Social Learning Theory in Organizational Learning Literature
The appearance of social learning theory in organizational learning literature falls in time together with a social constructivist turn in social science and educational studies (Berger and Luckmann, 1966 [1991]; Bredo, 1997; Larochelle, Bednarz, and Garrison, 1998). The individual mind as the locus of learning is, in other words, questioned within many fields of research. The main criticisms are that if learning begins with change in cognitive structures, how is it possible to learn from practice and practicing, i.e. from body, emotions, and from the taken for granted and unspoken history and culture (Cook and Yanow, 1993)? Further, if it is possible to coin the individual and the enterprise as separate entities, how is it possible to understand knowledge as situated, i.e. that an individual can be knowledgeable in one organizational context, and not in another comparable one (Lave, 1988)?
The argument from social learning theory is that a situation posits certain possibilities for some actions and knowledge being legitimate and other knowledge and actions not. Access to participation and power are, thus, important issues to take into account in organizational learning. Further, individuals both ‘produce’ and are ‘products’ of situations mirroring access and power. This ‘situated’ view of learning moves it away from individual mind to the social sphere of interaction, activity, and practice; and this has paved the road for another view on learning and knowledge (Cook and Brown, 1999; Gherardi, 2000; Nicolini et al., 2003). It is, however, a view that has ancient roots in American pragmatism, and early twentieth century Russian psychologist Vygotsky and the tradition of the cultural-historical activity theory (Bredo, 1997; Elkjaer, 2000; Popkewitz, 1998). We will return to that, but, first, social learning theory in organizational learning literature is introduced with regard to the content and process of learning and the relation between the individual and the organization as well as an understanding of organization.
Content and process in social learning theory
In organizational learning literature, viewed from a social learning theoretical perspective, learning is ubiquitous and part of everyday organizational life and work. Learning cannot be avoided; it is not a choice for or against learning. Further, learning is not restricted to taking place inside individuals’ minds but as processes of participation and interaction. In other words, learning takes place among and through other people and artifacts as a relational activity, not an individual process of thought. This view changes the locus of the learning process from that of the mind of individuals to the participation patterns of individual members of organizations in which learning takes place (Gherardi et al., 1998; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).
In individual learning theory, learning is to come to know about actions and practices; in social learning theory, learning is a way of being and becoming part of the communities of practice that make up an organization, and in which the central issue of learning is to become a skilled practitioner (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Clegg, Kornberger, and Rhodes, 2005; Handley, Sturdy, Fincham, and Clark, 2006; Richter, 1998). Learning is a practical rather than an epistemic accomplishment, and it is a matter of identity development and socialization. Changing the content of learning from knowledge acquisition to socialization expands the concept of learning to include an ontological dimension. It also involves a change of the term ‘knowledge’ as knowledge becomes the embedded or situated knowledge of the organization, and not something stored in books, brains, and information systems (Cook and Brown, 1999; Gherardi, 2006, 2009; Gherardi et al., 1998). In social learning theory, knowledge is the active process of knowing, the processes and results of participation in organizational practices. Learners are to make sense of their participation in the social processes of organizing. It is not just the individuals who solely retain knowledge; rather knowledge is distributed within and among artifacts and organizational members (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Orlikowski, 2002, 2007; Richter, 1998).
The content being learned is context specific, and the learning itself is the discovery of what is to be done, when and how to do what according to the specific organizational routines, as well as which specific artifacts to use where and how. Learning also involves being able to give a reasonable account of why things are done and of what sort of person one must become in order to be a skilled member of a specific organization. In social learning theory, to know is to be capable of participating with the requisite competence in the complex web of relationships among people, artifacts, and activities. Learning is to acquire a ‘situated curriculum,’ which means to denote the pattern of learning opportunities available to newcomers in their encounter with a specific community inside a specific organization (Raz and Fadlon, 2006). Learning is what enables actors to modify their relations to others while contributing to the shared activity. Moving learning away from inside mind to social relations is also moving learning into an area of conflicts and power (Blackler and McDonald, 2000; Contu and Willmott, 2003; Coopey and Burgoyne, 2000). This makes the issue of empowerment essential, as learning requires access and opportunity to take part in the ongoing practice. The social structure of this practice, its power relations and its conditions for legitimacy, define the possibilities for learning (Gherardi et al., 1998; Hong and Fiona, 2009; Macpherson and Clark, 2009).
Language is, according to social learning theory, a central element of any process of learning as language is conceived to be the main way of acting in contemporary organizations. Language is, however, not merely a medium of knowledge transmission. Language is the medium of culture and as such it constitutes a crucial element in the process of learning, when the latter is perceived as the result of interaction among individuals in a specific occupational and organizational culture. The study of organizational learning is to explore the specific contexts of activities and social practices in which learning may occur. Only by understanding the circumstances and how the participants construct the situation can a valid interpretation of a learning activity be made (Gherardi et al., 1998).
In sum, regarding the content and process of social learning theory in organizational learning, a social learning theory emphasizes informality, improvisation, collective action, conversation, and sense making; and learning is of a distributed and provisional nature. Learning is not to acquire already known knowledge but is processes of moving into unknown territory to ‘face mystery’ (Gherardi, 1999). Learning is to make a journey into the land of discovery rather than to follow an already paved road. In the next section, the issue of the relation between the individual and the organization is taken up.
Relation between individual and organization
According to social learning theory, learners are social beings that construct their understanding and learn from participation in practice within the specific socio-cultural settings of an organization. The role of individual learners is to be engaged in sense making and to create knowledge within and among their trajectory of participation. The individual in social learning theory is to be understood as a participant in the social processes of everyday life of an organization. The organization provides occasion for interpretations of what goes on in an organization.
The understanding of the organizations within social learning theory of organizational learning can be understood as communities of practice (COP). COP is founded upon an idea that organizations are cultural, historical, and material collectives constituted by social interaction (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2000). Thus, there is no rational and technical organization of elements ‘out there’ to be fully described and explained as in a ‘system’ perspective. Organizations are, in a COP approach, constructed from social interaction and are dependent on the situated and contextualized aspects of the specific social practices. The main assumption for organizational learning in this perspective is that knowing—not knowledge—is something that emerges from social collective practices (Amin and Roberts, 2008; Beckhy, 2003; Brown and Duguid, 2001).
Continuing the metaphorical image from individual learning theory, the separation of soup and bowl may be replaced by the blending together of individuals and organizations like a rope. ‘The fibres that make up the rope are discontinuous; when you twist them together, you don’t make them continuous, you make the thread continuous. (. . .) The thread has no fibres in it, but, if you break up the thread, you can find the fibres again’ (R. P. McDermott, 1993: 274). Thus, one cannot talk of the relation between individuals and organizations, or individual and context, as individuals in an organization, but individuals as part of a specific organizational practice as well as of patterns of participation and interaction.
There are, however, two views of context represented in social learning theory in organizational learning literature. The two understandings of context are whether context is a historical product of which persons are parts, or whether context is constructed as persons interact. To quote:
One argues that the central theoretical relation is historically constituted between persons engaged in socio-culturally constructed activity and the world with which they are engaged. (. . .) The other focuses on the construction of the world in social interaction; this leads to the view that activity is its own context. Here the central theoretical relation is the intersubjective relation among co-participants in social interaction.
(Lave, 1993 [1996]: 17)
The first view is represented in activity theory (Blackler, 1993; Engeström, 2001) and American pragmatism (see later). The second is inspired by social constructionism and phenomenological social theory. The latter is represented in the following much cited definition of learning in organizational learning literature based upon social learning theory, namely that learning is ‘the acquiring, sustaining, or changing of intersubjective meanings through the artifactual vehicles of their expression and transmission and the collective actions of the group’ (Cook and Yanow, 1993: 384). The group—or the collective actions of the group—and not the individual, is suggested here as the primary level of analysis. This is a social constructionist view on the relation between the individual and the organization. In the organizational learning literature, this view is also called a cultural approach to organizational learning (Yanow, 2000). The focus is on ‘situated meaning (in this case, what is meaningful to those actors engaged in organizational learning activities)’ (Yanow, 2000: 248). Context as a historical product in organizational learning literature can be expressed like this:
The context must (. . .) be conceived as a historical and social product which is co-produced together with the activity it supports: agents, objects, activities, and material and symbolic artifacts all constitute a heterogeneous system that evolves over time.
(Gherardi et al., 1998: 275)
Whether one views context as socially constructed in the situation or as a historical and social product is, we believe, a complicated matter consisting of many circumstances like political attitudes, academic traditions, taste, etc. For our part, we have a hard time not to view situations as consisting of people and contexts with a history mirroring social and cultural backgrounds. Our major problem is that a view of context as nothing other than a process of construction in social interaction and by the use of artifacts restricts the interventionist activities to ways of interacting with artifacts (in the broadest meaning of this term, which means that language is also an artifact, that is, a tool for action and interaction). With activity as its own context, it is difficult to see how change can be directed at changing contexts themselves, that is, of changing the conditions for learning and development. But, naturally, we also subscribe to a view of context as historically and culturally produced because we have our theoretical roots in American pragmatism. This connection is elaborated shortly.
To sum up, in social learning theory individuals’ minds and actions are regarded as related to their participation in social practices formed by culture and history. This means that knowing, according to social learning theory, is always an integral part of broader changes of being, which can be traced to learners’ participation in COP or activity systems. Knowing is, in other words, at the same time ‘a way of participating and of relating’ (Packer and Goicoechea, 2000: 234). Thus, in social learning theory it is not possible to separate knowing from being and becoming. To be and become or emerge as a knowledgeable person demands participation in social processes, which also involves relating to other beings and to (and with) the cultural and historically produced artifacts of the social worlds.
In the following, we introduce the work of John Dewey (Dewey, 1916 [1980], 1933 [1986], 1938 [1986]) because his concepts of experience and inquiry help bind the processes of epistemology and ontology in learning together. These are, as we have argued, at the heart of social learning theory in organizational learning literature but lack the conceptual elaboration here. Dewey’s notions of experience and inquiry help to see that the ontological dimension of learning, how individuals come to be, and the epistemological dimension, how individuals come to know, cannot be separated. This means that socialization and learning are inseparable processes.