Abstract
This paper attempts to explore an analogy between individual and organizational learning within experiential learning theory (ELT). The focus is on both the possibility of identifying a learning subject that learns in action, and on the genesis process behind the learning of a suggested learning subject at organizational level. The exploration uses an empirical study of a global software communication organization. The research adopts a qualitative approach, with data from three middle-management layers of a research and development (R&D) unit with 5,000 employees. During the study, shifts of emphasis occurred between two organizational logics, which required work-integrated learning. Metaphorically speaking, the organization was portrayed as ‘teeming with interaction’, and a growing wave of change decisively altered both the thinking and work processes within the organization. The organizational learning process is theoretically understood as an ‘augmented intense interaction’ around a specific content. The subject that learns and upholds the outcome is suggested to be the teeming activity, comprehended as a living organism. In practice, the awareness of an organization as a body that teems with interaction has potential to offer new understanding about how to manage change.
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Notes
A learning subject here refers to “that which thinks or feels as opposed to the object of thinking and feeling” (The free dictionary 2014), the “ego to which all experiences or mental operations are attributed” (Hanks 1976, p. 1560). Epistemologically this I holds a unique position in having direct access to one’s own I, whereas there is only indirect access to the physical world and to the others (The encyclopedia of philosophy 1988).
Originated by merging -ics with relation: [rɪ'leɪtənɪks].
To be kept in mind here is that technology development is the core activity of the corporation. In this paper, however, it is always the organizing tasks that are referred to in the distinction between production and development.
A group of software development methodologies, where requirements and solutions evolve through iterations and incremental development between people with different functional expertise.
The main data collection took place during fall 2010 and spring 2011.
Drawing on Braun and Clarke (2006), we use the terms data corpus and data set. The data set is the data material used for a specific analysis, whereas the data corpus is all data collected within a research project.
The idea of collectivity is an underdeveloped possibility for qualitative data analysis. For more on the use of metaphors in intersubjective data analysis, see the paper “Proximity and distance: phases of intersubjective qualitative data analysis in a research team”, which is based on our previous research (Döös and Wilhelmson 2014).
Egalitarianism is also a characteristic of Swedish working life in general (see www.sweden.se).
COP is short for community of practice, i.e., Wenger’s (1998) concept, which, in its abbreviated form, has become everyday language at some of the company’s sites.
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This work was supported by VINNOVA, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems [grant number 2009–00930].
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Döös, M., Johansson, P. & Wilhelmson, L. Organizational Learning as an Analogy to Individual Learning? A Case of Augmented Interaction Intensity. Vocations and Learning 8, 55–73 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-014-9125-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-014-9125-9