searching for and encountering partners with complementary knowledge and resources is important in the emergence of new product-development processes. To improve understanding of this path formation, the article draws on cultural—historical activity theory, science and technology studies and the epistemology of things and effects. These all underline the significance of material artefacts for learning and activity. The epistemology of things and effects addresses the knowledge of how things work in experimental systems and products. Enzymes, proteins and instruments are put to work in a stabilized way as parts of new products. The effects so mastered entail the functional qualities that make products competitive in the marketplace.

Transferring Knowledge to Acquisition Joint Ventures: An Organizational Unlearning Perspective

Tsang, E. W. K. — 2008-01-25

Unlike organizational learning, the concept of organizational unlearning has rarely been employed in empirical research. Based on a comparative case analysis, this article examines knowledge transfer, by foreign partners, to acquisition joint ventures in China. Because an acquisition joint venture is formed on the basis of an existing state enterprise, the need for organizational unlearning arises. The article investigates how issues related to organizational unlearning affect knowledge transfer in each stage of the transfer process, namely, initiation, implementation, ramp-up and integration.

More Success than Meets the Eye--A Challenge to Critiques of the MBA: Possibilities for Critical Management Education?

Hay, A., Hodgkinson, M. — 2008-01-25

Management education generally, and MBA programmes in particular, have been persistently criticized for failing to speak adequately to management practice. One response to such criticisms has been to suggest a wider consideration of critical management education (CME). Drawing on research findings from an empirical study of MBA learning, the article argues that MBA learning can be seen as more valuable to the manager in practice than critics contend. Moreover, the learning which is valued resonates with both a critical understanding of management and critical accounts of the role of management education, suggesting that a covert form of CME may already be operating. We argue that further building on this understanding provides the potential for a more prominent CME. Specifically, we propose that the experience brought to and lived within the MBA programme provides an opportunity for `problematizing' accepted ways of making sense of the world.

Unfolding the Dance of Team Learning: A Metaphorical Investigation of Collective Learning

Rowe, A. — 2008-01-25

This article engages with the ongoing debate surrounding the validity of collective learning methodologies found in the popular management literature, such as team learning. It explores some of the alleged lacunae in these dialogic methodologies by exploring the metaphors invoked by their proponents. This exploration employs a metaphorical framework, which then takes one of these metaphors (dance) and unfolds it as a more substantive `model' metaphor—rather than apply it in a superficial way, as appears to be the case currently. This development, in turn, permits the integration of an alternative sociocultural view of collective learning. Consequently, dialogue in collective learning becomes represented as divergent and multifarious, rather than merely as convergent upon simplistic outcomes. The potentials of the dance metaphor are examined, alongside a brief discussion of the methodological approaches that could facilitate further exploration, making it possible to highlight aspects for consideration in further research.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Reflecting on the Ethics and Effects of a Collective Critical Management Studies Identity Project

Reedy, P. — 2008-01-25

This article explores the relationship between the identity of critical management studies (CMS) academics and that of managers. The article argues that, as a result of the way in which CMS identities are pursued, managers often become represented as culpable dupes. This instrumental `othering' of managers tends to work against an empathetic understanding of their lives. The article suggests that this raises ethical problems as it runs counter to the espoused aims of much CMS work. The article first considers the nature of CMS through a number of key `positioning' articles that suggest an identity attractive to many of its members. It goes on to analyse how this identity positions the managerial other, using a theoretical framework derived from Sartre, Heidegger and Ricoeur. The article concludes with a discussion of how CMS might address the implications of the interdependent identity projects of academics and managers.

From Practice-based Knowledge to the Practice of Research: Revisiting Constructivist Research Works on Knowledge

Charreire Petit, S., Huault, I. — 2008-01-25

Research studies within organizational knowledge are good examples for both analyzing and illustrating the debate regarding a paradigm shift in management. Most articles in the field focus on knowledge complexity and its socially constructed side. Researchers have noted a great deal of similarity between this socially constructed nature and the shaping elements of constructivism. They argue for a paradigm shift, rejecting positivism. To more fully understand this paradigm shift, and to address the number of methodological questions it raises, we carried out a content analysis on a sample of the main articles dealing with organizational knowledge. Our research points out that the principles of constructivism are difficult to adhere to within research design. It underlines the lack of specific methodological devices and lack of adaptation with the epistemological system of reference. This study highlights the methodological perspectives that underpin constructivist research in organizational knowledge.

How Transferable are Management Learning Systems? Reflections on 15 Years of Large-scale Transnational Partnerships

Paton, R., McCarthy, P. — 2008-01-25

This article reflects on the largest, most sustained and widespread of the schemes to transfer `know-how' to Russia and eastern Europe. This programme introduced not only unfamiliar management ideas and pedagogy, but also a very different learning system. It operated through five partnerships that, from the outset, were intended to become sustainable. These therefore provide a set of `natural experiments' in the international transfer of a system of management learning. The article reviews the course of these partnerships and their varying achievements, highlighting the strains and dilemmas that those involved grappled with. The implications will be relevant to policy-makers as well as management educators.