On Mon, 8 Dec 1997 16:31:07 EST DHurst1046 <DHurst1046@aol.com> wrote:
> Karl Weick, one of the leading organizational behavior thinkers sees this
> distinction very clearly. He wrote an entire book (The Social Psychology
> of Organizing) without mentioning "learning" once.
>
> In his view individuals learn and organizations may embody the results of
> that learning, but organizations don't learn in precisely the same way as
> individuals. His argument runs like this:
> In addition, in complex systems in real world situations one can argue
> whether any stimulus and any response are ever the same. (As Cratylus put
> it "You can never step into the same river once") All of which makes the
> deceptively simple idea of organizational learning rather complicated!
>
> David Hurst
Could it also be taken a stage further and suggested that using the term
'individual learning' is also rather misleading? Actor Network Theory
suggests that an 'individual', like an 'organization' is a complex network
of differing influences. Therefore, the existing theory which attempts to
discern 'learning' is rather simplistic as well.
Also, as Weick is concerned with the social construction of reality, the
question is less whether we can identify if organisational learning is
really going on, but what is being proffered as 'learning'?
p.s. I'm not sure but I think the Greek bloke's name was Heraclitus
Andrew Rowe
AFM Dept
University of Essex
Colchester
Essex CO4 3SQ
E-Mail: adrowe@essex.ac.uk
Fax: (+44) 01206 873429
The more I see, the more I know,
the more I know the less I
understand
Paul Weller
--Andrew Rowe <adrowe@essex.ac.uk>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>