In the next section, we work through the four-phase quadrant one step at a time, then compare and contrast theoretical perspectives for the top half of the quadrant (where the orientation is primarily based on cognitive processes) with the seemingly greater preoccupation with relationships exhibited by scholars whose work is located in the bottom two quadrants. This leads us into considering future directions. In doing so, we reflect (briefly) on the scant attention that has been devoted to emotional factors in learning at both the level of the individual and the organization.
Quadrant one: learning is susceptible to control and direction: the individual perspective
Several learning theories can be seen to occupy this quadrant, which suggests that the learner is more or less passive and subject to stimuli from the outside environment. Implicit is the idea that acknowledged experts are responsible for learners’ progress. Learning is achieved by creating an environment which reinforces desirable actions Skinner (1953). Here, we bring together both behaviorist traditions, which suggest that learning represents ‘any change in behavior occurring as a result of practice or experience’ (Bass and Vaughan, 1967) as well as traditional cognitive perspectives. For cognitive theorists, learning is not just a change in behavior, but rather a change in the way information is processed and the individual’s mental schemata built or re-organized (Blanchard and Thacker, 2010). According to Piaget (1950), two cognitive processes are crucial for learning: accommodation and assimilation. The former term refers to the creation of new categories or schemata, while the latter is used to describe what happens when existing schemata are complemented with further information. Both approaches emphasize that some external driver is needed for learning to occur, behaviorists highlight the wider environment, while cognitivists instead emphasize the need to help learners to develop the necessary cognitive structures. The point is that learning can be enabled and controlled by a knowledgeable expert who has responsibility for supporting the learner to enable the necessary change.
The notions of double loop learning (Argyris and Schön, 1978) and generative learning (Senge, 1990) would also fall into this category. Here, the pre-occupation is again the individual, and the suggestion is that individuals can be helped to become more inclined to question the logic for performing work tasks, and to better understand their personal limitations. According to scholars in this area, people’s so-called defensive thought patterns can be uncovered through creating an environment of openness and trust so that factors likely to inhibit learning are minimized (Argyris, 1990). One could argue that this approach is not dissimilar from suggestions by cognitive theorists that appropriate mental scaffolds need to be developed through the intervention of an expert third party.
Shifting the focus from the individual to the organization, one can see parallels with the wider literature. The learning organization model, for example, is seen as a context where learning improves as a result of proactive and empowering intervention by senior management (Sicilia and Lytras, 2005). Individuals are required to be increasingly proficient at articulating the issues they face whilst simultaneously listening actively to others before evaluating their input (e.g. Senge, 1990). There is also concern with creating the environment within which individuals can learn effectively. Thus, organizations should adopt flat, decentralized organizational structures that facilitate open communication and dialogue (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell, 1999). Team working facilitates individual growth and empowerment, and therefore presents the ideal structural arrangement (Leonard-Barton, 1998). Other HR systems should be developed in line with this aspiration; for example, individuals should have opportunities to participate in organizational decision making and reward systems should be designed to recognize the achievement of learning goals (Armstrong and Foley, 2003; Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino, 2008; Wang and Ahmed, 2004). Although outwardly there is a concern with organizational-level outcomes (competitive success, profitability, sustainability, etc), close reading suggests that the predominant orientation is the individual; furthermore, the underlying premise is that learning can be managed and controlled through external intervention.
Quadrant two: learning is susceptible to control and direction: the group perspective
Unlike the first quadrant, this part of the typology encompasses work that is less straightforward to classify for several reasons. Scholars whose work is reviewed here generally posit a process of reciprocal determinism—whereby individuals and context have a mutually reinforcing effect (e.g. Bandura, 1997). This means that individual activities influence joint, distributed patterns of knowledge and cognitions, which in turn affect their own thinking and behavior (Pea, 1999). The precise boundary between the individual and the system to which he or she belongs, or between the person ‘solo’ and more widely distributed cognitions, is unclear, indeed there are likely to be some cognitions (such as higher-order knowledge) that are either not amenable to distribution at all or cannot be easily passed on to others (Salomon, 1999). Furthermore, mental representations—arising from individual thought processes—are seen as necessary in order to precipitate change in shared cognitions (denoting again a necessary emphasis on the individual).
Although there is acknowledgement in this quadrant about how the context and wider surroundings influence individuals, the precise role of individuals in specific settings will vary depending upon many factors, such as the need for higher-order knowledge and the meaning that is attributed by group participants to the joint activities involved (Salomon, 1999). To argue that scholars classified here emphasize context while those in the first quadrant highlight the individual would be simplistic; however, the emphasis seems to be in this second quadrant on unraveling the various strands that shape person/context dynamics, especially around learning and change.
The other point of contention concerns the susceptibility of learning to control and direction, as viewed from this quadrant. Here, there are parallels with the first quadrant. Although there is debate about the relative role of individuals within a social system, there is some notion of there being an external reality that can be aspired towards. Bandura (1982), for example, posited a model whereby social influence (e.g. observing peers) and social persuasion (e.g. having a supportive and positive mentor or line manager) would influence an individual’s perception about his or her mastery at a given task, showing correlations between mastery perceptions and success in performing to be task high. According to this argument (again echoing quadrant one), the main impediment preventing an individual from gaining mastery may be the reinforcement detected by the individual in response to his or her actions. Other social psychologists argue that the environment is important for learning in a different way: through engaging in joint action (and thereby becoming part of a social system) individuals acquire a ‘cognitive residue’ or increased competency that can thereafter be applied to similar situations (Salomon, 1999). Managing and directing learning is necessarily complex according to this perspective, but nonetheless, where the reciprocal dynamics can be addressed, likely to yield fruitful returns.
Organizational learning scholars have embraced many of the insights derived from the psychological perspective outlined here. Their debate has been around individual versus organizational dynamics; for example, taking the individual perspective, Simon (1991: 125) stated that ‘all learning takes place inside human heads and an organization learns in one of two ways: by the learning of its members or by ingesting new members who have knowledge that the organization didn’t previously have.’ Other scholars have rather emphasized the influence of organizational systems on individual attitudes, especially towards learning (e.g. Antonacopoulou, 2001). Reciprocity across levels is a re-occurring theme; novel insights from creative individuals may influence the wider work group, in turn, impacting on organizational functioning (e.g. Thomas, Sussman, and Henderson, 2001). According to the so-called ‘4-i’ model, not only do individuals initiate organizational learning (through having a creative idea), they also, together with colleagues, implement the change in cognition and/or action required to effect organizational-level change, and in turn, through feedback processes, are themselves subject to change (Crossan, Lane, and White, 1999). This change could be described as a ‘cognitive residue’ which is retained by the individual, and necessary for building on-going capability across the system as a whole.
Much of the literature addressing the dynamics of reflection in action (e.g. Edmondson, 2002; Ron, Lipshitz, and Popper, 2006) is driven by a similar philosophical underpinning. Setting aside time for assessing how effectively work groups have dealt with their challenges builds individual competency (so that similar issues can be tackled elsewhere even when group members are engaged in different settings). Reflection may at the same time develop distributed cognitions, with group members increasingly cognizant of shared knowledge and able to take account of other members’ expertise in their own endeavors. Arising from this, scholars (e.g. Huber, 1991) have suggested that insights are stored in a memory system that is drawn upon by organizational members as required (mirroring reference to the notion of cognitive residue).
One can also detect parallels with the sense-making literature insofar as it relates to organizational learning. For scholars whose work is explored above (in this quadrant), learning is characterized by a process of dynamic interaction between the learner and his or her wider environment, taking into account the perceptual framework that has evolved based on earlier experiences (cf. Bandura, 1982). The sense-making literature, taking an organizational-level perspective, holds similarly that learning involves a dynamic interplay between search, interpretation, and understanding (Thomas et al., 2001; Weick, 1995). Search routines alter patterns of understanding, which in turn produce new ways of making sense of complex and ambiguous experiences. Thus, sense making alters knowledge structures in organizations by heightening the need for change and influencing the processes whereby knowledge is interpreted. Shared understanding emerges as interpretative routines are internalized, so that learning and understanding become inextricably inter-connected. Studies have explored how sense making can be accelerated in line with strategic priorities, where, for example, a significant event provides the necessary ‘jolt’ in thinking (Christianson, Farkas, Sutcliffe, and Weick, 2009), or where the company effectively conveys the pressing need for change (Kim, 1998).
In some cases, in the above literature, there is a reality to be uncovered and behavior is influenced by a knowledgeable third party; in other cases, the position is more complex, in that interpretation and sense making may influence the ‘reality’ derived from complex and ambiguous settings. On the whole, there is a sense that learning can be managed either through effective exchange and dialogue, or through interpretation systems and (perhaps) appropriate reinforcement. To depict a contrasting perspective, we turn now to the third quadrant and review constructivist, rather than positivist, psychological perspectives.
Quadrant three: learning evolves naturally: the group perspective
Those of a social constructivist persuasion distance themselves from the idea that learning is an individual activity. Therefore, the separation between individual and organizational perspectives is dissolved. Person/environment interaction is important, but the individual is inevitably a product of his or her environment (Huysman, 2000). Context shapes what is learnt and how it is learnt and what is regarded as important. Thus, while learning involves self-reflection, it also involves working with others (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Gherardi et al. (1998: 274) have stated, for example, that ‘people and groups create knowledge and negotiated meaning—in terms of words, actions, situations and artifacts.’ Cognitive processes and conceptual structures are less important than the social engagements that provide a context for learning (Cook and Brown, 1999). ‘Social groups provide the resources for their members to learn’ (Brown and Duguid, 2001: 137). This happens as groups create knowledge and attribute meaning to certain words, actions, and artifacts, giving rise to a collective identity in terms of what activities are valued and how efforts should best be directed (Wenger, 2000).
What further distinguishes work located in this quadrant from the other perspectives concerns the way in which knowledge is depicted and the position of tacit versus explicit knowledge. This theme forms a central part of the ‘situated learning’ approach, which examines ideas surrounding ‘knowing’ rather than ‘knowledge’ (Cook and Brown, 1999). ‘Knowing’ involves gradually and almost subconsciously absorbing and understanding what is required to perform well, including the questions to ask, the language to use, how and where to best focus efforts. Through story-telling, for example, communities of practitioners share their experiences of work using their own unique language and terminology (Brown and Duguid, 1991). Accordingly, the way to promote organizational learning is to recognize its tacit dimension and to support communities as they develop the mechanisms required for sharing knowledge. By contrast, the various cycles of organizational learning portrayed in quadrant two deal with explicit knowledge and how such knowledge is embedded (e.g. Crossan et. al., 1999). Some theorists whose work logically fits into quadrant two assess tacit, implicit aspects of knowledge creation (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Zollo and Winter, 2002) but their concern is to make explicit and/ or codify this element. The ‘practice-based’ approach by contrast holds the ‘tacit’ aspects of knowledge creation and articulation to be central and not amenable to management and direction-setting.
Several strands of thought within the organizational learning literature arise from the social constructivist perspective described here. Firstly, because knowledge is socially constructed, rather than managed or directed by an external party, organizational boundaries are more fluid and less constricting than seems to be implicitly suggested by theorists whose work is portrayed in the first two quadrants. The logic seems to be in line with Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) in that social networks lead to the creation, transmission, and retention of intellectual capital, while going further by emphasizing that networks are not necessarily contained within any one specific context. By contrast, people are likely to gravitate towards those with similar professional interests, even where (or especially where) expertise is located outside. This development may be heightened in particular settings, for example, public sector bodies (given national policy strictures) (Rashman, Withers, and Hartley, 2009) or knowledge intensive service firms (where groups of firms work closely together to better meet client needs) (Miozzo, Lehrer, DeFillippi, Grimshaw, and Ordanini, 2010).
Secondly, work has alluded to the characteristics of source and recipient organizations where they are engaged in a process of mutual learning, stressing the role of openness to experience and the position of boundary scanners (Rashman et al., 2009). Work draws attention to the quality of the relationship between source and recipient organizations, implying that effectively managing such relationships may become increasingly pressing as boundaries across organizations are blurred. Thirdly, in a related development, scholars have examined network learning, whereby members of discrete but inter-connected organizations are represented in a collaborative setting where the intention is to learn and innovate (Knight and Pye, 2005). Insights from this line of research suggest that network learning can be understood by examining behavioral and cognitive change within the network over time, as shared meanings, structures, and commitment evolve in an iterative process. Finally, recent work has considered whether the learning organization model itself deserves further attention, taking into account not only internal attributes but also the extent of interaction with the external environment (Shipton, Zhou, and Mooi, under review).
Quadrant four: learning naturally evolves: the individual perspective
This quadrant considers theories that emphasize the practice-based nature of learning. Strictly speaking, the orientation is less to do with learning being emergent (as described above) and more connected with understanding the extent to which practice and experience may enrich learning. There are, of course, many different practice-based interventions (project learning, team-based learning, action learning, personal development plans, coaching and mentoring, job shadowing, and buddying to name but a few). This section explores underlying psychological perspectives (rather than comprehensively reviewing this literature). We first examine project learning, then consider the wider implications of this quadrant for organizational learning. The theme of emotion in learning—alluded to here in passing—is discussed in more detail in the final section of the chapter.
Project-based learning in all its forms emphasizes the importance of reflective practices, which refer to the means by which project participants make sense of their project experience and ponder the meaning of the experience for themselves and others (Raelin, 2001). However, project-based learning traditions differ in which focal audience they target for reflection. Action learning interventions often emphasize problem-based reflections on behavior and taken-for-granted assumptions that interfere with individual learning and effective work performance (Smith, 2001). Action research projects, by contrast, are more oriented toward reflecting on how the organizational and social-cultural context impacts project performance and, by implication, organization learning (Coghlan, 2001). Project-organized companies (e.g. construction, high technology) often employ project-learning interventions to capture ‘lessons-learned’ from completed projects onto company knowledge management databases for re-use by team members on subsequent projects (Keegan and Turner, 2001). In echoes of research examined in quadrant three, community-of-practice and network organization projects employ reflective practices oriented toward understanding how learning generated during projects is disseminated to external project sponsors and their relevant occupational and industry networks (Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001). Comparative assessments of problem and project-based learning approaches have detailed their implications for management education and management development interventions (DeFillippi and Milter, 2009).
Project learning research draws upon several theoretical traditions. Kolb (1984), for example, in line with Lewin (1946) has drawn attention to the stages involved in learning from experience, arguing that reflection, abstract thinking and experimentation are necessary for maximum benefit. Learning arises as a consequence of focusing on other (personal or career-related) goals, and learners can be helped to work through the various phases. Given the implication that meaning is unique to each learner, there are parallels with scholars whose work is reviewed in quadrant three (the social constructivist perspective). Project learning in a sense spans quadrants three and four: reality is based on the learners’ experiences and perceptions, while at the same time a practical intervention that draws on opportunities provided by the work environment (DeFillippi and Milter, 2009).
Mead (1938) also posits that learning is part of everyday experience, the natural product of an inquiring mind. However, it is rather the mismatch between a person’s anticipation of an experience and the experience itself that provides the momentum for learning and change. Perceptual changes arising from an experience are labeled ‘validation’ where there is correspondence with anticipation, as opposed to ‘invalidation’ where experience fails to meet with expectation. Mead’s ideas are suggestive of emotion, a theme which is further developed below.
Psychological perspectives explored here have been applied to organizational learning by means of generalization. That is, as individuals learn more effective actions, this learning will aggregate or spill over to their employing organizations. Like work reviewed in quadrant one, the assumption is that organizations learn as a result of individual learning. For example, Kim’s integrated model of organizational learning is premised on the assumption that ‘the mental models in individuals’ heads are where a vast majority of an organization’s knowledge (both know-how and know-why) lies’ (Kim, 1993: 44). His conceptual model links individuals’ mental models (frameworks and routines) to individual single and double loop learning and suggests that single loop learning has more the character of conditioned behavioral response whereas double loop learning builds on the development of a higher level cognitive processing. At the organization level, it appears that organizational routines constitute the shared mental models that determine organizational action. However, these shared mental models slowly evolve in response to the mental models of the individuals comprising the organization. Hence, organizational learning is an additive function of the legacy of those individuals who collectively have contributed to the creation and maintenance of a shared mental model. This may suggest that the organization’s culture is an additive, accumulative function of the legacy of individuals’ shared cognitive perspectives.