an Organisational Perspective on Professionals’ Learning

835S. Billett et al. (eds.), International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning, Springer International Handbooks of Education, DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_31, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract The purpose and contribution of our chapter is to provide a vision for professionals’ learning in light of the fi eld of organisational learning, and through this lens to incorporate various understandings of the organisational dynamics that professionals work and learn in and through. Inspired by some of the founding fathers of the fi eld of organisational learning, Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1978, 1996: 3), we ask: “What is an organisation that professionals may learn?” We answer this question by introducing three understandings of organisations and the learning theories that they are connected with. These are respectively a behavioural, a cognitive and a practice-based perspective on organisational learning. We propose that these lenses on organisations and learning may help us see professionals’ learn-ing as contextualised in both their work practices and their places of work, i.e. organisations.

Keywords Organization studies • Organizational learning • Professional develop-ment • Learning theories • Practice-based studies • Pragmatism

Chapter 31 An Organisational Perspective on Professionals’ Learning

Bente Elkjaer and Ulrik Brandi

B. Elkjaer (*) • U. Brandi Department of Education , Aarhus University , Aarhus , Denmark e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

(…) to study organizations involves thinking about philosophy, politics, ethics and much more. And behind or beyond these abstractions are the lived experience of people not just working together but joking, arguing, criticizing, fi ghting, deciding, lusting, despairing, creating, resisting, fearing, hoping or, in short, organizing.

(Grey 2005 [2013]: 2)

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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31.1 Introduction

For decades professionals’ learning and development has been a concern for researchers within a plethora of research disciplines such as sociology, psychology and education. In 1974, Argyris and Schön made a proposal about how to redesign professional education in order to align it better with professionals’ actions at work (Argyris and Schön 1974 [1978]). According to Argyris and Schön ( 1974 [1978]), the problem was that the educational institutions of professionals were not suffi -ciently able to develop competent practitioners. One of the main arguments put forward by Argyris and Schön ( 1974 [1978]) was that the actual work practices and knowledge derived from practising professional work was missing from the curriculum of the educational institutions of students wanting to become able professionals.

Elaborating on Argyris and Schön’s joint argument, Schön ( 1983 , 1987 ) raised several issues regarding the training of professionals and proposed a model for professionals’ learning involving the concept of the “refl ective practitioner”. In his work, Schön ( 1983 , 1987 ) captures the need to organise professionals’ learning and continued professional development (CPD) with a point of departure in profession-als’ actions at work and relevant knowledge established through the notions of “refl ection-in-action” and “refl ection-on-action” rather than from mere acquisition of abstract and technical knowledge taught in schools of professional education (see also Boud and Hager 2011 ; Gold et al. 2007 ).

The work of Argyris and Schön ( 1974 [1978]) and later Schön ( 1983 , 1987 ) continues to be an inspiration for research into professionals’ learning because it stresses the importance of bringing in knowledge of work and particularly of refl ec-tion in and on professionals’ actions at work as a means to generate professionals’ knowledge (see e.g. Billett 2010 ; Boud et al. 2006 ; Høyrup 2004 ; Moon 2000 ; Reynolds and Vince 2004 ). Scribner ( 1999 ) is one scholar who writes about profes-sionals’ learning within the teaching profession as tightly connected to the affor-dances in the specifi c contexts of work in combination with motivational factors and learning activities. In the same vein, Eraut ( 1994 , 2007 ) argues for the importance of bringing in the work context in order to understand and design professionals’ learning.

However, even though both Argyris and Schön and later contributions on profes-sionals’ learning and development stress the need to include the actual work done by professionals as important for professionals’ learning, the literature still seems to be dominated by research and policy papers that assume that the learning done by professionals takes place primarily outside the workplace, involving knowledge of the growth of the knowledge economy (Jensen et al. 2012 ). In a recent paper, Zukas ( 2012 ) shows that accounts of professionals’ learning often fail to consider the fact that processes of learning are closely entangled with work and organisational factors. This failure to include professionals’ work contexts in understanding their learning is also noted by Fenwick and colleagues ( 2012b ), who emphasise that despite the refl ection of practice-based theories of learning inspired fi rst and

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foremost by the work by Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), the problem of how to include context in professionals’ learning remains unresolved. A review on professional learning within a specifi c profession, the teaching profession, supports this claim (Opfer and Pedder 2011 ). Summing up, Opfer and Pedder ( 2011 ) conclude that the analysis of professionals’ learning is still dominated by approaches that isolate learning and development from the complex environment in which professionals work.

In other words, the discussion of professionals’ learning and how to include their work contexts remains an unresolved topic within the fi eld of professionals’ learn-ing (see also Mulcahy 2012 ; Smeby and Heggen 2012 ). In this chapter, we intend to remedy this by including the fi eld of organisation studies and particularly the fi eld of organisational learning to bring in not only professionals’ work but also the dynamics of organisational practices and learning. The idea of bringing in concepts from organisation studies to advance our understanding of professionals’ learning was propounded some time ago by Mintzberg ( 1983 ) during the days when the work of professionals was characterised by less ambiguity. Mintzberg’s ( 1983 ) understanding of organisations is related to the coordinating mechanisms of work in organisations. He presented a concept of organisations in which the coordination of work was done by the standardisation of input skills, i.e. specifi cations of training and education as “professional bureaucracies”, and it is in these organisational forms that professionals are to be found according to Mintzberg ( 1983 ).

In Mintzberg’s ( 1983 ) understanding, professionals arrive in the workplace with adequate knowledge and skills and in principle no need for further education and learning. This is clearly no longer the case, as mirrored in the rather intense interest in professionals’ learning and CPD (see for example Fenwick et al. 2012a ; Jensen et al. 2012 ), which refl ects, we believe, the equivocal developments of profession-als’ work (see also Broadbent et al. 1997 ; Weber 2004 ). The effects of New Public Management (NPM) on the way professionals’ work is organised and managed, and the increasing use of external knowledge institutions producing so-called evidence- based knowledge with the purpose of controlling professionals’ work as well as the resulting “de-professionalisation” of professionals’ work and knowledge, have been debated for years; and the debate is not over yet (see for example Hjort 2009 ; Samuel 2012 ). The change in the way professionals work, involving increasing col-laboration with other professionals in teams and focusing on specifi c problems, also seems to be a new development in the way the work of professionals is organised (Fenwick et al. 2012a ). The result is that professionals now need not only an increas-ing degree of cross-disciplinarity and the ability to understand other fi elds of profes-sional work, but also more specifi c professional expertise (Bechky 2003 ; Fournier 2000 ).

Evetts ( 2009 ) has captured this equivocal development of professionals’ work by pointing towards new ways of using the term “professionalism”. She provides a use-ful framework in her work incorporating both continuity and change in the work of professionals. She coins the notions of “organisational professionalism” and “occu-pational professionalism” in order to analyse different uses of the term professional-ism in contemporary societies and enterprises. She argues that organisational

31 An Organisational Perspective on Professionals’ Learning

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professionalism is manifested by a discourse of control, used increasingly in work-places and by management. Occupational professionalism, on the other hand, is constructed within professional occupational groups themselves and incorporates collegial authority, which means that control is guided by codes of professional ethics monitored by professional institutions and associations. Evetts ( 2011 ) pro-poses that one way to advance our understanding of professionals’ work in light of organisational professionalism may be to bring in knowledge from organisational studies. A similar message emphasising the value of infusing knowledge from organisation studies into research on professionals’ work and knowledge is echoed by Muzio and his colleagues (Muzio et al. 2011 ). Based on their analysis of three occupations, they show a change in discourses on professionals’ work from an “old collegial model” to a “new corporate model”. This transition from occupational professionalism and collegiality towards organisational professionalism and corpo-rality demonstrates the ambiguity related to professionals’ work described above.

Our pointing towards the fi eld of organisational learning in order to inspire a renewed understanding of professionals’ learning is in line with the above call for bringing in organisation studies. The purpose and contribution of our paper is to interpret professionals’ learning in light of the fi eld of organisational learning, and through this lens to bring in different understandings of the organisational dynamics that professionals work and learn in and through. In a slightly paraphrased way, we ask: “What is an organisation that professionals may learn” (Argyris and Schön 1996 : 3)? Concretely, we introduce different understandings of organisations and the learning theories that may be traced in the fi eld of organisational learning (Brandi and Elkjaer 2011 ). We believe that these different concepts of organisations and learning may help us see professionals’ learning as contextualised in work prac-tice and knowledge as well as in places of work, i.e. organisations. Although traces of the different understandings of organisations and learning may still be found in research and practice, we propose that a point of departure in a practice-based understanding of learning from the perspective of pragmatism and continuously emerging and changing ways of organising rather than organisations as structures and systems is more in line with professionals in transition.

31.2 Three Organisational Learning Perspectives on Professionals’ Learning

Since the late 1950s, when organisational learning emerged as a research fi eld within organisation and management studies fi rmly rooted in psychology and econ-omy, organisational learning has grown considerably as a fi eld (for a recent sum-mary of this, see Easterby-Smith and Lyles 2011 ). However, when researchers from different disciplines use the term “organisational learning”, it covers and alludes to different understandings and methodologies refl ecting differences in defi ning and assessing organisational learning (Argote and Miron-Spektor 2011 ; Rashman et al. 2009 ). It is not possible to construct a homogeneous and “authoritative” account of


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the different understandings of “what is an organisation that it may learn” (Argyris and Schön 1996 : 3) due to its many contributing disciplines (for a classic overview, see Easterby-Smith 1997 ). Our presentation of organisational learning below is an attempt to classify theories and research on organisational learning developed over time, refl ecting the general development of organisation studies and of how to understand workplaces as organisations.

We use three labels for organisational learning refl ecting a behavioural, a cognitive, and a practice-based perspective. These perspectives respectively come with different understandings of what learning is, what an organisation is, and how organisational learning unfolds. The behavioural perspective has a focus upon how procedures and routines are changed in organisations through problem-solving and learning (Cyert and March 1963 [1992]; March and Simon 1958 ). Weber’s understanding of organisations as bureaucracies acts as a source of inspiration for the behavioural perspective on organisational learning (Heugens 2005 ). The cognitive perspective on organisational learning uses the concept of “theories of action” to point to the mental representations of actions as the most crucial term in order to understand organisational learning (Argyris and Schön 1978 , 1996 ). In this perspec-tive, learning is related to individuals’ abilities to change their theories of actions and subsequently their actions when they act defensively, which prevents errors from being corrected and learning to fl ourish. An understanding of organisations as “learning systems” frames organisational learning in the work of Argyris and Schön (Argyris 1992 ; Lipshitz 2000 ). The practice- based perspective on organisa-tional learning focuses upon practice as both doings and institutionalisations within an understanding of organisations as communities of practice (Brown and Duguid 1991 ; Gherardi and Nicolini 2002 ). In this understanding, learning is part of practice and is detected through patterns of access and participation in organi-sational practices.

In the following sections, we elaborate on how it is possible to understand pro-fessionals’ learning within these three perspectives on organisational learning with a specifi c focus upon the organising dynamics, the understanding of organisations. We do so by fi rst explaining each of the organisational learning perspectives and then providing some empirical examples of how an understanding of professionals’ learning may be developed through the respective understandings of organisational dynamics in the different perspectives on organisational learning.

31.2.1 Professionals’ Learning Through a Behavioural Perspective on Organisational Learning

Early organisational theory during the 1960s and 1970s is characterised by a focus on organisational structures as the defi ning elements of what an organisation is, combined with a rational understanding of how to coordinate and plan work (Scott 1998 ). The inspiration came from the German sociologist Max Weber and his work on ideal types of organisations (Weber 1946a , b ). According to Weber ( 1946a ),


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bureaucracy is the best way to organise work because it provides the most effi cient structure for meeting the societal challenges due to the simultaneous development of task complexities, increase in populations, technologies, rules and markets. In Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, rationalism refers to the coordination of work as structured by rules and regulations in a division of labour guided by explicit work descriptions executed in hierarchical structures with an educational system to pro-vide for professionals’ knowledge and skills needed for the effi cient bureaucracy to run smoothly (see for example Grey 2005 [2013] for an insightful account on Weber’s bureaucracy).

The learning paradigm embedded in the behavioural perspective on organisa-tional learning was developed by a group of experimental psychologists represented by Thorndike, Watson and Skinner, who (inspired by Pavlov and other physiolo-gists) wanted to redefi ne psychology as a science with the focus upon behaviour as the unit of analysis (Miller 2003 ). This perspective was coined “behaviourism”, and it constituted a departure from a critique of early twentieth century psychological ideas about the human mind. The early behaviourists regarded the human con-sciousness as a “black box” beyond scientifi c investigation. They took their point of departure in a stimulus-response model, which focused upon external factors like incentives and reactions towards them. In this original and classic account of behav-iourism, changed reactions over time were understood as adaptation of behaviour to external surroundings to be stored as memories in peoples’ minds. It was a behav-iourist understanding of learning that infl uenced theories of organisational learning, when the term found its way into organisation studies in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Cyert and March 1963 [1992]; March and Simon 1958 ).

The underlying ideas in a behavioural understanding of organisations must be understood against the background of a neo-classical understanding of organisa-tions as able to be managed in a fully economic rationalist way (Augier and March 2008 ). The organisational behaviourists found that this was not the case when they began studying the actual behaviour of organisational life and work. Here they found that organisations were primarily characterised by disagreements about goals which can never be resolved. These disagreements mean that negotiations and con-fl icts always have to be considered when explaining and understanding organisa-tions (Winter 1964 ). Secondly, organisations are goal oriented in the sense that they adapt to behaviour that can satisfy and manage obstacles. This is called “satisfi cing” behaviour, which contradicted the focus upon utility maximising in a neo-classical rationality of decision making. Thirdly, concrete problems and insecurities in organ-isations activate or “trigger” the search for solutions and, in turn, learning. Fourthly, organisations react towards insecurities by applying standardised procedures, the so-called “standard operating procedures” (SOPs). Fifthly, standardised procedures are a central element in organisational learning because it is through the inquiry into solutions to insecurities that learning may occur, calling for a change in the current SOPs.

In other words, organisational learning comes about when organisational pro-grammes for behaviour guided by routines and procedures do not reach expected goals (Cyert and March 1963 [1992]; March and Simon 1958 ). What happens then


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is that inquiries are made and problems are solved, new goals are set and organisa-tional structures are changed in order to implement new and more adequate behav-ioural programmes. Organisations demonstrate that they have learned something when they are able to apply routines and procedures without further problem- solving. Thus, organisational learning in this perspective is characterised by a change or development in established routines and procedures.

Two concepts are of vital importance for the behavioural perspective on organ-isational learning (Cyert and March 1963 [1992]; March and Simon 1958 ). The fi rst is the standard operating procedures mentioned above, which refers to organisations being run by routine behaviours. Routines are identical to standardised programmes and procedures, whose purpose it is to make organisations economically feasible and effi cient. The other is the concept of “bounded rationality”, which derives from a critique of neo-classical economic theory in which human behaviour is under-stood in the light of the rationality of “economic man” (sic). In neo-classical theory, decision makers are able to acquire full information about all decision alternatives and will always make the decision that offers the best chance of maximising utility. In a bounded rationality perspective, decisions will be “satisfi cing”. This is the best achievable decision because, it is argued, no humans are able to compute all neces-sary information to make fully rational decisions. In sum, organisational learning in a behaviourist perspective is characterised by the change of routines and procedures that are no longer working, done by decision makers working within the limits of bounded rationality in organisations that are continuously negotiating goals.

There are few existing studies of professionals’ learning that take their explicit point of departure in organisational routines; but in health science, for instance, “standard operating procedures” is a concept that is often used to describe routin-ised and effective practices related to professionals’ learning of surgical procedures and safety at the operating level. In a study by Deckert et al. ( 2007 ) problems encountered when providing anaesthesia in surgical procedures conducted outside the core operating area of staff demonstrated a need to optimise local requirements and special technical equipment. This was done by changing the existing standard operating procedures at the hospital in question, resulting in a change of established behaviour aimed at reducing the number of pre-operative patient diffi culties.

Another example of how standard operating procedures have been highlighted in relation to professionals’ learning is derived from the safety profession. Based on one of the most pertinent challenges of hosting big sports events like the Olympics, to ensure the safety and security of competitors and the public, Johnson ( 2008 ) argues for employing computer simulations as training tools to rehearse standard operating procedures before real-life drills are conducted. This example under-scores the fact that standard operating procedures are the main focus for working on organisational change and learning processes, and that computer simulations can be used to encourage professionals to change their routines.

Finally, Nicolini et al. ( 2011 ) provide an example from the healthcare profession of the way in which professional organisations work with and are affected by stan-dard operating procedures. Since medical institutions are increasingly concerned with ensuring the safety of patients, failure mode and root cause analysis is often


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used as a tool to investigate clinical processes or standard operating procedures with a view to creating organisational learning. Even though Nicolini et al. ( 2011 ) study the tensions arising from using root cause analysis at policy level based on ethno-graphic data, they emphasise that root cause analysis is employed as an improve-ment method to search for errors in established standard operating procedures. The application of this method is expected to enhance the abilities of healthcare profes-sionals during potentially uncertain situations, as well as improving levels of patient safety.

To summarise, in the behavioural perspective organisations do not constantly reinvent decisions, so the learning of professionals in organisations can benefi t from an already existing effi cient behaviour when they experience impacts that organisa-tional behavioural programmes recognise (March and Simon 1958 ). Professionals’ learning in a behavioural perspective on organisational learning is made possible by the a priori knowledge and expertise that professionals bring with them from their training. Our examples also show that professionals’ learning originates from situa-tions or episodes characterised by tensions and uncertainties with regard to the existing standard operating procedures residing in the professionals’ organisation when interpreted in the light of a behavioural perspective on organisational learning. It is when professionals are able to activate their behavioural programmes without initiating further search or inquiry that the organisation can be said to have learned. In the above examples, standard operating procedures or routines work as stabilis-ing elements in the organisation by a priori framing a fi xed range of potential decisions within which professionals must operate.

31.2.2 Professional Learning in a Cognitive Perspective on Organisational Learning

The cognitive perspective on organisational learning originates from the contribu-tions to the fi eld made by Chris Argyris and Donald Schön ( 1978 , 1996 ). In their work, they defi ne an organisation as a political unit or a “polis” in order to empha-sise that all organisations are permeated by political confl icts. In the polis organisa-tion, organisational members act (and therefore learn) on behalf of the organisation in which organisational learning is defi ned as the sum of all individuals’ learning. Inspired by the organisation theorist Chester Barnard, the organisation is under-stood as a “learning system” that adapts to changes in the environment through the reactions of its members to changes in the environment. However, the decisions of individuals regarding when and how to (re-)act depend on the organisational learn-ing system which holds the individual and the organisation together.

The inspiration from Barnard paves the way for Argyris and Schön’s ( 1978 , 1996 ) conceptualisation of an organisation as a learning system with latent con-fl icts, formal (“structures”) and informal (“motivation”) elements, which as a whole affects how organisational members are able to adapt to changes in the environment and, in turn, learn. Thus, the organisational learning system consists of structures


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that channel organisational inquiry. Structures are defi ned as the communication and information systems of the organisation; the physical environments, procedures and routines for individual and collective inquiry; and the incentive systems which infl uence the motivation of members to make inquiries. The organisational learning system also consists of the “behavioural world”, which is how organisational members associate with each other in an organisation. The organisational learning system can prevent productive organisational learning if the behavioural world is too dominated by the fear of losing face, resulting in defensive ways of reasoning:

A key feature of the behavioural world of an organization is the degree to which organiza-tional inquiry tends to be bound up with the win/lose behaviour characteristic of organizational games of interests and power. (Argyris and Schön 1996 : 29)

The cognitive perspective on organisational learning appears as a reaction against the elimination of mental aspects to help explain the human mind and learning in behaviourism. Through the 1940s a “cognitive revolution”, as Howard Gardner calls it in his book, The Mind’s New Science ( 1987 ), surfaces and attention is directed towards the inner selves of humans. Cognitive psychology becomes oriented towards providing empirically based knowledge about cognitive processes as a foundation for the construction of knowledge and, in turn, human action. A cognitive perspective on learning focuses on the inner mental processes of humans such as the memory system, the development of cognitive abilities, mental models, causal maps and the computation of information. Learning happens through the structuring and modifi cation of humans’ inner cognitive or causal-functional structures, which are part of deciding actions such as “if I do X, then Y happens”. Argyris and Schön’s ( 1978 , 1996 ) research on organisational learning rests upon a cognitive perspective on learning. They prefer the notion of “action” rather than behaviour, and call their theoretical perspective a “theory of action”, which is one way to express the idea of cognitive modelling of the actions of individuals (Argyris and Schön 1974 [1978]).

The purpose of Argyris and Schön’s ( 1978 , 1996 ) model for organisational learn-ing was to change the actions of individuals (they mostly worked with management) by demonstrating the detrimental effects of defensive reasoning with regard to the effectiveness of organisations and professionals. Argyris and Schön ( 1978 , 1996 ) view defensive reasoning as the most important obstacle when it comes to learning to fl ourish in organisations. They defi ne all organisations as learning organisations, but not all organisations learn in a “productive” way. “Unproductive” learning organisations are those in which defensive reasoning rules, thereby preventing the free and open exchange of information and knowledge. The background for defen-sive reasoning is the wish of individuals to retain control, the consequence of which is that all members of an organisation will seek to protect themselves when they experience threatening or embarrassing situations. This is because all individuals are “programmed with Model 1 theories-in-use” (Argyris and Schön 1996 : 106). In other words, Model 1 programming makes productive learning organisations almost impossible because these ways of reasoning spread throughout the whole organisa-tion. A change in the theories of action that (may) lead to non-defensive ways of reasoning can only take place if individuals (and in turn organisations) learn to


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reason in ways marked by an open exchange of information and knowledge, which then ideally will lead to a Model 2 programming and a Model 2 learning system (Argyris and Schön 1996 : 111). This change entails public testing of the assump-tions through which individuals communicate, including the (often negative) traits assigned to other individuals and their actions.

In an action-research study, Vashdi and colleagues ( 2007 ) looked at how a model for learning might be helpful for a surgical department in preventing adverse events. The background for the study was that each year a large number of patients passed away as the result of medical errors, and that progress with regard to decreasing this number had been limited by a work environment that was not able to learn from its errors (Vashdi et al. 2007 : 116). The study indicated that the learning model was benefi cial for creating learning systems that were able to facilitate Model 2 theories of action in the department, making it possible not only to optimise the ability of professionals to detect and correct errors, but also to create a more transparent organisational learning system which was more able to question governing values and norms. In other words, the learning done by professionals was not only a ques-tion of fi nding and correcting errors. It also involved encompassing new ways of understanding and approaching the challenges that faced the surgical department.

For Argyris and Schön ( 1978 , 1996 ), organisational learning is a continuous pro-cess mirroring the acquisition of skills and knowledge by an organisation, some-thing which occurs by “fi nding and correcting errors”. They also distinguish between single- and double-loop learning. Single-loop learning is the incremental learning processes that occur when a mismatch is detected and corrected without altering the core values that rule actions (Argyris and Schön 1978 , 1996 ). Double- loop learning takes place when a mismatch is detected and corrected via a change of the underlying values governing human action. Thus, single-loop learning adheres to the working routines while double-loop learning creates new patterns of action based on changed values. For instance, if a waste-disposal organisation is experi-encing increased amounts of waste, a single-loop learning way to deal with this problem is to install yet another incineration plant, while a double-loop learning model would be to start some recycling of the increased waste. Connecting the two types of learning systems, Model 1 and Model 2 theory of actions, double-loop learning requires organisational inquiry into governing values, which will only happen in organisations that are able to implement Model 2 learning.

In a case study of how to maximise the quality of nursing practices, an organisa-tional learning approach inspired by Argyris and Schön was employed by Clarke and Wilcockson ( 2001 ). One of the main arguments leading up to deploying an organisational learning framework was an understanding of the need to work with both professionals’ learning and organisational learning at the same time. One of the results of the study was that there are two levels of thinking amongst nurse practi-tioners: one that employs existing structures and systems of care delivery; and another that challenges existing systems, emphasising the need to meet the needs of the patient instead of only following procedures from the system. According to Clarke and Wilcockson ( 2001 : 270), the latter form of thinking corresponds to double- loop learning given its focus on reconceptualising patient care and services


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in trying to match the needs of the patient, while the former perspective refl ects single-loop learning.

The study displayed that the improvement of practice in healthcare services needs to go beyond a focus on fi nding and correcting errors in the existing system. It was equally important to focus upon the close relation between professionals’ learning and organisational learning to enable professional institutions to work with the local learning systems and contexts of patient care. Further, the study showed the importance of communication and information sharing and its ability to help change governing values and norms. Thus, professionals’ learning was not only defi ned by practitioners as users of knowledge following or adhering to guidelines for an evidence-based practice. Important and valuable knowledge was also derived from the context of organisational care delivery and the professionals’ work.

Summing up, the literature on professionals’ learning contains a large pool of empirical research that employs the concepts from Argyris and Schön ( 1978 , 1996 ), for instance Model 1 and Model 2 and single- and double-loop learning. In the two studies presented here, the importance of creating learning systems in professional institutions which are able to utilise productive single- as well as double-loop learn-ing models was emphasised, thereby showing that it is not enough for professionals to merely learn to adapt to changes. It is equally important that their learning pro-vides them with the abilities and possibilities to change governing values and norms in professional organisations, thereby opening up for potential new ways of under-standing and solving problems.

However, even though the studies presented here indicate that organisations and professionals should preferably be able to transform governing values and norms based on a learning system that supports double-loop learning, this type of learning is not an easy task to engage in. One essential message from Argyris and Schön ( 1978 , 1996 ), which has apparently not lost its explanatory power, is that people have two programmes governing their actions. The fi rst is characterised by produc-tive learning from a learning system that is transparent and open in its quest for valid knowledge. The second tells the story of defensive routines and unproductive learn-ing, where the main objective is to defend existing actions. In many professional organisations, this kind of defensive response still poses a real challenge in managing professionals’ learning. In other words, working with professionals’ learning in the cognitive perspective on organisational learning means being aware of the two different learning systems and their consequences for professional and organisational effectiveness (Argyris and Schön 1974 [1978]).

31.2.3 Professional Learning in a Practice-Based Perspective on Organisational Learning

While the two previous perspectives on organisational learning both take their point of departure in individuals’ learning, this perspective does not regard learning as a social process in organisations (Brandi and Elkjaer 2011 ). The move into social


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processes signals a change from a dominant focus upon management as the key to creating organisational learning, to a notion of learning that includes other groups of employees and mirrors a change of work from production to service and knowl-edge, with learning acquiring an increasingly broad signifi cance. Thus, in an analy-sis of organisational learning in a practice-based perspective, Peck et al. ( 2009 : 23) demonstrate that the most powerful processes of learning take place outside the strategic hub in professionals’ organisations. Rather, organisational learning is situ-ated in informal professional communities of practice of which the manager is rarely a member.

Inspired by the ideas of symbolic interactionism, Marxism and the later works of Wittgenstein, we see a different understanding of “what is an organisation?” in a practice-based perspective than the accounts in the two previous sections (Nicolini et al. 2003 ). Notwithstanding the noticeable dominance of rational theories in organisation theory, emergent ideas on organisations in a practice-based perspective do not work with a divide between organisational members and their organisation. Organisational members are affected by historical and socio-material conditions constituting the organisation, which means that you cannot think of the individual without also including the social and material conditions for membership.

Organisational members are always embedded in and understood as part of com-munities which are perceived as being constituted through language, actions and artefacts. This conceptualising of organisations as practices of work which are organised around work incorporates informal social and material processes that take place at different organisational levels. Even though there are different concep-tions of what defi nes an organisation within practice-based theories, it is a given that organisations are regarded as dynamic and complex confi gurations and perceived (for instance) as communities of practice, social worlds or cultures encompassing a range of activities and commitments displayed in everyday work and organisation. In this perspective on organisational learning, learning is an aspect of these organ-isational practices, social worlds and cultures.

The inspiration for a practice-based perspective on organisational learning derives from several epoch-making works from the beginning of the 1990s. One of the primary sources is Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) infl uential book, in which learning is understood as “legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice”. This is a concept of learning that takes the process of learning out of the individual as the subject of learning and into a social fi eld of action and interaction in which learning is about access to participation in communities of practice (not only to practice but also to membership of an institutionalised practice). It is in participa-tion itself that learning unfolds as a process and result. This is why access to partici-pation becomes pivotal – instead of the individual’s motivation or the transfer of knowledge from an educational context to a practice context. In this way, learning becomes connected to the patterns and possibilities of participation in communities of practice (“from peripheral to non-peripheral”).

We may, however, also trace this latter perspective on organisational learning to the works of John Dewey ( 1929 [1984]), 1938 [1986] and Lev Vygotsky ( 1997 ), who early on coined a theory of learning and knowledge in which socio-cultural,


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historical and material elements are constitutive in the processes of learning. Thus, in one of Dewey’s ( 1929 [1984]) most important refl ections on learning and knowl-edge, The Quest for Certainty , he made a foundational critique of how learning and knowledge are understood in both the behavioural and the cognitive perspective. This critique also refl ects the core content of a practice-based perspective on learning:

They all hold that the operation of inquiry excludes any element of practical activity that enters into the object known. Strangely enough this is true of idealism as of realism, of theories of synthetic activity as of those of passive receptivity. For according to them ‘mind’ constructs the known object not in any observable way, or by means of practical overt acts having a temporal quality, but by some occult internal operation. (Dewey 1929 [1984]: 18)

Dewey ( 1929 [1984]) criticised the quest for a complete and certain foundation for learning and knowledge in both the cognitive model of learning and in the behavioural understanding of learning. Instead, he ( 1929 [1984]) advocated an understanding of learning and knowledge that emphasised the importance of par-ticipation in “practical activities” in life and work as potential learning opportuni-ties. It is this understanding of learning we fi nd echoed in the practice-based perspective on organisational learning in the insistence on learning being part and product of the social and material history of the communities, social worlds and cultures of which participants are a part. This is why researchers and practitioners often talk about ‘knowing’ rather than ‘knowledge’ to stress the active and proces-sual character of the knowledge concept in this perspective on learning. In addition, in a practice-based perspective on learning, the dualisms of subject and object are dissolved and replaced by a mutual constituency.

For a practice-based perspective on learning, the point of departure for learning is the patterns of participation in the practices at hand. It is important to note that the term “practice” has (at least) two meanings: “to practise” and “a practice”, for example a medical practice or a teeth brushing practice both mirrors the institution-alisation of the practice practised (for elaboration, see Nicolini et al. 2003 ). For example doing your job as a teacher or doctor entails certain institutionalised practices of “doing” teaching and “doing” doctoring, which are included as part of the everyday practising by teachers and doctors.

Many scholars of professionals’ learning have been inspired by a practice-based perspective. For example, in a study of school teachers’ professional learning Hodkinson and Hodkinson ( 2003 ) employed concepts from Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ) in their case study at four teaching departments. Hodkinson and Hodkinson ( 2003 ) demonstrate that teachers’ main activities focus on teaching pupils to attain knowledge, and that professionals operate in several different communities of practice. In the study, it is demonstrated that the most important community of practice is the department in which teachers participate and share their day to day activities. Further, the study illustrates that professionals learn during their breaks and lunch- time meetings, when professional problems are discussed and they have the opportunity to listen to new ideas and incorporate them into their own teaching styles. Thus, the practices of the professionals under scrutiny are characterised by an on- going development following interaction with colleagues and other core staff


848

members as well as the continuous development of the communities of practice derived from external pressures such as changes in government. In another study by Glazer and Hannafi n ( 2006 ) of professionals’ learning in the teaching profession, we fi nd a similar pattern of situated learning opportunities in the organisation. Even though the main purpose of their study is to create a model which can promote pro-fessionals’ learning, the theoretical backbone originates in reciprocal interactions in the community in which teachers take responsibility for each other’s learning and development, fi rmly founded in Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) situated learning theory (Glazer and Hannafi n 2006 ).

Another contribution to a practice-based perspective on organisational learning is made by Brown and Duguid ( 1991 ) in an article in which they stress organisa-tional learning as a process through which organisational members become knowl-edgeable rather than acquiring knowledge (Brown and Duguid 1991 ). Brown and Duguid ( 1991 ) show how organisational learning is grounded in the non-canonical practices that escape descriptions of standard operating procedures and cannot be captured by mental models of action but only in practising a practice in an organisa-tion. A third important contribution for a practice-based perspective on organisa-tional learning is made by Cook and Yanow ( 1993 ) and manifested through changes of values, beliefs and emotions explicated through changes of language, artefacts and actions (Cook and Yanow 1993 ). Where Brown and Duguid ( 1991 ) take their point of departure in the sociology of work, the point of departure for Cook and Yanow ( 1993 ) is anthropology and a cultural understanding of organisations in which learning is a change of an organisational culture (see also Smircich 1983 ).

Looking into organisational culture, Waring et al. ( 2007 ) investigate how a safety culture can be developed in healthcare services. The premise for the study is that the creation of a safety culture in healthcare services has been an important policy aim for many years now (Waring et al. 2007 : 3). Based on ethnographic data, the researchers display how important it is to explicate ritualistic behaviour in organisa-tions as a marker for the underlying organisational culture and as a signifi cant factor associated with safety in healthcare services, something to which most patient safety research tends to pay very little attention. The results of the analysis illustrate that mutual and culturally informed social practices in the professional culture have signifi cant implications for patient safety (Waring et al. 2007 : 7), viewed in the light of the assumptions of professionals with regard to safety culture and risk. Further, organisational learning and changes in professional culture are closely tied to various types of social and organisational factors, which means that professional organisa-tions need to change their culture if they wish to change the assumptions that they take for granted.

From what has been proposed above, it is possible to present a practice-based perspective on organisational learning as founded upon three basic principles, which are by and large inspired by pragmatist philosophy and socio-cultural psychology. First of all, the understanding of causality is transactional, which means that all actions and relations are situated and mutually constituent. It is not only a case of A infl uencing B or B infl uencing A. The situation and the wider socio-material world of the situated activities also have voices and are part of transactions.


849

No phenomena can be understood independently of other phenomena, which is why a practice- based perspective on organisational learning is understood as an aspect of social, historical and material worlds.

Secondly, dualisms are rejected as a way to analyse phenomena. In a practice- based understanding there is no distinction between body and consciousness, facts and values, objective and subjective, individual and organisation because the unit of analysis is practice. This means that the relation between individual and organisa-tional learning is no longer an issue (“how is individual learning to become organ-isational learning?”). Learning in a practice-based perspective does not begin in the individual, but departs from participation in and practising a practice. In this under-standing, the individual and the context are closely woven together and analytically inseparable.

Thirdly, practice, or changes of practice, makes up the foundational unit of anal-ysis for organisational learning. In this understanding it is stressed that practice is the primary factor when we want to understand what an organisation is and how it learns. A practice-based perspective on learning is a critique both of the individual as the subject of learning and of mental modelling as the focal point of learning (see also Fenwick et al. 2011 ). Thus, this perspective problematises both an understand-ing of individuals as travelling “containers” consisting of mental models, and an understanding of knowledge and organisations as standard operating procedures and routines. By contrast, a practice-based perspective understands professionals’ knowledge and knowing as emergent features instigated from acting and participat-ing in communities of practice. Knowledge is thereby embedded in situations in which knowledge is created and applied (Cook and Brown 1999 ).

A practice-based perspective on organisational learning and, thus, a point of departure in the social, historical and material processes for learning in enterprises has gained increasing recognition over the years, and has advanced our framework for understanding and explaining learning and change in organisations (see e.g. Easterby-Smith and Lyles 2011 ). The advancement may be due to the development of work and enterprises, which has made processes more complex so that you can-not only rely on individuals’ cognitive and communicative capacities and standard operations for running enterprises. Instead, it is necessary to begin with the practice of enterprises and their organisation.

31.3 Conclusion and Discussion

For many years there has been considerable concern regarding the adequacy of the way in which professionals learn their work practices, and this concern has often focused on the training and knowledge of professionals. In this paper we have con-nected professionals’ learning with professionals’ organisations in order to discuss what it means for professionals to be in transition from a model of occupational professionalism to organisational professionalism as described by Evetts ( 2011 ) and others (Muzio et al. 2011 ). This is a transition from professionals as framed fi rst and


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foremost within their own professional knowledge and associations, to being part of and interacting with organisations and other groups of professionals in an atmo-sphere of doubt about the legitimacy of professionals’ knowledge.

Looking back, the fi rst concern with professionals’ learning was that educational institutions did not provide suffi cient education for professionals working in prac-tice. This is sometimes termed the “theory-practice gap” (Reed 2009 ), and it leads to concerns about whether transfer between education and work is possible (see for example Detterman and Sternberg 1993 ; Gherardi and Nicolini 2003 ). Another con-cern was whether professionals are able to learn everything in educational institu-tions, leading to the model of the refl ective practitioner as a way to acquire knowledge about professional work through actions at work (Schön 1983 , 1987 ).

Today, the issue of professionals’ knowledge and how to make it match profes-sionals’ work practices continues to be a concern for educationalists working with professionals (see e.g. Jensen et al. 2012 ). In addition, there are calls for a defi nition of what it means for professionals to be part of workplaces and of new ways of organising and managing work in enterprises, which we have written in the above. This is the background for our chapter, and it is the implications of this situatedness of professionals in organisations that we have addressed by incorporating the fi eld of organisational learning. In other words, we set out to remedy the lack of input from organisation studies by including the fi eld of organisational learning to bring in not only professionals’ work but also the dynamics of organisational practices and learning.

Mintzberg ( 1983 ) did the same thing about 40 years ago, but in those days pro-fessional work was more in line with the occupational professionalism Evetts ( 2009 ) talks about. This means that the image of professionals’ work back then involved professionals being perceived as their own managers, lonely working people in a decentralised organisation. It was only possible to uphold this image because pro-fessionals were highly skilled experts within their fi elds who also took care of their own learning mediated by educational institutions and more experienced colleagues (Mintzberg 1983 ). There are still remnants of these patterns, but they are not the only ones that professionals work in. New groups claim professionalism (for exam-ple teachers and nurses), blurring boundaries of what it means to be a professional (Fournier 2000 ), and all groups of professionals are increasingly required to work with other groups of professionals, in work organisations blurring the boundaries of professional knowledge (Fenwick et al. 2012a ). In addition, the monopoly of what constitutes legitimate knowledge held by professionals is questioned both by exter-nal knowledge producers that defi ne evidence-based knowledge (Grimen and Terum 2009 ) within different professional industries like education and healthcare, and by the demand for not only professional responsibility but also professional account-ability, which is often understood in economic terms (see for example Freeman et al. 2009 ; Møller 2009 ).

It is these transitions of professionals’ work that make organisational contexts and the dynamics here relevant. We have chosen to look at how the fi eld of organ-isational learning may help us look at professionals’ learning. In this endeavour, we have taken our point of departure in a rephrased question from a classical


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contribution within the fi eld of organisational learning, Argyris and Schön ( 1996 : 3) and with help from them we have asked: “What is an organisation that professionals may learn?” What we have done is ask how the framing of organisations matters for professionals’ learning.

We have considered three organisational learning perspectives on organisational learning: behavioural, cognitive and practice-based. These are perspectives that refl ect different historical times and understandings of organisations, learning and organisational learning. When we looked at professionals’ learning through the lens of a behavioural perspective on organisational learning, the organisational focus was on the behavioural programmes mirrored in the routines and procedures. Professionals’ learning in this perspective is about changing inadequate routines and procedures when they are no longer working. Then inquiry is initiated with the pur-pose of re-organising routines and procedures to serve purposes of effi ciency and quality (responsibility).

Professionals’ learning in the light of a cognitive theory is about defensive routines inhibiting processes of detecting and correcting erroneous actions as well as more deep-seated professional learning processes oriented at changing governing values and norms in an organisation. With regard to professionals’ learning, we have distinguished between single- and double-loop learning. In a cognitive perspective, we have demonstrated that the learning of professionals is dominated either by a productive learning mindset, or by an action-theoretical programme characterised by transparency and the free exchange of knowledge and information. An unpro-ductive mindset, on the other hand, was characterised by holding back knowledge, thereby impeding professionals’ learning.

In the practice-based perspective on professionals’ learning, the focus is upon the organising processes of work practices through participants’ patterns of access and participation in these. In this perspective learning is part of practice and the focus is upon the continuous construction and reconstruction of these practices. This is also a focus upon how different participants (for example different groups of profession-als) form and perform communities (Gherardi and Nicolini 2002 ), networks (Latour 2005 ), events (Strauss 1993 ), activity systems (Blackler et al. 2000 ), or action nets (Czarniawska 2004 ), and upon learning as triggered by emotions, ambiguities, uncertainties, etc. (Brandi and Elkjaer 2011 ). This transcending the individual as the ‘unit of analysis’ for professionals’ learning, we believe, is helpful in understanding professionals’ learning when we want to include work, workplace and organisa-tions. We further believe that this perspective needs supplementing by pragmatism to remedy the overly focus upon socialisation and institutionalisation that tend to be inherent in a practice-based perspective on learning (Elkjaer 2009 ; Fenwick 2003 ). We shall return to this point in a moment. But let us fi rst imagine what would be a perspective on professionals’ learning without an organisational perspective. This would, we believe, take us into issues of what sorts of knowledge and competencies is needed given the changes of professionals’ practice, and how to best prepare educational institutions and professionals themselves for these transitions.

The issue would be which new skills to learn, and professionals’ knowledge would in this line of reasoning have to be complemented with skills and knowledge


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of how to handle working in organisations. Learning these new skills would cater for the demands for more collaborative ways of working and for learning to work in organisations managed by people other than professionals themselves. The develop-ments of new competencies would probably put emphasis on competencies that are necessary to the “professional-client” relationship. Technological literacy, for instance, or the ability to use new accreditation tools as well as collaborative com-petencies in order to co-operate not only horizontally in the organisation with peer groups but also vertically with managers, associations, new occupational groups, etc. Professionals would probably also learn new work strategies, as well as learn-ing to negotiate with managers and political stakeholders with regard to relevant professional subjects such as performance indicators, standardisation, audits and measurements – all subjects which have been brought into professionals’ work and life in organisations. We see this development refl ected in the growing demand for including subjects on “organisation and management studies” in all kinds of train-ing courses for professionals.

This focus, however, stays within the logic of professionals’ learning that is closely connected to the educational system and the control of professionals’ educa-tional attainment though formal learning initiatives. The focus is relevant, but bring-ing in an organisational perspective, particularly an organisational learning one, puts other issues on the agenda. These are issues, we believe, that touch not only upon knowledge and refl ection but also upon being and becoming part of organisational life and work.

This can be done in a phenomenological and “life-world” perspective with a point of departure in the meaning and intentionality of work for professionals and their competencies (Sandberg and Dall’Alba 2009 ; Sandberg and Pinnington 2009 ). One could, however, also elaborate a practice-based perspective with its current focus upon sociality and induction of professionals in organisations to include a socio-material understanding of organisations (Fenwick 2010 ; Latour 2000 , 2005 ). This understanding, we believe, would have to be elaborated with an understanding of learning as departing not only from individuals but also from uncertain situations (Elkjaer 2009 ), from “assemblies” of matters of concern including both human and non-human actors and intermediaries. Models of professionals’ learning in this understanding could involve practicums in which refl ection was not the main issue but that of anti -cipating and dealing with organisational complexities as transac-tions in which time, space, task and participants are all a part. The focus would not be on intentions and motivation, but rather upon performativity and power.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013161x99352004

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013161x99352004

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2012.718749

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an Organisational Perspective on Professionals’ Learning