TITULOS DE PROPIEDAD

A key question in considering the concept of organisational learning is the question of who learns. Proponents of theories of individual learning would take the learning of individual members of the organisation as central in understanding this issue. However, focusing solely on individual learning neglects social and cultural aspects of learning and does not fully answer the question of how an organisation, a collective of individuals, learns. Is

organisational learning simply the sum of learning of individuals within it or is it something more? If individuals acquire learning, can this be translated into the organisational context? What is the relationship between structure and

agency? The dilemma inherent in the distinction between individual and organisational learning was encapsulated by Argyris and Schön in one of the earliest influential works on the topic:

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“There is something paradoxical here. Organisations are not merely collections of individuals, yet there are no organisations without such

collections. Similarly organisational learning is not merely individual learning, yet organisations learn only through the experience and action of individuals. What, then, are we to make of organisational learning? What is an

organisation that it may learn?” (Argyris and Schön, 1978)

Argyris and Schön saw individuals as agents for organisations to learn, producing the behaviour that leads to learning and then further behaviour. Their major contribution to the field was to introduce the concept of single and double loop learning, asserting that learning occurs through the detection and correction of error. The recognition of a problem and the will to change it become the drivers for learning. Single loop learning occurs when matches are created or mismatches are corrected by changing actions. Double loop learning goes deeper and occurs when mismatches are corrected by

questioning the underlying reasons and motives and then the actions. They developed models of “theories-in-use” (ibid, p79) that are continually

constructed by individuals through inquiry and which enhance or inhibit

learning. Argyris (1999) argues that for organisational learning to be effective, organisations need to maximise double-loop learning. To some extent, Argyris and Schön adopted a sociocultural dimension in their theories of organisational learning by identifying the importance of changes to underlying motives and assumptions, or culture, as the central process in effective learning and behavioural change. They began to link the individual learner with the wider world of the organisation, without seeing the individual as prior to the

organisation.

Kim (1993), however, argued that a distinction needs to be explicitly made between the individual and the organisation to prevent either ignoring the role of the individual or glossing over organisational complexity. Organisations can learn independently of any specific individual but not independently of all individuals. He saw individuals as constantly taking action and observing their experiences, but argued that not all individual learning has organisational consequences. Groups were viewed as “extended individuals” (ibid, p43), influenced by organisational factors. Drawing on Argyris and Schön‟s

36 concepts of single and double loop learning, he proposed that individual single and double loop learning leads to organisational single and double loop

learning through the influence of individual mental models on organisational shared mental models and, in turn, organisational memory. However, analysis of the cultural dimension of learning is lacking in Kim‟s model and the means through which learning is transferred to the dynamic and complex organisation is unclear.

Engeström has used theoretical tools from activity theory to analyse this question of individual versus collective learning, particularly in work settings. His expansive learning theory was first developed in 1987 but has been refined since then as central ideas from its communist Russian origins have become increasingly accessible to other academic communities. This theory puts the emphasis on communities as learners, on transformation and creation of culture through learning and on horizontal movement between different cultural contexts and competences. In expansive learning, learners learn something that is not yet there (Engeström and Sannino, 2010).

“[expansive learning] begins with individual subjects questioning accepted practices, and it gradually expands into a collective movement or institution”

(Engeström, 2008a p130)

Activity theory has its origins in Vygotsky‟s concept of mediation and Leont‟ev‟s concept of activity and was developed further by a number of theorists over the 20th century (Blackler, Crump and McDonald, 2000). Its philosophical roots are in the work of Kant, Hegel and Marx (Arnseth, 2008) and arose from

Vygotsky‟s concern with overcoming the dualism between mind and world and instead identifying how we simultaneously transform and are transformed by the social environment (Guile, 2005). The original Vygotskyian model centred on the triangular relationship between subject, object and complex mediated acts. Vygotsky introduced the idea of cultural mediation, overcoming the split between the Cartesian individual and the untouchable societal structure. Human psychological functioning and development is seen as object-related. The individual could not be understood without their cultural means and

37 society could no longer be understood without the agency of individuals who use and produce artifacts (Engeström, 2001).

Engeström‟s third generation activity theory has concentrated on developing conceptual tools to understand dialogicality, multiple perspectives and

networks of interaction by expanding the unit of analysis to a minimum of two interacting activity systems (Engeström, 2008b). His model for the actual structure of an activity system depicts the purpose of activity (the object), the context of activity (the rules, community and division of labour) and the cultural tools used to sustain or to transform the activity (the mediating artifacts). Activity systems, therefore, represent collective forms of practice and the history of that practice, its changes and developments (Langemeyer and Roth, 2006). As can be seen in figure 1, the object of activity is a moving target, transformed to a collectively meaningful object constructed by the activity system and to a potentially shared or jointly constructed object (Engeström and Sannino, 2010).

Figure 1: Two interconnecting activity systems with a shared object of activity (adapted from Engeström, 2001)

Engeström developed these ideas to explore learning processes in which the very subject of learning is transformed from isolated individuals to collectives and networks. Initially individuals begin to question the existing order and logic

38 of their activity. As more actors join in, a collaborative analysis and remodelling are initiated and carried out. Eventually the learning effort of implementing a new model of the activity encompasses all members and elements of the collective activity system and there is a qualitative transformation of the system itself. The process can be understood as construction and resolution of

successively evolving contradictions (Engeström and Sannino, 2010).

Expansive learning theory, therefore, allows us to begin to envisage

organisational learning as a form of collaboration between individuals, groups and the collective, precipitated by acts of questioning and sense making that arise from practice. However, the question of the relationship between the individual and the collective in expansive learning warrants critique and further theorising. Stetsenko and Arievitch (2004) consider that:

“The goal of rendering an account of the self as a profoundly social

phenomenon, yet at the same time as real, agentive and unique, remains to be achieved” (p476)

Stetsenko‟s (2005) critical rethinking of activity theory places the emphasis on the dialectical relationship between material production, intersubjective

exchanges and human subjectivity, which co-evolve and influence one another in a dependent way. She considers that the self is not simply situated in a sociocultural world but is produced from within, out of and by evolving activity that connects individuals to other people and themselves. The motives that drive activity are socially produced by human collaborative practices and reworked by individuals. Her concept of the „self as a leading activity‟

encapsulates the idea that collaborative transformative practices necessitate and produce the self through an individual‟s engagement with the social world and the ways in which they do and perform (Stetsenko and Arievitch, 2004).

In a further critique of Engeström‟s approach to activity theory, Langemeyer and Roth (2006) argue that his work neglects aspects of dialectical thinking and narrows the potential of activity theory to a socio-critical approach to societal practice and human development. Key in this, for them, is the notion of contradiction and how development is achieved. They highlight how

39 external factors can come to bear on activity systems and how motives to solve contradictions can be mixed in with other individual motives that may not be articulated. In particular, activity theory underestimates the motivation of individuals to avoid conflict by focusing too much on the collective

(Langemeyer, 2006). Following on from this, Engeström (2011) has recently proposed five interconnected forms of participants‟ emerging agency:

resistance to interventions; explication of new potentials; envisioning new models; committing to new actions; taking action to change activity. However he sees the characterisation of new forms of agency involved in expansive processes as a challenge for the study of expansive learning.