Abstract
This chapter suggests that learning is an intrinsic aspect of every conscious, purposeful activity. That activity is viewed here as dialogical (i.e., activity is addressed through and acquires its meaning from the interacting situation) and mediated by different types of semiotic mediations, e.g., language, tooling, information systems, and procedures. All mediations are ultimately referenced to one final mediation: socially recognizable and meaning-making habits. When unpredicted situations disrupt habits, multiple and partly invisible inquiries lead to their transformation for supporting allow activity continuation. Activity, habits, and inquiries are all dialogical and weave the threads of a collective sensemaking narrative. Learning is, thus, defined here as the continuous transformation of habits and of their combination into sensemaking cross-functional narratives through dialogical inquiries. Inquiries can be felicitous, meaning that they succeed in reweaving the threads of collective activity, or infelicitous. One key issue thus is identifying the conditions of felicity. This conception is illustrated using the case of an electricity company. The implementation of an integrated management information system (ERP) disrupted existing professional habits without providing the conditions for felicitous inquiries, leading to an organizational crisis. From this case, it appears that it is a key condition of organizational learning to view collective activity, not only in its “directly performing” dyadic dimension (A transforms B) but also in its mediated triadic dimension (A means C by transforming B). This grants due consideration not only to “what people actually do” but also to “what people actually mean by doing what they do” with three mediating dimensions: firstly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with “professional genres”; secondly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with inquiries which continuously and often invisibly transform habits and keep collective activity feasible; and thirdly, the links of day-to-day ordinary operations with the procedural and narrative thread that gives activity its global social sense. This approach requires establishing the adequate communities of practice, to transform professional habits and identities, and communities of process, to redesign cross-functional inquiries and the cross-functional narrative coherence of processes.
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Lorino, P. (2015). Learning as Transforming Collective Activity Through Dialogical Inquiries. In: Filliettaz, L., Billett, S. (eds) Francophone Perspectives of Learning Through Work. Professional and Practice-based Learning, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18669-6_7
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