Lessons from pragmatism: Organizational learning as resolving tensions at work

Abstract

In the article, we propose to frame organizational learning as inquiry into and resolving tensions arising from the performance of different commitments to work and its organizing. We expand learning as participation with its focus upon identity and membership to the development of work and the experiences and knowledge of its participants. The proposal is inspired by pragmatist philosophy both through its emphasis on learning as ascribing meaning to experience and its sociological version, symbolic interactionism with its emphasis on work and its organizing in social arenas/worlds. We show that a pragmatist learning theory, founded on principles of non-dualistic, non-hierarchy, and a non-linear view on relations, thinking and practice aligns well with the proposed refurbished learning approach via complexity theory in this special issue. Further, we propose that Dewey’s pragmatism adds an important feature to a refurbished theory of learning in organizations by emphasizing the tensional and uncertain aspects of situations as contextual wholes that for a pragmatist learning theory constitute the analytical point of departure.

Keywords:

• John Dewey
• organizing
• organizational learning
• pragmatism
• workplace

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ulrik Brandi

Ulrik Brandi is Associate professor in Organizational Learning at Aarhus University’s Danish School of Education (Campus Copenhagen). Ulrik holds an M.A. in Educational Studies and Philosophy and a PhD in Organizational Learning from Learning Lab Denmark. Ulrik’s fields of research include workplace and organizational learning and change, lifelong learning, and innovation. The research of Ulrik Brandi is theoretically inspired by concepts originating in classical pragmatism primarily by John Dewey, Anselm Strauss, and neo-pragmatist readings. Ulrik is director of the research program ‘Learning, innovation and Sustainability in Organisations (LISO)’ at Aarhus University’s Department of Education and currently manages a research project that study sustainable learning practices and innovation capacity in Swedish and Danish production enterprises granted by Sweden’s Innovation Agency.

Bente Elkjaer

Bente Elkjaer holds a Chair in ‘Learning Theory within Organizations and Working Life’ at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University (Campus Copenhagen). Bente’ field of research is a combination of educational and organization studies, and she is engaged in understanding how learning at work may be understood with a point of departure in the practices of work and organizing. Bente’s main theoretical source of inspiration is American pragmatism, concretely the philosopher and educational thinker, John Dewey’s works, which she is continuously struggling to understand. Apart from her past employment at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) (1989-2002), Bente is the former Head of The Doctoral School of Organizational Learning (DOCSOL) (2004-2010), and the Editor in Chief of Management Learning (2005-2010). Her most recent research has been a review of the field of organizational learning (published in Management Learning, 2022) and in The Sage Handbook of Learning and Work (2021) as well as an edited volume on Current Practices in Workplace and Organizational Learning. Revisiting the Classics and Advancing Knowledge (with Maja Lotz and Niels Christian Mossfeldt Nickelsen, 2021).