Abstract:

Our paper provides an empirical example of the Learning Organisation as a paradox (Vince, 2018). We focus on a UK technologically focused SME and draw on observations and interviews with 21 organisational members to reveal persistent contradictions of learning. We illustrate that, through an exclusive focus on building conditions for learning, the SME unwittingly separated learning and organising. Yet their focus on learning nevertheless mobilised underlying organisational tensions which simultaneously built conditions which undermined learning. This resulted in defensive reactions which simultaneously constituted a position against learning and ultimately meant that the desired consequence of learning often did not happen. We contribute by offering a theoretical model of the Learning Organisation as a paradox which helps explain the contradictions that are always present between the desire to create opportunities to learn and implicit limitations that arise in relation to the everyday organisation of attempts to learn. Practically, we suggest that attending to these contradictions can make learning more likely in organisations and offer suggestions for working with these.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Knowledge and Learning

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Dr. Sarah Smith