Davide Nicolini

Organizational learning: debates past, present and future

In this paper we attempt to map the development of organizational learning as a field of academic study by examining the rise and fall of specific debates. This does not pretend to be a comprehensive review of the field since there is now far too much material available to allow full coverage in any single publication. Rather, we have identified some of the key debates, and these have been organized along the simplistic time-line of past, present and future. Our purpose is two-fold: first, to note how the nature and language of the key ideas in organizational learning have changed over time; and second, to locate the papers in this Special Issue within the context of the developing field. It is perhaps no accident that we see most of the papers as closely associated with new, and emerging, issues, but we also find it interesting to note that many of these current or emergent issues actually have roots within some of the earlier debates.

To Transfer is to Transform: The Circulation of Safety Knowledge

Organizational knowing is fundamentally a collective endeavour through which heterogeneous materials and entities, such as ideas, concepts, artifacts, texts, persons, norms, and traditions are mobilized, modified, translated, distorted, exposed, used, ignored or hidden in view of some practical accomplishment, such as safety in a construction site. Safety as a form of organizational expertise is therefore situated in the system of ongoing practices, has both explicit and tacit dimensions, is relational and mediated by artifacts, that is, it is material as well as mental and representational. Using examples derived from the observation data we will discuss how safety-related knowledge is constituted, institutionalized, and continually redefined and renegotiated within the organizing process through the interplay between action and reflexivity.

The Social Construction of Organizational Learning: Conceptual and Practical Issues in the Field

The field of organizational learning (OL) has been characterized by a wide diversity of opinions, definitions, and conceptualizations. After discussing difficulties associated with previous conceptualizations of organizational learning, this paper suggests a broader conceptualization which is consistent with and integrates diverse perspectives in the field of OL. To the extent that organizations continuously act and enact their environments, cognitive processes associated with learning continually take place whether the organization recognizes it or not. OL cannot be understood without taking into account the continuous ongoing change of organizational cognitive structures. However, learning is only recognized when an observer identifies and contextualizes those changes. Thus, organizational learning can be interpreted as a social construction which transforms acquired cognition into accountable abstract knowledge. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this conceptualization of learning on management practice and organizational research.

Zooming In and Out: Studying Practices by Switching Theoretical Lenses and Trailing Connections

This article contributes to re-specifying a number of the phenomena of interest to organizational studies in terms of patterns of socio-material practices and their effects. It does so by outlining a vocabulary and strategy that make up a framework for theorizing work and organizational practices. The vocabulary is based on number of sensitizing concepts that connote practice as an open-ended, heterogeneous accomplishment which takes place within a specific horizon of sense and a set of concerns which the practice itself brings to bear. The strategy is based on the metaphorical movement of ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out of’ practice. The zooming in and out are obtained through switching theoretical lenses and re-positioning in the field, so that certain aspects of the practice are fore-grounded while others are bracketed. Building on the results of an extended study of telemedicine, the article discusses in detail the different elements of the framework and how it enhances our capacity to re-present practice. The article concludes with some considerations on how the proposed approach can assist us in advancing the research agenda of organizational and work studies.

The Organizational Learning of Safety in Communities of Practice

n the past 10 years or so, the issues of safetyand reliability in organizations have beenmoving to the center of scientific and manage-rial interest, not only because of their public impor-tance, but also because of the increasing emphasisplaced on making firms responsible for protecting thehealth of workers and the environment. On one hand,the scientific debate stresses that ours is a risk society(Beck, 1992); on the other, that human and organiza-tional factors are at the origin of industrial disasters(Gephart & Pitter, 1993; Perrow, 1984; Sagan, 1993;Turner & Pidgeon, 1997). In organization studies, thishas given rise to a new area of inquiry that, followingsuch major industrial disasters as Seveso, Three MilesIsland,Challenger,andExxonValdez,investigatesthefactors and conditions that determine the reliabilityand safety of organizations both internally and vis-a-vis their socioenvironmental context. “From risk tosafety” might be the distinctive slogan of the culturalmovement now underway: from the study of risk asan objective factor inherent in risk conditions, to thesocial production of safety conditions sustained by acultureofsafety(Gherardi,Nicolini,&Odella,1997a).Traditional approaches to safety, as regards to bothindustrial disasters and workplace accidents, con-sider it to be a property of technical systems that is ob-jectified in “safe” technologies and artifacts. We maycall this the “technical route to safety.” This is sup-ported by the normative route that views safety as theoutcome of the application of rules and regulationsthat prescribe “safe” individual and collective behav-iors. Although one should certainly not underesti-matetheimportanceofsafety-embodyingtechnologi-cal artifacts, or of the social and organizationalproduction of norms that impose safe working condi-tions, technological and bureaucratic safety cultures

Practice as the Site of Knowing: Insights from the Field of Telemedicine

This paper aims to shift the unit of analysis in the study of organisational knowledge from individuals and their actions to practices and their relationships. It introduces the concept of “site” to help advance an understanding of the relationship between practice and knowing. The notion of site supports the intuition that knowing is both sustained in practice and manifests itself through practice. It also evokes the idea of knowledge as being rooted in an extended pattern of interconnected activities that only when taken in its living and pulsating entirety constitutes the site of knowing. In this paper, I review the different ways to conceptualise the relationships between knowing and practice, and I show how the idea of site adds to the existing body of work. Building on the results of a longitudinal study in the field of telemedicine, I then offer suggestions on aspects of practice where knowing manifests itself, and I use the concepts of “translation by contact” and “at distance” to explain how dispersed knowings are woven together and the power effect that can derive from these. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of this radical view and the direction for future research.

Learning the Trade: A Culture of Safety in Practice

This paper presents an ethnographic study of how safety is mastered by novices on a building site, in order to highlight the social and cultural character of learning. Adopting a situational focus, the paper explores how knowledge is acquired and transmitted, and how a culture of practice sediments and is perpetuated in the process. The paper takes the community of practices as the privileged locus of learning and transmitting practical knowledge. This study is therefore an attempt to understand in what forms and by means of what mechanisms building-site novices are socialized in the community of practices and how, within this process, the competence relative to safety and danger is learned.

Managing Knowledge in the Healthcare Sector: A Review

Over the past decade, knowledge management (KM), as a concept and a set of practices, has penetrated into the fabric of organizational and managerial processes in the healthcare sector, which has been the site of numerous innovative KM practices. As a result scholars from a range of academic (and non-academic) fields have begun to document how KM is conceived and practised in health care, what the recurrent issues are and how they can be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature on KM concepts, policies and practices in the healthcare sector. Based on the analysis of the most relevant contributions in the last six years, three overarching themes that have occupied the interests of authors are identified and discussed: the nature of knowing in the healthcare sector, the type of KM tools and initiatives that are suitable for the healthcare sector, and the barriers and enablers to the take up of KM practices. The paper concludes with some considerations on what the literature tells us about the state of the art and the future of KM in this important sector of Western economies.

Can Target Costing and Whole Life Costing be Applied in the Construction Industry?: Evidence from Two Case Studies

Building on the results of a far-reaching action research project we discuss an attempt to introduce target costing in the UK construction industry. After examining some of the issues facing the UK construction industry, we examine the case for using target costing as a way of supporting supply-chain integration in view of an improvement of the level of profitability and quality of the industry. After presenting evidence from two pilot projects we propose some considerations on target costing and its applicability to the UK construction sector and derive directions for future research.

Comparing Methods for Mapping Organizational Cognition

This paper presents a field study exploring the differences between two methods of mapping organizational cognition — social representation and causal mapping. After introducing the two methods and describing the mapping procedures in detail, the paper discusses the different outcomes yielded by the two methodologies. Conditions of use and intrinsic limitations of each method are then examined in the light of the results. The paper concludes with some reflections on the notion and practice of mapping organizational cognition.