Contu 203 931.Full

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

1/23

http://hum.sagepub.com/Human Relations

http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/00187267030568002

2003 56: 931Human RelationsAlessia Contu, Christopher Grey and Anders rtenblad

Against Learning

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

The Tavistock Institute

can be found at:Human RelationsAdditional services and information for

http://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Aug 1, 2003Version of Record>>

by marc jacquinet on October 25, 2012hum.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931http://www.sagepublications.com/http://www.tavinstitute.org/index.phphttp://www.tavinstitute.org/index.phphttp://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.refs.htmlhttp://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.refs.htmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.full.pdfhttp://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.full.pdfhttp://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931.refs.htmlhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://www.tavinstitute.org/index.phphttp://www.sagepublications.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/8/931http://hum.sagepub.com/

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

2/23

Against learningAlessia Contu, Christopher Grey andAnders rtenblad

A B S T R A C T T h i s a r t i c le i s a c r it i q u e o f t h e b r o a d e n s e m b l e w h i c h w e i d e n t i fy a s

le a r n i n g d i sc o u r s e a n d it s p e r v a siv e i d e o lo g ic al c o n t e n t w h i ch d e t e r -

m i n e s l e a r n i n g as a g o o d t h i n g f o r a l l. W e c o n s id e r h o w t h e si gn i -

fi e r le a r n i n g w o r k s as a n o d a l p o i n t w h i ch c o n st i t u t e s ( l e git i m iz e s

and sus t a ins ) , ye t g losses ove r , an t agon is t i c and con t rad i c t o r y

o r g a n iz at io n a l a n d s o c ia l p r a c t ic e s. W i t h o u r c r i t iq u e w e e n d e av o u r

t o g o b e y o n d a sim p l e r e b u k e o r r e b u t t a l. W e , r a t h e r, p o in t o u t t h ep r o b l e m a t ic n a t u r e o f t h e t r u t h s e n g e n d e r e d in m a k in g t h e s o c ia l

a n d c o n s t it u t i n g t h e p r o m ise o f a le a r n i n g so c ie t y w h o se a m b i t

e n c o m p a s se s le a r n i n g i n g e n e r a l , t h e l e ar n i n g o r g a n iz at i o n a n d t h e

p o lit ic al e co n o m y o f t h e k n o w le d g e e c o n o m y . B y d o in g so w e

e x p o se t h e p o l it i ca l c h a r a ct e r o f t h e l e a r n in g d i sc o u r s e w h i ch , w e

a r g u e , w o r k s a s t h e su r f a c e o f in t e l li gi b i li t y p r o - p o si n g t h e r e a li t y o f

w o r k , se l f- h o o d , c it i ze n s h i p a n d so c ie t y . W e a n t a g o n i ze i t s n o

a lt e r n a t iv e t r o p e b y q u e s t io n i n g t h e e q u i v ale n c e i t c r e at e s b e t w e e n

so c ia l i n c lu s io n , c o m p e t i t iv e n e s s, e m p l o y a b i l it y, e m p o w e r m e n t a n d

p e r so n a l d e v e l o p m e n t . O u r c r i t iq u e m a ke s e x p lic it h o w it i s p o ssib l e ,

a n d w h y i t is i m p o r t a n t , t o b e a ga in s t le a r n i n g .

K E Y W O R D S c r i t i q u e d i s c o u r s e k n o w l e d g e l e a r n i n g o r g a n i z a t i o n a l

l e a r n i n g p o l i t i c s

In this article we seek to advance two propositions. The first is thatorganizational learning is inseparable from, but is a key term within, a

wider learning discourse. The second is that this learning discourse is itself

an element within the articulation of a problematic politics of tru th. There

9 3 1

Human Relations

[ 0018-7267(200308)56 :8 ]

V o l u m e 5 6 ( 8 ) : 9 3 1 9 5 2 : 0 3 6 9 8 6

C o p yr i gh t 2 0 0 3

T he Tav i sto c k I ns t i t u te

SAGE Publ icat ions

L o n d o n , T h o u sa nd O a k s C A ,

N ew D e lh i

w w w.sagepubl icat ions .com

http://www.sagepublications.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://www.sagepublications.com/

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

3/23

can be little doubt that learning has become a vogue term. In the field of

work organizations, concepts of organizational learning (Argyris &

Schn, 1978; Schn, 1983) and the learning organization (Senge, 1990)

have become increasingly prevalent (Easterby-Smith, 1997) and, a rguably,influential. Of course, the managerial and organizational literature is well

known for its faddism (Abrahamson, 1996; Kieser, 1997), and one might

choose to regard learning as just one more example. In particular, the

learning organization has been seen as a fashion, fad, buzzword or hype

(e.g. Born & Nollen, 1993; Eccles & Nohria, 1992; Garavan, 1997;

Hawkins, 1994; Jackson, 2000; Mastenbroek, 1996; Scarbrough & Swan,

2001). Fadd ishness, of course, implies an ephemeral popularity or, perhaps,

that the content of the idea is not new. However, something more signifi-cant seems to be occurring. For learning is not just a hot topic in manage-

ment. It has also come to the fore in a range of contexts, with politicians

in many countries speaking breathlessly of the goal of a learning society

and the achievement of lifelong learning (see, e.g. H ughes & Tight, 1995).

Wales has for many years been aspiring to become a learning country

(Francis, 2000; Poole, 1997). There is at least one worldwide network of

cities striving to become learning cities (Learning Towns and Cities,

2001).

So, rather than treat it as a management fad, it seems more adequateto regard organizational learning as a term within an ensemble that we might

call learning discourse. We do not, of course, mean to imply that fads are

non-discursive or that discourses are not sometime faddish. Rather, we mean

that organizational learning has a wider purchase and a more enduring

presence than is normally implied by the term management fad (Abraham-

son, 1996). Within learning discourse, organizational learning is not just

another term, however. Rather, it operates as a relay connecting, rather

obviously, learning in some way to organization and the significance of thisis in the linkage it makes between work and the wider social arena within

which learning occurs. As a discourse, which is to say a structured and

meaningful totality (Laclau, 1990),1 learning articulates a series of differen-

tial relations, which pose and shape a certain understanding of social reality

and by extension, as we shall see, offer learning as a response to the foreseen

future of this reality. It is this discursive ensemble that we explore in this

article.

Although we see organizational learning as more important than a fad,

this does not imply an endorsement of those proselytizers for organizationallearning who treat it uncritically as, in and of itself, a break with the past.

This evangelism proposes that:

Human Relations 56(8)9 3 2

http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

4/23

It is a shift which will be permanent, for in no sense does it reflect a

fad of (sic) fashion.

(Swieringa & Wierdsma, 1992: 148; see also Garrat t, 1995)

Here, other concepts are relegated to the merely fashionable, whilst organiz-

ational learning instead represents a new and enduring verity. By contrast,

our stance is not to define organizational learning as significant because of

its inherent importance but because of its enmeshment within a wider set of

concerns. For we will not get very far in analysing organizational learning

as if it were readily delineated from other instances of the invocation of

learning. Viewed as part of a discourse, organizational learning emerges as

a condition and consequence of the structuring of work, schooling and thepolitical agenda relating to the knowledge society and global competition.

Of course, one might think that the fact that learning discourse is

fashionable constitutes, in and of itself, an excellent reason to criticize it. To

do so would be not merely confirming and contributing to its modishness

but also reproducing a familiar pattern in the life cycle of any fashionable

artefact (Kieser, 1997). That might be worthwhile since, with relatively few

exceptions (Brown, 1996; Coopey, 1995; Coopey & Burgoyne, 2000;

Fenwick, 1998; Fielding, 2001; Garrick & Rhodes, 1998; Leymann, 1989;

Oswick et al., 2000; Pant, 2001) there has been very limited criticaldiscussion of organizational learning to date (see rtenblad, 2002, for a

review). However, although we want to contr ibute to this discussion, we also

want to do so in a way that makes connections between organizational

learning and wider considerations of learning discourse. The aim is to high-

light the discursive formation in which the signifier learning is mobilized in

a way that legitimizes and reinforces a neo-liberal ethos, as an inescapable

answer to the changing times of the supposedly knowledge driven, global-

ized economy. For what is most striking is how learning discourse seems tohave become constituted as truth: it is unproblematically assumed that

learning, like vitamins and stopping smoking, is a good thing (cf. Hawkins,

1994). Every label containing the term learning is conceived as a positive

label, and the term appears in an almost limitless array of couplings, whether

in organizational learning and the learning organization or in learning

climate, learning communities, learning systems, learning cities, learning

towns, learning regions, learning nations, learning economy, learning at

work, on-the-job learning, continuous learning, lifelong learning or, at its

most generic, learning society.Because learning as a discursive term is present in so wide a range of

political and social arenas this means that its power effects are of some

significance. It seems as if learning has the capacity to short-circuit

C on t u e t a l . A gainst learning 9 3 3


7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

5/23

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

6/23

Although organizational learning is influenced by the activities of

active agents, it is at the same time a top-down process. Organizational

history, assimilated in organizationa l memory, structures the activities

of these learning agents.(Huysman, 1999: 65)

Furthermore, a learning organization is supposed to be structured to increase

flexibility, with less formalization and more decentralization than in the

traditional bureaucratic organization (see e.g. Senge, 1990; Swieringa &

Wierdsma, 1992; Watkins & Marsick, 1993; West, 1994). This is not,

however, the absence of structure. It may be another kind of structure, but

it is still structure, but we will return in greater detail to this point.Perhaps the most influential formulation of organizational learning is

that which distinguishes between single- and double-loop learning (Argyris,

1992). Single-loop learning is conceptualized as the situation where indi-

viduals perform actions which have consequences. There is a match or

mismatch between the two and on that basis actions are continued or

altered. Double-loop learning occurs when the individuals alteration of

actions occurs on the basis of an examination of governing variables which

are:

. . . the preferred states that individuals strive to satisfice when they

are acting . . . they are the variables that can be inferred by observing

the actions of individuals acting as agents for the organization, to drive

and guide their actions.

(Argyris, 1992: 9)

Needless to say, all of the key terms here are rather suspect, and it must be

questionable, to say the least, whether this formulation, with its implicitrat ionalism, matches the way that any kind of learning really occurs. But the

general idea is that double-loop learning is the more creative, critical, inno-

vative kind, whereas single-loop learning is the plodding, repetitious kind.

Thus:

Single-loop learning is appropr iate for the routine, repetitive issue it

helps get the everyday job done. Double-loop learning is more relevant

for the complex, non-programmable issues it assures that there will

be another day in the future of the organization.(Argyris, 1992: 9)

Despite some noises to the contrary, it is plain that single- and double-loop

learning are hierarchically paired, with the former deferring to the latter. Fiol



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

7/23

and Lyles (1985), for example, refer to single-loop as lower-level learning,

and to remain at such a level is, apparently, to court disaster:

Unless people acting as agents for organizations and societies are ableto learn how to detect and correct double-loop errors, the survival of

the society may be in doubt.

(Argyris & Schn, 1978: 5)

No doubt, like any such pairing, that of single- and double-loop learning

could be deconstructed and inverted. But what matters for present purposes

is that it is a pairing which enables the argument that the kind of learning

which is antithetical to organization is, specifically, the double-loop kind: itis this which disorganizes and increases variety.

But does it? What is crystal clear from Argyris formulation is that even

double-loop learning is to be understood in terms of the individual as an

agent for the organization, and to assure the future of the organization. So

learning even the double-looped kind turns out to be relentlessly per-

formative. That is to say it is directed towards the achievement of particular

outcomes, and not just any outcomes, but those imputed to the organization

and concerned with the survival and prospering of the organization (Fenwick,

1998; Garrick & Rhodes, 1998). This must therefore imply that some of thegoverning variables, such as those which guide the individual to serve rather

than subvert the organization, remain unexamined. For how does one

question a premise whilst seeing the world through its lenses? (Dery, 1982:

219). In relation to organizational learning, as Fenwick suggests:

employees are supposed to reflect critically on the operational

procedures of the corporat ion, but only its surface . . . learning that

threatens the existence of the organization, such as liberated workersfinding ecological and communicatively nurturing ways to achieve their

purposes that begin with dismantling the organization, are not possible

from the organizations perspective.

(Fenwick, 1998: 149)

Thus double-loop learning does not disorganize and increase variety except

within strictly defined parameters. These parameters are defined by the

organization and therefore, even in this sense, learning and organization, are

not antithetical.We shall return to this argument, because it has significant implications

for claims about the emancipatory nature of organizational learning. But

suppose that such antithesis is conceded. What might then emerge would be



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

8/23

the claim that learning and organization are not antithetical per se, but rather

that learning (that is, the double-loop kind) is antithetical to particular,

traditional kinds of organization. In short, organizational learning is to be

conceived of as a version of anti-bureaucratic organization. Single-looplearning is bureaucratic learning, having to do with repetition and mundan-

ity, occurring within a given organizational structure, a given set of rules

(Fiol & Lyles, 1985: 807). Double-loop learning is post-bureaucratic being

less structured, less hierarchy-driven, more pro-active, more innovative:

These examples [of learning organizations] have in common systems

thinking, decentralization, continuous learning, and empowerment

keys to a learning organization. The examples are all organization-wide cultural change programs that measurably change the skill and

innovation base in the organization, that alter bureaucratic and hier-

archical relationships, and tha t create collegial, problem solving teams

aligned around a globally understood mission.

(Watkins & Marsick, 1993: 192)

This, of course, is a much weaker claim to make, and if this is taken to be

the organizational learning position then some important consequences flow

from it. First, it means that it is appropriate to make use of many of thefamiliar devices and concepts of organizational analysis to discuss organiz-

ational learning. This would not of course be possible if organizational

learning were established as subverting organization per se. Second, it means

that organizational learning should be considered alongside, or as related to,

a whole array of post-bureaucratic (Heckscher, 1994) approaches and tech-

niques excellence, teamworking, reengineering and so on. Similarly,

organizational learning should be read as part of the sustained assault on

bureaucracy which typifies recent managerial and political discourse (du Gay,2000), a point we will amplify later.

This is certainly explicit in much, if not most, of the organizational

learning literature. Perhaps most famously, Peter Senge positions learning

organizations in distinction to bureaucratic organizations where the wonder

and joy of living have no place (Kofman & Senge, 1993: 22). It is a moot

point, of course, whether bureaucracies are quite as heartless as this and

more critical analysis (e.g. Ritzer, 1993) would suggest (see du Gay, 2000).

Actually, bureaucracies do have some capacity to provide meaning and

community, if not wonder and joy. Equally, it is not clear that learningorganizations do or will have a place for wonder and joy. Indeed, the idea

of the learning organization has been criticized for not valuing the unique

differences between the individuals (Fenwick, 1998), for interfering with the



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

9/23

employees time with families and friends (Coopey, 1995; Fielding, 2001),

and for assuming that people are necessarily more comfor table with flexible,

post-bureaucratic structures (Victor & Stephens, 1994).

Senges work is certainly, as Fielding (2001) notes, animated by a deeplyhumanistic commitment in the sense that the learning organization is deemed

to be one that is structured towards the realization of the human potential

and in particular those higher order attributes such as caring and creativity.

Senge is absolutely explicit in arguing for an essentialist conception of

humanity: attributes and needs are assumed to be asocially and ahistorically

given (see also Johnson, 1993). In this, Senge, and other organizational

learning proponents, stand in a long line of organizational theorists, certainly

from human relations theory onwards, who argue that creating the circum-stances under which human needs are realized is both morally worthwhile

and will also enhance organizational performance. A more critical line, which

has been widely explored in sociology and organization theory (Friedman,

1977; Roberts, 1984; Rose, 1990), understands such humanistically informed

management as being implicated in subtle and disingenuous forms of control

which are entangled in making and enforcing capitalist and other hegemonic

forms of the organization of work, economy and subjectivity.

The capacity of organizational learning to yield, in principle, new

forms of organizational control is a point developed in some detail by JohnCoopey (1995) in one of the earliest and most incisive of the existing critical

treatments of organizational learning. He argues that employees within

learning organizations are likely to be socialized into self-responsibilized

subject positions. In this, organizational learning may be seen to have much

in common with other new or post-bureaucratic managerial techniques

which have been extensively analysed, largely from a Foucauldian perspec-

tive, in terms of their capacity to instigate regimes of self-surveillance and

self-cont rol (e.g. Sewell & Wilkinson, 1992 on JIT/TQM).The key issue here is that of empowerment. Organizational learning,

like other forms of the post-bureaucracy thesis, posits the new organizational

forms it prescribes as empowering, not in passing but as a central part of

their definition: empowerment is a cornerstone of the learn ing organization

(Watkins & Marsick, 1993: 215). This coupling of empowerment and

learning runs throughout the literature, beginning with the high priest of

organizational learn ing, Peter Senge:

. . . learn ing organizations will, increasingly, be localized organiz-ations, extending the maximum degree of authority and power as far

from the top or corporate center as possible.

(Senge, 1990: 287)



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

10/23

Near identical formulations abound (e.g. Marquardt & Reynolds, 1994;

Pedler et al., 1991) and it would be repetitious to quote them, but what is

important is to recognize that empowerment is configured as mandatory for

organizational learning to occur:

It is, I believe, possible to begin to implement organizational learning

without a concomitant move toward shared authority, but it is not

possible to move far in that direction.

(Dixon, 1994: 129)

Taken together, the proponents of organizational learning conjure up a

Utopia of democracy and freedom, always contrasted positively with thestifling hierarchy of bureaucracy. However, their opt imism seems less justified

than the darker vision of control which Coopey (1995) art iculates. That this

is so is strikingly illustrated by the formulation of one of the champions of

organizational learning, striking because it so closely mirrors the language

of Foucauldian critics of empowerment:

Right now the word empowerment is a very powerful buzzword. Its

also very dangerous. Just granting power, without some method of

replacing the discipline and order that come out of a command-and-control bureaucracy, produces chaos. We have to learn how to disperse

power so self-discipline can largely replace imposed discipline.

(OBrien in Senge et al., 1994: 14)

Empowerment is here revealed to have resolutely proscribed limits, and

learning can occur only within parameters defined by powerful others

(Fenwick, 1998). Moreover, learning may not just operate within those

constraints but actually increase them so that existing asymmetries of powerare likely to be buttressed by the learning process, giving senior managers

access to newly generated corporate knowledge and language . . . (Coopey,

1995: 209, emphasis added).

Pursuing this point undermines the plausibility of the weak organiz-

ational learning claim. Here the influential work of Ikujiro Nonaka is

particularly illustrative (Nonaka, 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1994).

Nonaka posits an interaction between explicit and tacit knowledge as the

basis for innovation. Much of what makes an organization work is tacit

knowledge accumulated through experience. Somewhat paradoxically, onthe one hand, N onaka argues that this tacit knowledge cannot be formalized

whilst, on the other hand, claiming that the successful knowledge creating

company builds bridges between the tacit and the explicit such that the



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

11/23

former becomes the latter, thereby enhancing innovation and adding to the

knowledge-capital of the organization.

Whether or not Nonaka is right about this, there is nothing very new

about it and certainly nothing post-bureaucratic. Even Argyris notes (usingthe loop-learning language) that:

One might say that one of the features of organizations as a social tech-

nology is to decompose double-loop issues into single-loop issues

because they are then more easily programmable and manageable.

(Argyris, 1992: 9)

To put it differently, a desire to render explicit, and at least somewhat tocodify, the tacit knowledge of employees seems to be the guiding thread of

management theory from Taylor onwards (Braverman, 1974; Shenhav,

1999). It was Taylors desire, as embodied in the first principle of scientific

management, to supplant the control which informal knowledge gave to

workers that partly animated his project, just as later human relations

approaches sought access to the informal norms of work groups in an

attempt to align them with formal organizational purposes. So learning

configured in this sense scarcely represents the antithesis of even traditional

organization rather, if it may be allowed, it is its essence. M oreover, learningorganizations, thus configured, by no means create knowledge so much as

access it and seek to control it as exemplified by the continuous improve-

ment associated with teamworking practices (see Adler, 1993).

We are not arguing that there is no difference between organizational

learning and Taylorism. It certainly matters that different languages and

understandings of organization are invoked because these do have the

capacity to construct new social realities. But we do want to challenge the

notion of a fundamental discontinuity between traditional and learning (or,generally, post-bureaucratic) organization. Why? Because it is that claim to

discontinuity which goes with the praising and reinforcing of new organiz-

ational forms and new regimes of work that can be seen as the justificatory

trope of social and political actions in which learning works as a crucial relay.

To tackle this same issue from a different direction, suppose it were to

be conceded for the sake of argument that learning represents some new

alternative to traditional organization. What understanding of learning goes

beyond the walls of academia through the artefacts and engagements of its

members, for example, in the form of conferences, books, training activityand research processes informing policies? Contu and Willmot t (2003) have,

in this respect, shown how a conceptualization such as that of situated

learning theory and community of practice, embraced by companies such as



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

12/23

Xerox and IBM, has many radical elements. Yet in the translation (Feyer-

abend, 1975) into the field of management, its meaning has been naturalized

into a functionalist or systemic ontology for organization. This has facili-

tated the re-appropr iation of some of its most radical concepts, such as legiti-mate peripheral participation, from a valuable and radical analytical tool

into a technocratic tool of organisational engineering (Contu & Willmott,

2003: 289).

Examples such as this show the plasticity of learning discourse and its

capacity to shape and be shaped by social realities. In the following section

we elaborate on how learning has been mobilized, translated and prescribed

in the field of policy making as well as in the commentaries on the current

social conjuncture, typically known as knowledge era, showing what thisdiscourse implies and excludes in the process.

Learning, politics and the politics of truth

The connection of the terms learning and organization is significant as part

of a wider understanding of the social role of education as being linked to

performance, in the sense of corporate and economic needs. Of course, it

is well known that since the 1980s a utilitarian conception of education hasbecome increasingly dominant, so that education is increasingly conceived of

in terms of vocationalism. Education, whether primary, tertiary or higher, is

seen more and more as training for economic functioning, and an instru-

mental and credentialist understanding of education was encouraged (see,

e.g. Gewirtz, 2002). Yet this narrowing of education, for all that it some-

times seemed overwhelming, never really exerted the hegemonic influence

which New Right ideologues might have wished for. As their repeated at tacks

on the education establishment and trendy teachers make clear, there hasremained a strong attachment within the education system to notions of indi-

vidual emancipation, social progressivism and disinterested study (see Wolf,

2002).

The promulgation of learning discourse in the 1990s can be read as a

response to these resistances through the invocation of a seemingly more

benign language which superficially resonates with progressivism whilst

maintaining an underlying commitment to functional or utilitarian concep-

tions of education. Who, indeed, can be against learning? Educators of all

sorts find it easy to commit to a term which was a part of their traditionallexicon. Learning, after all, seems to leave indeterminate the content of what

is learned (Fenwick, 1998). Learning might encompass anything from

reading Derrida to making petrol bombs.



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

13/23

However, learning discourse codes a much more restrictive set of prac-

tices than might be assumed. The political rationale for learning appears to

be a recognition of belief that it is in the vanguard of post-industrialism.

Public policy, in the UK, EU and elsewhere, is predicated on claims thatcapital is mobile, technology can migrate quickly and goods can be made in

low cost countries and shipped to developed markets (UK Competitiveness

White Paper, 1998: 10). Given this reality, competitive advantage must be

found, not in traditional means of production but ra ther in knowledge, skills

and creativity (UK Competitiveness White Paper, 1998: 10). Lifelong

learning becomes a means through which economies and organizations can

re-tread workforces and labour pools to adapt to these changes. Therefore,

on this account, as advanced industrial economies become more knowledge-based or knowledge-intensive, learning becomes a key to competition. In

the UK, the 1998 Green Paper, revealingly titled The Learning Age: A renais-

sance for a new Britain, makes this explicit. For, as the foreword by the (then)

Secretary of State for Education explains:

the fostering of an enquiring mind and the love of learning are essen-

tial for our future success. To achieve stable and sustainable growth,

we will need a well-educated, well equipped and adaptable labour

force.

Such thinking is by no means confined to the UK. The EU has a 10-year

mission plan:

to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based

economy . . . capable of sustained economic growth . . . Lifelong

Learning is a core element of this strategy, central not only to compet-

itiveness and employability but also social inclusion, active citizenshipand personal development.

(Lifelong Learning, 2002. See also Towards the Learning Society,

1995)

These formulations entail several sleights of hand. The promotion of an

enquiring mind and love for learning, social inclusion and personal develop-

ment does not necessarily have much to do with an adaptable labour force

and economic competitiveness. Indeed, enquiring minds might be lead to

question the assumptions about economic growth, competition and theeconomic primacy of the West which permeate these policy promotions.

They might also question the chain of equivalence between social inclusion,

personal development, and competitiveness and employability, which tends



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

14/23

to equate democratic and humanist values with those of utilitar ianism, profit-

ability and exploitation. But, of course, we are being disingenuous: those

kinds of enquiry are not at all what learning policy has as its aim. In exactly

the same way as organizational learning restricts and challenges the kind oflearning which can acceptably be undertaken, so too does the wider invoca-

tion of learning in society proscribe the roles that are taken by and ascribed

to its citizens/workers. It is for this reason that it is possible and perhaps even

commendable to be against learning.

It should be plain from this comparison why we have stressed that

organizational learning cannot be abstracted from learning discourse. It is

not just that the same term is used, it is that the same understandings and

practices are associated with those terms. And, even more importantly, thevarious invocations of learning as would be expected from a discursive

formation are mutually re-enforcing. For there is plainly a common

rat ionale between the case for new, post-bureaucratic, learning organizations

and conceptions of a new, globalized knowledge-based economy. In order to

compete, both organizations and economies must change in related ways.

Moreover, to the extent that capital is held to be globalized, nation states

which fail to encourage learning amongst their citizens will not be favoured

sites for inward investment. So a common imaginaire unites different kinds

of agencies in the construction of learning discourse. This commonality,which can be read as one of the most powerful ideological2 stances struc-

turing the current conjuncture, is, as we have seen, evident in the UK since

the advent of New Labour to government in 1997 and their programme of

modernization of the social fabric of the UK, as has been very widely

discussed (Callinicos, 2001; du Gay, 2000; Heffernan, 2001; Newman,

2001). New Labour politicians articulate very much the same language of

change, competitiveness, knowledge, leadership, etc. found in contemporary

managerialism (Clarke & Newman, 1997). And a similar stress is put uponlearning, with one erstwhile education ministry being re-designated as that

for lifelong learning. Thus, what is in process is a kind of interchange in

which government embraces business values, whilst business claims to be no

longer solely about profit, but also about social visions of empowered

lifelong learners (Gee et al., 1996: 223).

But the political implications of learning discourse are more extensive

than this rapprochement of nation-state governments, supra-governmental

bodies and corporate organizations would imply. For it is deeply significant

that the rewriting of desirable forms of organizational structure implicitly and often explicitly goes hand in hand with claims that the nature of the

polity has fundamentally shifted. No one suggested that the introduction of,

say, matrix structures into organizations bespoke of such a shift and yet the



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

15/23

emergence of post-bureaucratic organizational forms has been heralded as

presaging, variously, the end of organized capitalism (Lash & Urry, 1987),

the start of post-capitalist society (Drucker, 1993) or the rise of the network

society (Castells, 1996). In this way, learning discourse becomes emblematicof a series of much wider actual or alleged shifts.

Hence, as we said earlier, organizational learn ing cannot be considered

just in relat ion to management/fads but as a term, linked to other terms, that

requires evaluation and problematization as such. At that point in the

discussion our a rgument was that we should not under-value the significance

of what appear, at first, to be merely organizational or managerial changes.

But the converse also applies: we should not over-value them. This may be

illustrated by reference to Castells influential work on the network society,mentioned above. For a centra l plank of his argument for the rise of network

society is transformations in the nature of organizations, work and employ-

ment (Castells, 1996). Here, Castells not only explicitly invokes the litera-

ture on organizational learning (e.g. Castells, 1996), but places this within

what he takes to be a fundamental shift from Fordism to Toyotism, which

is another version of the bureaucracy/post-bureaucracy shift.

We know, of course, how often, in various guises, this shift has been

identified. But Castells takes claims about it to be entirely unproblematic

(that is, he takes it as an accomplished fact that this shift has occurred) eventhough there is plenty of work suggesting otherwise (e.g. Warhurst &

Thompson, 1998; Thompson & Smith, 2001). To take a recent example,

Delbridges (1998) comparat ive ethnography of a traditional and a Japanized

factory shows how the differences between them at the level of labour

process practices are fairly superficial. Plainly, this is related to the point we

made earlier that organizational learning is not so different to the traditional

concerns of scientific management.

However, we do not wish simply, or even primarily, to argue thatnothing has changed. We are trying to suggest a need to steer between, or

away from, two kinds of realist position. One says that organiz-

ational/learning is just so much froth, rhetoric or management-speak and

that really the fundamentals of control and exploitation remain intact (cf.

those who claim that the learn ing organization is only a buzzword/fashion).

The other says that really what has occurred is a fundamental transform-

ation of economy and society. Almost every writer on organizationa l learning

explains the need for it by reference to changes in the environment (Argyris

& Schn, 1978; Pedler et al., 1991; Senge et al., 1999). And, as we haveseen, the policies of countries moving towards neo-liberalism are also

justified in the light of unrelent less changes in the forces and organizat ion of

production. This is also true for neo-Marxists authors such as Hardt and



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

16/23

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

17/23

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

18/23

network that is learning discourse. It is this ensemble, which makes learning

a significant ideological tool and a real, practical force. It expresses a kind

of mood, or summons up a nebulous but seductive and futuristic vision, in

which old conflicts, whether organizational or social e.g. access toresources, the distribution of wealth, the operations of power are rendered

invisible. And this is achieved not through some totalitarian control over

information but through the very power of freedom (Rose, 1999) bestowed

by learning.

In this respect, our critique has endeavoured to go beyond a simple

rebuke or rebuttal. Our case has been not only, or not primarily, that of

arguing for the falseness of learning discourse. Rather we have tried to high-

light and make explicit the very truth which is engendered through thisdiscourse. It is by actually exploring the truth effects of th is discourse that

it is possible to open a space for a challenge that is subversive because it ques-

tions how those effects are obtained and what they leave out. This is what

we have identified as the no alternative trope which is woven into the

learning discourse that, making it difficult if not impossible to be against

learning. We have therefore considered how the signifier learning works as

a nodal point which constitutes (legitimizing and sustaining) yet glosses over

antagonistic and contradictory organizational and social practices. In

connecting learning and knowledge to empowerment and new, necessaryorganizational structures, learning discourse promotes new locales in which

individual learners can prove and improve their own potential as workers

and as citizens. Thus attention has been dedicated to making explicit the

extent to which policy making mobilizes the learning signifier and thereby

pro-poses a notion of society, self-hood and citizenship.

The universal and uncritical acceptance of learn ing shows just how far

the ideological move of appropriating and suturing a notion of society,

organization and self around learning has gone. This makes it difficult butnot, as we hope we have demonstrated, impossible and at the same time

important to argue against learning.3

Notes

1 Throughout this article, we leave our theoretical commitments somewhat in paren-theses. We want the article to be read as a theoretically informed argument aboutlearning rather than as an application of a theoretical position to learning. But themain sources, fairly obviously, are Laclau, Foucault, iek and, somewhere in thebackground, M arx and Gramsci.

2 The concept of ideology we are drawing upon here is that developed by Laclau (1996)and iek (1994). Without entering here the maze of the intellectual discussion on thedeath or life of ideology, as Laclau puts it the ideological operation par excellence



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

19/23

consists of attributing that impossible role of closure to a particular content that isradically incommensurab le with it. In other words the operat ion of closure is imposs-ible but at the same time necessary, impossible because of the constitutive dislocationwhich lies at the heart of any structural ar rangement, necessary because without thatfictitious fixing of meaning there would not be meaning at all (1996: 205). The possi-bility of constituting the community as a coherent whole around the notion of learningprojecting the social in the imaginary of a learning society represents a powerful andcomplete attempt at the ideological closure Laclau discusses.

3 Important as it may be, it is of course always possible, and sensible, to question theextent to which an academic article can make a difference, in this case by shiftingapprehensions of learning. This is a complex issue which faces critical work of allkinds, and can hardly be dealt with satisfactorily in this article. It is obviously thecase that any individual article has only a limited impact upon a relatively closedcommunity. However, as a contribution to wider projects, such as those within thecritical management studies community, it is possible for the cumulative effects to

be greater than is immediately obvious, especially when these projects begin toinform teaching. In relation to learning, so muted have been the voices of critiquethat anything which opens up a space of dissent seems to us to be worthwhile. Forfuller discussions of this issue, see Fournier and Grey (2000) and Parker (2002).

References

Abrahamson, E. Management fashion. Academ y of Managem ent Review , 1996, 21 ,25485.

Adler, P. Time and motion regained. Harvard Business Review , 1993, 71 , 97108.Argyris, C. O n organizational learning. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.Argyris, C. & Schn, D.A. O rganizational learning. A theory of action perspective.

London: Addison-Wesley, 1978.Born, H. & Nollen, M . Wha t lessons to learn? A critical analysis of the learning organiz-

ation concept. 11t h EGO S colloquium, Paris, 68 July 1993.Braverman, H. Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.Brown, D. The essences of the fifth discipline. Or where does Senge stand to view the

world. Systems Research, 1996, 13 , 91107.Butler, J., Laclau, E. & Zizek, S.Hegemony, cont ingency and universality. London: Verso,

2000.Callinicos, A. Against the th ird way. Cambridge: Polity, 2001.Castells, M. The rise of network society. Economy, society and culture. Oxford: Blackwell,

1996.Clarke, J. & Newman, J. The managerial state. London: Sage, 1997.Contu, A. & Willmott, H.C. Re-embedding situatedness: The importance of power

relations in learning theory. O rganization Science, 2003, 14 , 28397.Coopey, J. The learn ing organization, power, politics and ideology.Managem ent Learning,

1995, 26, 193213.Coopey, J. & Burgoyne, J. Politics and organizational learning. Journal of Managem ent

Studies, 2000, 37, 87085.Cyert, R.M. & March, J.G.A behavioral theory of the firm . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Ha ll, 1963.Delbridge, R.L ife on the line in contem porary manufacturing. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1998.Dery, D. Erring and learning. An organizational analysis. Account ing, O rganizations and

Society , 1982, 7, 21723.



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

20/23

Dixon, N.M. The organizational learning cycle. How we can learn collectively . London:McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Drucker, P. Post-capitalist society. New York: Harper, 1993.Du Gay, P. In praise of bureaucracy . London: Sage, 2000.Easterby-Smith, M. Disciplines of organizational learning. Contributions and critiques.

Hum an Relations, 1997, 50 , 1085113.Eccles, R.G. & Nohria, N. Beyond the hype. Rediscovering the essence of managem ent.

New York: Harvard Business School Press, 1992.Edmondson, A. & Moingeon, B. From organizational learning to the learning organization.

Managem ent Learning, 1998, 29 , 520.Fenwick, T. Questioning the concept of the learning organ ization. In S.M. Scott, B. Spencer

& A.M. Thomas (Eds), Learning for life. Canadian readings in adult education.Toronto: Thompson, 1998.

Feyerabend, P.K. Against method: O ut line of an anarchist theory of knowledge. London:NBL, 1975.

Fielding, M. Learning organisation or learning community? A critique of Senge. Reason inPractice, 2001, 1, 1729.

Fiol, C.M . & Lyles, M .A. Organizational learning.Academ y of Managem ent Review , 1985,10 , 80313.

Foucault, M. Power/knowledge. New York: Pantheon, 1980.Fourn ier, V. & Grey, C. At the critical moment: Cond itions and p rospects for critical

management studies. Hum an Relations 2000, 53 , 732.Francis, H. The new Wales. A learning country? Adults Learning, 2000, 12 , 1718.Friedman, A. Industry and labour. London: Macmillan, 1977.Garavan, T. The learning organization. A review and evaluation. The Learning Organiz-

ation, 1997, 4, 1829.

Garratt, B. An old idea that has come of age. People Management, 1995, 19 , 257.Garrick, J. & Rhodes, C. Deconstructive organisational learning. The possibilities for a

postmodern epistemology of practice. Studies in the Education of Adults, 1998, 30 ,17283.

Gee, J.P., Hull, G., & Lankshear, C. The new work order. Behind the language of the newcapitalism. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996.

Gewirtz, S. The managerial school. London: Routledge, 2002.Hardt, M. & Negri, A. Em pire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.Hawkins, P. Organizational learning. Taking stock and facing the challenge. Managem ent

Learning, 1994, 25 , 43361.Heckscher, C. Defining the post-bureaucratic type. In C. Heckscher & A. Donnelon (Eds),

The post-bureaucratic organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994.Hedberg, B. How organizations learn and unlearn. In P.C. Nystrom & W.H. Starbuck

(Eds), Handbook of organizational design . O xford: O xford University Press, 1981.Heffernan, R. N ew Labour and Thatcherism . Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.Huber, G.P. Organizational learning. The contributing processes and the literatures.

O rganization Science, 1991, 2, 88115.Hughes, C. & Tight, M . The myth of the learning society. Brit ish Journal of Educat ional

Studies, 1995, 43 , 290304.Huysman, M. Balancing biases. A critical review of the literature on organizational

learning. In M . Easterby-Smith, J. Burgoyne & L. Araujo (Eds), O rganizational learningand the learning organization. Developments in theory and practice. London: Sage,

1999.Jackson, B.G. A fantasy theme analysis of Peter Senges learning organization. The Journal

of Applied Behavioral Science, 2000, 36, 193209.Johnson, K. The learning organization. What is it? Why become one? 1993. Available at:

http://www.navran.com/Newsletter/9310/1093c.html



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

21/23

Kieser, A. Rhetoric and myth in management fashion. O rganization, 1997, 4, 4974.Kofman, F. & Senge, P. Communities of commitment. The heart of learning organizations.

O rganizational Dynamics, 1993, 22 , 523.Laclau, E. N ew reflect ion toward the revo lut ion of our t ime. Verso: London , 1990.Laclau, E. The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology. Journal of Polit ical Ideolo-

gies, 1996, 1, 20120.Lash, S. & Urry, J. The end of organized capitalism . Cambridge: Polity, 1987.Learning Towns and Cities. 2001. Available at: www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/learningci-

ties/front.htmlLeymann, H. Towards a new paradigm of learning in organizations. In H. Leymann & H.

Kornbluh (Eds), Socialization and learning at work. A new approach to the learningprocess in the work place and society. Aldershot: Avebury, 1989.

Lifelong Learning. Education and Training. 2002. Available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/lll_en.html

Marquardt, M . & Reynolds, A. Global learning organization. Gaining advantage throughcontinuous learning. New York: Irwin, 1994.

Mastenbroek, W.F.G. Organizational innovation in historical perspective. Change asduality management. Business Horizons, 1996, 39 , 514.

Newman, J.Modernising governance. N ew Labour, po licy and society . London: Sage, 2001.Nonaka, I. The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review , 1991, N ovDec,

96104.Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. The knowledge-creating company. How Japanese companies

created the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.rtenblad, A. On differences between organizational learning and learning organization.

The L earning Organization, 2001, 8, 12533.rtenblad, A. Organizational learning. A radical perspective. In ternational Journal of

Managem ent Review s, 2002, 4, 87100.Oswick, C., Anthony, P., Grant, D., Keenoy, T. & Mangham, I.L. A dialogic analysis of

organizational learning. Journal o f Managem ent Studies, 2000, 37, 887901.Pant, L.W. The growing role of informal controls. Does organization learning empower or

subjugate workers? Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2001, 12 , 697712.Parker, M . Against managem ent. Cambridge: Polity, 2002.Pedler, M ., Burgoyne, J. & Boydell, T. The learning company. A strategy for sustainable

development. London: McGraw-Hill, 1991.Poole, A. The learning country. A model for the millennium? Adults Learning, 1997, 8,

229.Reynolds, M. Learning styles. A critique. Managem ent Learning, 1997, 28, 11533.

Ritzer, G. The McDonaldization of society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993.Roberts, J. The moral character of management practice.Journal of Managem ent Studies,

1984, 21 , 287302.Rose, N. Governing the soul. London: Routledge, 1990.Rose, N. Powers of freedom . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Scarbrough, H. & Swan, J. Explaining the diffusion of knowledge management. The role

of fashion. Brit ish Journal o f Managem ent, 2001, 12 , 312.Schn, D. Organizational learning. In G. M organ (Ed.),Beyond method. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, 1983.Senge, P. The fifth discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization . New York:

Doubleday, 1990.

Senge, P.M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G. & Smith, B. The dance of change.The challenges of sustaining momentum in learning organizations. (A fifth discipline

resource.) London: Brealey, 1999.Senge, P.M., Robert s, C., Ross, R.B., Smith, B.J. & Kleiner, A. The fifth discipline

fieldbook . Strategies and tools for bu ilding a learning organizat ion . London: Brealey,1994.



7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

22/23

Sewell, G. & Wilkinson, B. Someone to watch over me. Surveillance, discipline and the JITlabour process. Sociology , 1992, 26, 27189.

Shenhav, Y. Manufacturing rationality. O xford: O xford University Press, 1999.Swieringa, J. & Wierdsma, A. Becoming a learning organization . Wokingham: Addison-

Wesley, 1992.The Learning Age: A renaissance for a new Britain . 1998. Available at: www.lifelon-

glearning.co.uk/greenpaperThompson, P. & Smith, C. Follow the redbrick road. In ternational Studies o f Managem ent

and O rganisation, 2000/1, 30(4), 4068.Towards the Learning Society. 1995. Available at: http://europa.eu.int/en/record/white/

edu9511/Tsang, E.W.K. Organizational learning and the learning organization. A dichotomy

between descriptive and prescriptive research. Hum an Relations, 1997, 50 , 7389.UK Competitiveness White Paper. 1998. Available at: www.dti.gov.uk/comp/compettive/

main.htm

Victor, B. & Stephens, C. The dark side of new organizationa l forms. An editorial essay.O rganization Science, 1994, 5, 47982.

Warhurst, C. & Thompson, P. Hands, hearts and minds: Changing work and workers atthe end of the century. In P. Thompson & C. Warhurst (Eds), Workplace of the future.London: Macmillan, 1998.

Watkins, K.E. & Marsick, V.J. Sculpting the learning organization. Lessons in the art andscience of systemic change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Weick, K. & Westley, F. Organizational learning. Affirming an oxymoron . In S. Clegg, C.Hardy & W. Nord (Eds), Handbook of organizat ion studies. London: Sage, 1996.

West, P. The concept of the learn ing organizat ion.Journal of European Industrial Training,1994, 18, 1521.

Wolf, A. Does education matter? M yth about education and econom ic grow th . London:Penguin, 2002 .

iek, S. Mapping ideology . London: Verso, 1994.


Alessia Contu i s a Le c tu re r i n t h e D e p ar tm e n t o f M an age me n t L e arn i n g

a t Lancas te r Un ive rs i ty . She i s i n te res ted in the no t ion o f po l i t i cs as

hegemon ic a r t i cu la t i on and i ts s ign ificance fo r c r i t i ca l management

stu d i e s. H e r w r i t i n g h as fo cu sed o n th e co n ce p t o f co m mu n i t y o f p ra ct i ce

and i ts re la t i on w i th power . She i s cu r ren t l y exp lo r ing the po l i t i cs o f

l ear n ing and o r gan izat io nal change in t he co n tex t o f t he d ig ita l i ndust r y.

[E-ma i l: a.con t u@ lancaste r .ac .uk ]

Chris Grey, BA Econ , PhD (M ancheste r ) , i s cu r ren t l y Sen io r Lec tu r e r

a t the Un ive rs i ty o f Cambr idge hav ing p rev ious ly worked a t Leeds and

U M IST. H is m a in r esearch in te r ests a re in o r gan izat io na l theo r y and

cr i t ica l m anagement s tud ies and he h as publ ished w ide ly in these areasin journa ls inc lud ing H u m a n R e la t io n s , Jo u r n a l o f M a n a g em e n t St u d ie s an d

Organ iza t ion S tud ies . H e i s Ed i to r - i n -Ch ie f o f M a n a g em e n t L ea r n in g , a

m e mb e r o f t h e Execu t i ve C o m m i t te e o f t h e M an age me n t Ed u cat i o n a n d

http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/http://hum.sagepub.com/

7/31/2019 Contu 203 931.Full

23/23


D e ve lo p m e n t D i vi si o n o f t h e A m e r i can A cad e my o f Ma n age me n t , a

m em ber o f the D fESs N at io na l Educa t iona l Research For um and C ha ir

o f t h e M an age me n t R e se arch A d v iso r y Fo r u m to t h e N at i o n a l C o l l egefo r Schoo l Leader sh ip .

Anders rtenblad i s a teacher and r esearcher at H almstad U n iver s ity ,

i n Sw eden . H is m ain research in te r ests a re th e sp read o f (popu lar )

management i deas in genera l , and ideas connec ted to know ledge and

lear n ing in par t icu lar . H e has publ ished ar t ic les o n t hese subject s in

M a n a g e m e n t L ea r n i n g, I n t e r n a t io n a l Jo u r n a l o f M a n a g e m e n t R e vi ew s an d T h e

Learn ing O rgan iza t ion .

[E -ma i l: ander s.o r tenb lad@ set .hh .se ]

Contu 203 931.Full

Documents

Transcript of Contu 203 931.Full