Elena Antonacopoulou

Emotion, learning and organizational change

Develops an understanding of the complex interface between emotion and learning and highlights the special contribution of psychoanalytic insights in understanding individuals’ reactions to organizational changes. Explores the extent to which emotions are products of learning, the ways in which emotions facilitate or inhibit learning, and the ways in which learning redefines and re‐organizes emotions at both an individual and an organizational level. The analysis shows the interdependence between emotion and learning and highlights many of the subtleties of individuals’ reactions to change that current research into individuals’ adaptability to organizational change tends to neglect. Reviews some of the implications of the psychodynamic explication of emotion and learning to our understanding of individuals’ reactions to organizational change.

The Relationship between Individual and Organizational Learning: New Evidence from Managerial Learning Practices:

The relationship between individual and organizational learning remains one of the contested issues in organizational learning debates. This article provides new evidence about the relationship between individual and organizational learning and presents empirical findings exploring the learning practices of individual managers. The discussion reveals the psychosocial dimensions of learning as a process that transcends across multiple levels and units of analysis. The analysis of the relationship between individual and organizational learning highlights the multiple and interlocking contexts that define the content and process of learning in organizations, the politics of learning at work and the institutional identity of individuals’ learning as a reflection of organizational learning (or lack of it). The article concludes with a review of the implications of the findings for future research on learning in organizations and the way we study the relationship between individual and organizational learning.

Absorptive Capacity: A Process Perspective

Absorptive capacity is regarded as an important factor in both corporate innovation and general competitive advantage. The concept was initially developed largely from reviews of the literature and has subsequently been extended by empirical studies, although some people suggest that progress since 1990 has been disappointing. This article argues that this limited development results from the dominance of quantitative studies which have failed to develop insights into the processes of absorptive capacity, and builds on recent qualitative studies which have successfully opened up new perspectives. Using case studies drawn from three different sectors, the article argues that a process perspective on absorptive capacity should include the role of power in the way knowledge is absorbed by organizations, and provide better understanding of the nature of boundaries within and around organizations.

The Paradoxical Nature of The Relationship Between Training and Learning

The difficulty of explaining the paradoxical nature of organizational life has resulted in reductionist approaches, which present the relationships between processes as causal and linear. The relationship between training and economic performance, the contribution of training to individuals’ adaptability to change and the significance of knowledge and learning to organizational competitiveness are just some examples of the perceived linearity of the relationships between processes. The relationship between training and learning falls in the same category in that it is assumed to be very strong. This article makes a contribution to this debate by providing new insights about the relationship between training and learning. Using recent empirical findings from a longitudinal study in the Financial Services Sector, this article examines some of the basic differences between training and learning using the individual manager as the unit of analysis. These differences reveal some of the conditions that shape the relationship between training and learning. The findings from the study suggest that the relationship between training and learning may appear strong on the surface; however in essence it may be superficial and mechanistic.

Employee development through self‐development in three retail banks

The employee development initiatives in three retail banks are the focus of this paper. The discussion draws on recent empirical findings to examine the motives and expectations that underpin employee development initiatives, and the underlying assumptions which shape how such initiatives are implemented in practice. The perspective of the organisation in relation to employee development is further enhanced with findings from the perspective of the individual employee. These findings show the impact of employee development initiatives on individuals’ willingness to learn and take personal responsibility for their development. The analysis highlights the nature of the interaction between individual and organisational priorities within development and draws attention to some of the challenges that underpin employee development initiatives. The implications of these challenges for the way organisations design employee development initiatives in the future, and the way we think and research employee development are discussed at the end of the paper.

Impact and Scholarship: Unlearning and Practising to Co-create Actionable Knowledge

This essay explores what is impact, why it matters and how it may be demonstrated through management scholarship that integrates both rigour and relevance. Attention is drawn to the importance of understanding the dynamic nature of practice and practising as critical processes that set important foundations for extending both the questions we ask and the ways in which we ask the questions that shape scholarship. A central message from this analysis is the importance of unlearning asking questions with research users so that the knowledge co-created can be actionable. The author illustrates how these issues can support management scholarship to deliver the impact it can have and highlights the importance of capturing the process of co-creating knowledge and facilitating knowledge integration as two areas for future Management and Organizational Learning scholarship. Possible avenues in which Management Learning can support the demonstration of impactful scholarship are also proposed.

Narratives and Organizational Dynamics Exploring Blind Spots and Organizational Inertia

This article aims to demonstrate how narratives have the potential to bring about organizational inertia by creating self-reinforcing mechanisms and blind spots. Drawing on extensive interview data from a U.K. bio-manufacturing company, the empirical analysis shows how such narratives emerge by constructing a web of related, self-reinforcing narratives reflecting a consistent theme. The analysis demonstrates how the dominant (success) narrative remains vivid despite the existence of deviating narratives and severe crisis. In particular, the empirical findings illustrate how narratives construct a self-sustaining frame of reference, preventing the organization from questioning the principles underlying its past success. The discussion explains how narratives create self-reinforcing mechanisms and blind spots. It contributes to our understanding of the role of narratives in organizational change efforts and illustrates the way such self-reinforcing blind spots become a potential source of organizational inertia and path-dependence.

Training does not imply learning: the individual’s perspective

Using recent empirical findings from an in-depth study in the Financial Services Sector in the UK, this article provides new insights into the association between training and learning from the individual’s perspective. The analysis provides an account of the perceptions of individual managers across three Retail Banks regarding the role, significance and impact of training as a learning opportunity and shows the multiplicity of factors affecting whether individuals actually learn from training. The findings challenge some of the assumptions which have guided our thinking in the management training and development field. The implications of the findings for research and practice are considered.

Constructing contributions to organizational learning: Argyris and the next generation

This special issue of Management Learning provides the opportunity to reflect on the contribution over the past 30 years of Chris Argyris to the field of organizational learning and on some implications for future research. In order to do this we will reconsider his work against the context of other research that has been done over this period. This special issue therefore contains two items generated by Argyris himself: a commentary piece on the papers that are included here and an interview. The interview is part of a celebration event organized by Management Learning to honour Chris Argyris as a ‘Timeless Learner’ and to celebrate his 80th birthday, and Elena Antonacopoulou, who conducted this interview, presents the main insights from Chris Argyris’ scholarship. In this opening paper we focus on the nature of ‘contribution’ in relation to organizational learning, and this leads into an introduction to the six papers that comprise the core of the special issue.

Beyond co-production: practice-relevant scholarship as a foundation for delivering impact through powerful ideas

This article aims to shift the conversation from politics to purpose in co-production research by introducing practice-relevant scholarship as a foundation for delivering impact through powerful ideas. The article is intended as an invitation to re-engage in research practice mindful of the multiplicity of impacts it can deliver. A greater sensitization towards delivering impact provides scope for forming important collaborations with a whole host of partners (across geographical, scientific/professional and practice fields).