A Pragmatic Review of Organizational Review of Organizational Learning Literature

Critical Theorist, Postmodernist andSocial Constructionist Paradigms in

Organizational Analysis: A ParadigmaticReview of Organizational

Learning Literatureijmr_273 453..465

Mine Karatas-Özkan1 and William D. Murphy2

1Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, School of Management, University of Southampton, Highfield,Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK, and 257 Whitby Crescent, Woodthorpe, Nottingham N65 4NA, UK

Corresponding author email: [email protected]

In an effort to clarify alternative approaches to organizational analysis, this paper isconcerned to stimulate the debate on how an inquiry into organizational phenomena,in general, and organizational learning, in particular, can be accomplished. Encourag-ing attention to different aspects of various paradigmatic approaches, the paper focuseson critical theory, postmodernism and social constructionism and how these paradigmshave contributed and can contribute to the research in the subject domain of organi-zational learning. To this end, a paradigmatic review of the literature on organizationallearning is offered in this paper. Organizational learning, as the study of learningprocesses of, and within, organizations, has attracted significant attention in academesince the early 1980s. There is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, whichoffer rich material for a paradigmatic review.This study highlights the need for furtherdevelopment of the field from alternative paradigmatic perspectives, with a view togenerating more insights into the multifaceted, complex and changing nature of learn-ing in contemporary organizations.

Introduction

Since Burrell and Morgan (1979) wrote SociologicalParadigms and Organizational Analysis and pro-vided the four-paradigm grid, increasing attentionhas been devoted to understanding the emergingapproaches to organizational analysis. Deetz (1996)suggests that their influence relates to the research-ers’ desire to locate themselves within a particularparadigm and thus legitimize their approach. InDeetz’s (1996, p. 191) words, ‘it gave each of us akind of asylum . . . we happily accepted the new-found capacity to present ourselves to mainstreamcritics as doing fundamentally different, but legiti-

mate, kinds of research and began to work on con-cepts and evaluation criteria within our nowproduced as different and unitary communities’.

Researchers are increasingly expected to demon-strate a reflexive understanding of the particular posi-tions they adopt in undertaking research (Johnsonand Duberley 2000) on management and organiza-tions. This expectation is manifest in our interest inunderstanding different approaches to organizationalanalysis. This consideration has been highlighted byscholars (e.g. Deetz 1996, 2000; Gioia and Pitre1990; Lewis and Grimes 1999, Poole and Van de Ven1989, Weick 1999) who covered different issuessurrounding the debate in such journals as Academy

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 12, 453–465 (2010)DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00273.x

© 2009 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Management Reviews © 2009 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA02148, USA

of Management Review, Administrative ScienceQuarterly, Journal of Management Studies, Journalof Management Inquiry, Organization and Organi-zation Studies.

This paper is concerned with reinforcing the needto understand and examine alternative perspectiveson organizational analysis and to stimulate thedebate on the emerging approaches to research inorganizational learning. Encouraging attention todifferent aspects of various approaches, the paperfocuses on critical theory, postmodernism and socialconstructionism by illustrating how they have con-tributed and can contribute to reveal complexity andambiguity of learning processes within organiza-tions. We begin by a discussion on the notion ofparadigm. We then continue with outlining the keyarguments underpinning each paradigmatic app-roach examined in this paper. Following this, wepresent a paradigmatic analysis of organizationallearning as a sub-domain of organization studies toillustrate the salient aspects of the research para-digms discussed.

Conceptualization of paradigm inorganization studies

As suggested by Burrell and Morgan (1979), thestarting point for comprehending differentapproaches in analysing organizations is that allapproaches to social science are based on interrelatedsets of core assumptions regarding ontology, humannature and epistemology (Morgan and Smircich1980). Based on this assumption or similar ones, therehave been various attempts to classify researchapproaches in general and in organizational analysisin particular (e.g.Alvesson and Deetz 1996; Easterby-Smith et al. 2002; Grint 1998; Hardy and Clegg 1997;Johnson and Duberley 2000; Lincoln and Guba1985). These research traditions are most often called‘paradigms’, referring to ‘entire constellation ofbeliefs, values, techniques and so on shared by themembers of a given community’ (Kuhn 1970, p. 175).Each practitioner community is characterized by aconsensus, which is ‘grounded in a tradition that basestheir work around a shared way of thinking andworking within an established network of ideas, theo-ries and methods’ (Johnson and Duberley 2000,p. 68).

Burrell and Morgan (1979) had identified func-tionalist, interpretivist, radical humanist and radicalstructuralist paradigms in organizational analysis.

More recently, Hardy and Clegg (1997) adoptedAlvesson and Deetz’s (1996) framework and iden-tified four research approaches as normative,interpretive, critical and postmodern. Normativeapproaches maintain a consensual relationship withthe existing social order and seek to establish law-like relations between objects based on nomotheticscience in order to address issues of efficiency, orderand control (Alvesson and Deetz 1996). They aretherefore associated with the use of scientific–technical knowledge, the method of positivism andthe assumptions of normal science (Hardy andClegg 1997, p. 7). Burrell and Morgan (1979) hadclassified them under functionalism, where the keyconcept is that of the organization as a system,which is functionally effective if it achieves its goalsdefined through rational decision-making. From aninterpretivist position, the organization is a socialsite, a special type of community which sharesimportant characteristics (Deetz 1996). The focus ison social rather than economic aspects of organiza-tional activities, and the aim is to show how particu-lar realities are socially produced and maintained(Alvesson and Deetz 1996; Deetz 1996; Hardy andClegg 1997). Having its roots in the interpretivistparadigm, social constructionism has emerged morerecently (Schwandt 1994, 2000). According to con-structionists, knowledge and truth are created, notdiscovered by the mind, and they emphasize the plu-ralistic character of reality expressible in a varietyof symbol and language systems (see Bruner 1986;Gergen 1991). Organizations, from a social con-structionist view, are culturally and historicallyunique sites where members collectively engage inthe construction of a social reality (Berger andLuckmann 1966). Critical theory, on the other hand,sees organizations as social historical creationsaccomplished in conditions of struggle and domina-tion, a domination that often hides and suppressesmeaningful conflict (Deetz 1996, p. 202). Postmod-ernism has gone beyond this idea of domination andprovoked the investigation of aspects of organiza-tional life previously deemed wholly inappropriatefor serious scientific consideration (Hancock andTyler 2001, p. 63). Issues such as asymmetricalpower relations, employee subjectivity, reflexivityand even the ontological status of organizationshave all been moved further to the forefront ofthe research agenda (Cooper and Burrell 1988;Hancock and Tyler 2001).

It is not intended in this paper to establish thesuperiority of one paradigm over another. Each

454 M. Karatas-Özkan and W.D. Murphy

© 2009 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Management Reviews © 2009 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

paradigm has its own distinctive language whichoffers a unique means of classifying and construingthe objects encountered during researchers’ engage-ments with the world (Johnson and Duberley 2000).This engagement is shaped not only by the nature ofinquiry but also by researchers’ background, per-sonal values, gender, social class and ethnicity, andthose of the people in the organization or commu-nity under study. The role of the researcher isincreasingly a focal concern in organization theory,where the traditional (modernist) assumption thatthe researcher is an objective observer is challengedby interpretivist, constructionist, critical and post-modernist approaches which position the researcherwithin the frame of the study (Calas and Smircich1991; Denzin and Lincoln 1998; Hatch 1996; Lin-stead 1993; Martin 1990; Van Maanen 1988).Denzin and Lincoln (1998, p. 4) described theresearcher as the ‘bricoleur’ who understands thatresearch is an interactive process shaped by all thesefactors and who also knows that researchers all tellstories about the worlds they have studied. Thus,different ontological and epistemological assump-tions are deployed in undertaking research on orga-nizations, and the narratives or stories researcherstell are accounts informed by those assumptions andhence ‘framed within specific storytelling traditions,often defined as paradigms’ (Denzin and Lincoln1998, p. 4). Yet, as argued by Lewis and Grimes(1999), it is essential to understand and communi-cate with different paradigms in researching organi-zations, because diverse views may enrich ourunderstandings of organizational complexity, ambi-guity and paradox.

The notion of ‘paradigm’, as Burrell and Morgan(1979) put forward, is problematic. The division ofsocial and organizational analysis into four, mutuallyexclusive ‘enclaves’ as paradigms lacks credibilityand practicality in researching social and organiza-tional phenomena (Willmott 1995). We take a criticalstance towards the polarization that Burrell andMorgan offer about science and society and theirmutual exclusivity thesis, that is to say organizationalanalysis is and must remain confined within thestructure of the matrix of four paradigms. Thereshould be a synthesis between these approaches. Thisentails a sound understanding and careful scrutiny ofeach perspective. Revisiting Kuhn’s (1970) thesis forscientific activity as a process of movement in whichnew paradigms emerge, the substantial continuityand overlap between paradigms should be acknowl-edged in research practice.

Critical theory, postmodernism andsocial constructionism

This section presents a comparative discussion ofcritical theory, postmodernism and social construc-tionism as research paradigms around two majorthemes: the aim of social inquiry and key ontologicaland epistemological assumptions. Here we expandon the view developed in the preceding section thateach paradigm offers a research focus and means ofclassifying and construing social phenomena. Para-digmatic choices are made by the social scientistsaccording to the purpose of the research endeavourand the researcher’s philosophical assumptionsabout the nature of reality (ontology) and the bestways of enquiring into the nature of this reality (epis-temology). Methodological choices can be locatedwithin the broader debates on the paradigms of socialresearch, which calls for the utmost awareness of thephilosophical assumptions underpinning socialinquiry.

The aim of social inquiry

The term critical theory refers to scholars and com-mentators related to the work of the FrankfurtSchool. According to Alvesson and Deetz (2000,p. 35), critical studies include a larger group ofresearchers who are different in theory and concep-tion but who share important discursive features intheir writings. These theories offer philosophicallyand socially grounded critiques of the dominant ide-ology in Western society and the institutions whichreproduce that ideology (Grimes 1992, p. 26).

At the core of the critical theory lies a desire todevelop a more rational, enlightened society througha process of critical reflection upon the organizationand efficacy of existing institutions and ideologies(Alvesson and Willmott 1996, p. 67). In that respectboth critical theory and postmodernism are oriented,in different ways, to questioning established socialorders, dominating practices, ideologies, discoursesand institutions (Alvesson and Deetz 2000). Thecritical theorists, especially Habermas (1984, 1987)focus on the incompletion of the positive potentiali-ties of the Enlightenment project and the dominationof the certain groups’ interests (see Adorno andHorkheimer 1979). The postmodernists also focus onthe dark side of the Enlightenment project, its exclu-sions and the concealed effects of reason andprogress (Alvesson and Deetz 2000, p. 15). The post-modernist approach suggests that, rather than con-

Paradigms in Organizational Analysis 455


struing and labelling such projects as ‘right orwrong’, multiplicity and differences should beacknowledged, and the modernist project, theEnlightenment, should not impose itself as the onlyway. Therefore, postmodernism rejects rigid catego-rizations of social practices, ideologies or institu-tions, but emphasizes the situational, contingent andprovisional nature of social reality, which calls forrecognizing multiple and local realities and practicesrather than large-scale or universal ones. We expandon this postmodernist focus on ‘differences’ and the‘contextual’ nature of knowledge in the followingsubsection of the paper.

Critical theory seeks ‘not just to study and under-stand society but rather to critique and changesociety’ (Patton 2002, p. 131). This coincides withthe disappointment of many researchers with the nor-mative approaches to organizations and their ques-tioning of philosophical assumptions underlyingsuch approaches. Critical researchers enter into aninvestigation with their assumptions on the table, sono one is confused concerning the epistemologicaland political baggage they bring with them to theresearch site (Kincheloe and McLaren 1994, p. 140).Critical researchers are defined by Kincheloe andMcLaren (1994) as the ones who attempt to use theirwork as a form of social or cultural criticism and whoaccept that ‘all thought is fundamentally mediated bypower relations that are social and historically con-stituted; that facts can never be isolated from thedomain of values or removed from some form ofideological inscription; that language is central to theformation of subjectivity and that certain groups inany society are privileged over others’ (p. 140).

The main themes found in critical theorist writingsencompass ideology, power, domination, organiza-tion structure, rationality, interest and communica-tion, and emancipation of actors (Alvesson andWillmott 1996; Grimes 1992). These are similar topostmodernist writings, despite considerable differ-ences in approach. Both place emphasis upon thesocial, historical, political construction of knowl-edge, people and social relations (Alvesson andDeetz 2000). Both approaches see organizations asincreasingly relying on a form of instrumental rea-soning which is privileging the means over the endsand allowing certain groups to accomplish their endsthrough dominating others.

Critical theory’s response to such problems is tofacilitate organizational change through consensus,and the aim of the researcher is to guide changingorganizational processes, whereas postmodernists

reject such consensus and urge for organizing againstdomination, but such a move will be bounded by theforce of our own subjective domination. Criticalresearchers therefore recognize that they are valueladen, immersed and active in their projects (Grimes1992). They set forth the impact of their interest ontheir research and explore the social consequences ofresearch findings by helping organizational membersto understand their condition for organizationalchange (Grimes 1992, p. 29). Organizational learn-ing is intrinsically linked to the learning of individualmembers who act as agents of change for organiza-tional well-being in critical theorist perspective.

Although relatively new to organizational studies,postmodernism has grown popular in the social sci-ences (Kilduff and Mehra 1997) and is considered bysome to be one of the twentieth century’s greatestchallenges to established knowledge (Wisdom 1987,p. 5). Its growing influence is a reaction of dis-appointment with the oversimplified, narrowapproaches to organizational research among somescholars (see Carter and Jackson 1993; Gergen 1992;Kilduff 1993; Rosenau 1992). Any precise definitionof postmodernism is likely to be disputed, becausethe postmodernist label includes many diverse intel-lectual trends. ‘There is no unified postmoderntheory or even a coherent set of positions’ (Best andKellner 1991, p. 2). This very diversity is one ofpostmodernism’s distinguishing characteristics(Kilduff and Mehra 1997; Kroll 1987).

Given these two paradigmatic perspectives,namely critical theory and postmodernism, socialconstructionism has also arisen from, and is influ-enced by, a variety of disciplines and traditions. Itssociological roots go back to Mead’s (1934) ‘sym-bolic interactionism’, whose fundamental view isthat, as people, we construct our own and eachother’s identities through our everyday encounterswith each other in social interaction (Burr 1995). Themajor contribution comes from Berger and Luck-mann’s (1966) The Social Construction of Reality, inwhich they argued that human beings together createand then sustain all social phenomena through socialpractices. They proposed that, as individuals engagein the construction of their personal meaning, collec-tives engage in the construction of social reality. Inpsychology, social constructionism has been influ-enced by Gergen’s (1973, 1985) writings. Later,Gergen (1973, 1985, 1991, 1994, 1999), togetherwith Shotter (1993a,b, 1995) and Burr (1995), havebecome major contributors to social construction-ism. According to Burr (1995), its cultural backdrop



is postmodernism, but, as an epistemologicalapproach, there are considerable differences betweenthe emphases of social constructionism and those ofpostmodernism.

In the social constructionist paradigm, the aim ofsocial inquiry shifts from structures or outcomes toprocesses – more specifically from organization toorganizing, from organizational knowledge or dis-course to the process of learning: How knowledge isgenerated and exchanged by people in interactionwithin organizations forms the main focus of inquiryfrom a social constructionist view (see Burr 1995;Easterby-Smith et al. 2002; Gergen 1999). As sug-gested by Shotter (1995), the primary function ofvarious forms of communication is not the represen-tation of things in the world, nor the giving of outerexpression to already well-formed inner thoughts,but consists in the creation and maintenance ofvarious patterns of social relations’ (p. 128). As such,to use a language is to relate oneself to others in someway in organizations and the persuasive nature of ourtalk is crucial in organizing (Shotter 1995). The roleof language and discourse in studying organizationalphenomena has been recognized significant not onlyby social constructionism but also by postmodern-ism, as illustrated above. However, social construc-tionism focuses on its constructive nature, i.e.sharing and negotiating meanings, while there is anemphasis on deconstruction of the self and others inthe postmodernist view.

Key ontological and epistemological assumptions

Postmodernism recognizes different realities: ‘differ-ences’ in contrast with positivism or modernism,which insists on the existence of ‘objective, fixedreality’ (Derrida 1978; Foucault 1980, 1982; Parker1992; Power 1990). Radavich (2001, p. 6, in Patton2002, p. 100) asserts that ‘postmodernist discourse isprecisely the discourse that denies the possibilityof ontological grounding’. Inspired by Foucauldiannotion of power knowledge (Foucault 1970, 1980,1982), Derrida’s deconstructionism (Derrida 1978)(see Cooper 1989), Lyotard’s essay on postmoderncondition (Lyotard (1984) and Baudrillard’s simula-tions (Baudrillard 1983), postmodernists emphasizethe importance of the symbolic and cultural elementsinvolved in the construction of different realities(Ogbor 2000). ‘Every knowledge is contextualizedby its historical and cultural nature’ (Agger 1991,p. 121). Therefore, scientific truth and knowledge areviewed as a construction/reconstruction of language

in localized contexts (Ogbor 2000). Since differenttruths are associated with different cultural, histori-cal and ideological backgrounds, social sciencebecomes ‘an accounting of social experience fromthese multiple perspectives of discourse rather than alarger universalistic and cumulative enterprise com-mitted to the inference of general principles’ (Ogbor2000, p. 606). The only option of the researcher is ‘toproduce a text that reproduces these multiple ver-sions of the real, showing how each impinges andshapes the phenomenon being studied’ (Denzin1997, p. 13).

Postmodernist epistemology suggests that theworld is constituted by our shared language and thatwe can only ‘know the world’ through the particularforms of discourse that our language creates(Hassard 1993, p. 3). This resembles the social con-structionist approach to the construction of mean-ings, where there is a focus on language as a form ofsocial action (see Burr 1995; Shotter 1995).However, the similarity ends there. Social construc-tionism places emphasis on ‘sharedness’ and ‘nego-tiation’, and the primary function of language is tofacilitate these processes in order to create and main-tain various patterns of social relations (Shotter1995). Deriving from Derrida’s deconstructionism,which is based on the notion that knowledge anddiscourse have to be ‘constructed’ from a ‘chamel-onic’ world (Cooper and Burrell 1988, p. 98), in thepostmodernist paradigm, our language games arecontinually in flux, meaning is constantly slippingbeyond our grasp and thus can never be lodgedwithin one term (Lyotard 1984). Thus, language doesnot capture or represent reality, a posture called‘crisis of representation’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2000).

In the postmodernist perspective, there exists afundamental shift in the ontological status of organi-zation, as contrasted with the established normativethinking which takes organizations as given and therole of the researcher to be a neutral observer of thisgiven entity (Weiskopf and Willmott 1999). What is‘real’ in postmodern thinking is not entities, but the‘emergent relational interactions and patterning thatare recursively intimated in the fluxing and trans-forming of our life worlds’ (Chia 1996, p. 177).Hence, postmodern theorizing and thinking of orga-nization is founded on ontology of becoming ratherthan being (Willmott 1995). The postmodernistapproach to organizational learning entails a closerlook at organizational discourse, texts and artefactsthat facilitate learning. How learning is implicated inrelationships of individual members and how these



relationships shape organizational politics can beconcerns of the postmodernist perspective.

The key ontological and epistemological assump-tions of social constructionism can be noted fromGergen (1985) as a critical stance towards taken-for-granted knowledge, historical and cultural specific-ity, a focus on processes, specifically on interactionand social practices and, finally, language as a formof social action. The social constructionist view ofreality is that people construct it between themthrough daily interactions in the course of social life.At the ontological level, thus, there is a belief inmultiple realities – socially constructed multiplerealities. Hosking and Bouwen (2000) suggest that‘constructionism assumes a relational ontology, inother words, all social realities are viewed as inter-dependent or co-dependent constructions existingand known only in relation’ (p. 129). Research itselfis considered an ongoing relational process of con-struction (Hosking and Ramsey 2000) and the value-laden researcher and the participants in a particularcultural and historical setting are equally parts of thisconstruction process (Karatas-Özkan 2006). Thenotions of ontology and epistemology are left joinedrather than treated as separate in this view (Hoskingand Ramsey 2000). Therefore, multiple realities areconstructed through interactive research. Gergen(1999) calls this ‘collaborative inquiry’, which maytake different forms such as ethnographic research orparticipatory action research.

Analysis of selected literature onorganizational learning from differentparadigmatic angles

We seek to draw attention to the analysis of organi-zational learning literature as a well-researchedsub-domain of organization studies. The field oforganizational learning is not in its infancy (Shipton2006). It is embedded in different disciplines andschools of thought: for example, sociology, psychol-ogy, social anthropology, organizational theory, man-agement, information theory and systems dynamics,and industrial economy. Therefore, it has beenresearched from a number of paradigmaticapproaches or theorized in a variety of ways. Thepertinent literature can be seen to be dominated by astrong emphasis on learning outcomes from a func-tionalist approach rather than processes (Easterby-Smith et al. 2000; Gherardi 1999; Hosking andBouwen 2000; Ortenblad 2002; Skerlavaj and

Dimovski 2007). It is well-acknowledged in the aca-demic sphere that the functionalist, in Burrell andMorgan’s (1979) terms, stance is dominant in thesubject domain of organizational learning. However,there is an increasing recognition of the need for amore dynamic, critical, processual and social con-structionist view of organizational learning (Bouwenand Hosking 2000; Crossan et al. 1999; Hosking andBouwen 2000). As suggested by Reason (1994),social constructionism allows a participatory worldview and offers new and rich possibilities for interestin learning processes, relations and social interac-tions. Gherardi (1999) also criticizes that commonconstructions of organizational learning reflect arealist ontology, and recommends constructionistepistemology. She has been one of the few research-ers who take a social constructionist view of learningin organizations and challenge the traditional techni-cal views of learning. Organizational learning isascribed to the members’ collective constructionof knowledge in social constructionist accounts.Examples of such work inspired by social construc-tionism include Brown and Duguid (1991), Cook andYanow (1993), Gherardi and Nicolini (2000, 2002),Huysman (2000), Lave and Wenger (1991), Nicoliniand Meznar (1995), Wenger (1998, 2000) and Yanow(2000). Attention is on the processes through whichindividual or local knowledge is transformed intocollective knowledge, as well as the process throughwhich this socially constructed knowledge influ-ences, and is part of, local knowledge (Huysman2000, p. 136). Easterby-Smith et al. (2000) call thismovement the revolution which ‘overturned the pre-viously dominant model which implicitly conceptu-alized learners as individual actors processinginformation or modifying their mental structures,and substituted it with an image of learners as socialbeings who construct their understanding and learnfrom social interaction within specific socio-culturaland material settings’ (p. 787). Table 1 illustratessome examples of work from a social constructionistperspective.

Individual learning is not neglected in such asocial constructionist view of organizational learn-ing. The process of individual learning in organiza-tions is important to understand. However, individuallearning does not necessarily lead to organizationallearning. Individual members of organizationsshould construct and exchange knowledge for betterorganizational performance. This is the underlyingnotion of organizational learning according to thesocial constructionist or interpretivist view, which



seems to have attained dominance recently, accord-ing to Ortenblad’s (2002) critical review of the orga-nizational learning literature. For years, the academicsphere has witnessed dominance of two main theo-

retical perspectives to studying organizationallearning, which can be labelled ‘acquisition’ and‘participation’ perspectives (Skerlavaj and Dimovski2007). According to the acquisition perspective (e.g.

Table 1. Selected organizational learning literature from a social constructionist perspective

Authors Research aim Type ofresearch/study

Key points/findings

Brown andDuguid (1991)

To indicate the nature andexplore the significanceof working, learning andinnovating.

Empirical Conceiving an organization as a community of communities,learning is fostered by fostering access to and membership ofthe target community of practice. Communities-of practicecontinue to develop a rich, fluid, non-canonical worldview tobridge the gap between their organization’s static canonicalview and the challenge of changing practice.

Cook and Yanow(1993)

To examine deeperprocesses of learningin organizations.

Empirical Organizational knowing and learning are always intimatelybound to a particular organization. OL is understood as theacquiring, sustaining, or changing of intersubjective meaningsthrough the artifactual vehicles of their expression andtransmission and the collective actions of the group.

Wenger (1998,2000)

To explore the structuresof social learning systemsin organizations.

Theoretical Communities of practice are the basic building blocks of asocial learning system where members are bound together bycollectively developed understanding of what their communityis about, and they hold each accountable to this sense of jointenterprise and build their community through mutualengagement, interacting with one another. As a consequencethey remain important social units of learning even in thecontext of much larger systems.

Oswick et al. (2000) To examine how dialogue,in the form of the enactmentof a discursive epistemology,can be used to generateinsights into organizationallearning.

Empirical The dominant conceptualization of the role of dialogue (Senge1990) is challenged; An alternative approach to Senge’soutput-driven theory is offered: a processual and dialogicalperspective of organizational learning is put forward wherebyorganizational actors create, recreate meanings attached toorganizational events.

Gherardi and Nicolini(2000, 2002)

To understand how peoplelearn to cope with theknowledge embedded intheir community, and theknowing nested in aconstellation of practices.

Empirical Learning in a constellation of interconnected practices can bedescribed as a brokering activity situated in a discursivepractice which reflects situated bodies of knowledge to theminimum extent necessary to perform the discursivecommunity. Knowledge is constantly structured and it isdynamic and provisional.

Jacobs and Coghlan(2005)

To examine ‘listening’ as acondition for social learningin organizations through anempirical case.

Empirical Rather than knowledge acquisition, social learning refers toidentity formation through competent participation in adiscursive practice. Listening as a central, yet so far neglected,element of discursive practice involves the constitution of arelational basis that allows for intersubjective meaninggeneration.

Lamsa and Teppo(2006)

To construct an approachreferred to as ‘theparticipatory narrative’for organizational learningin diverse organizations.

Theoretical The participatory narrative enables interplay between variousperspectives of diverse people. It makes it possible toovercome the temporal and spatial limits of organizationallearning situations and helps to question self-evidentassumptions about diverse people and makes suchassumptions visible and negotiable. The paper shows also thatthe transformative dynamic of narratively mediatedorganizational learning lies in the empowering recognition thatorganization members understand that they are the activeauthors of their stories.



Huber 1991), learning is defined by an individual’scognitive capacity to acquire, process and transferknowledge. The participation perspective (e.g. Laveand Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998), in contrast, stressesthe social and relational aspects of learning. Learn-ing as participation and co-production of knowledgelies at the heart of this perspective. The social con-structionist approach to learning reinforces this viewby acknowledging the complex and dynamic natureof learning in organizations, which is imbued withsocial interaction. Elkjaer (2004), however, offersa ‘third way’ of studying organizational learning,which suggests that organizational learning reliesupon the development of experience and knowledgeby inquiry (or reflective thinking) in an organizationheld together by the commitment of its members.One of the practical implications of the ‘third way’ oforganizational learning is offered by the author asbringing intuition and emotion to the fore in organi-zational development and learning.

A critical theorist view in researching organiza-tional learning puts emphasis on organizationalmembers as agents of change as learners. Organiza-tional learning is conceptualized as the creation andintegration of knowledge, which provokes action(Falconer 2006) that serves the purpose of question-ing ideology, strategies, policies and practices of theorganization and leads to the emancipation of itsmembers. Social transformation through the emanci-pation of individuals and groups from limited oroppressive beliefs and structures toward a more equi-table and sustainable organizational life is theprincipal aim of critical theorist perspectives onorganizational learning (Fenwick 2003). Knowledgeis usually tacit knowledge, rather than explicit, in thisview. The construction and movement of tacit knowl-edge is a political process in organizations (Cooperand Burgoyne 2000), which allows certain groups tofulfil their objectives by dominating others. Instru-mental reasoning is the key in explaining organiza-tional learning in the critical theorist perspective.Table 2 illustrates some examples of selected organi-zational learning literature from a critical theoristperspective.

The postmodernist view of organizational learningis similar in its approach, recognizing symbolic, cul-tural and political elements involved in the process.Multiple perspectives of knowledge and discourseshould be examined in researching organizationallearning, in this view. Rather than a coherent set ofnorms, principles and positions, the postmodernistapproach to organizational learning highlights

multiple interpretations. In essence, postmodernismtakes a critical stance to such collective enterprises asorganizations and organizational learning (Cooper1989; Hassard 1993; Linstead 1993). Organizationallearning is therefore a neglected area in postmodern-ist writing, and we have not been able to identify anyarticles studying organizational learning from a post-modernist approach.

Conclusions and futureresearch suggestions

This paper has sought to stimulate reflection on thekey aspects of critical theorist, postmodernist andsocial constructionist paradigmatic approaches toorganizational analysis and how, in particular, criti-cal theorist and social constructionist views havecontributed and can contribute to research in thefield of organizational learning. Despite numerousendeavours on conceptualizing and defining organi-zational learning, there is a dearth of studies aboutwhat different paradigmatic perspectives can offerto researching organizational learning. Consider-ation of each of these paradigmatic approacheswill highlight their aim, focus and ways of inquiryand therefore suggest further areas to study andimprovements in methodological orientation andresearch design.

By undertaking analyses and disseminatingresearch findings that are empirical, historically situ-ated and insightful (Forester 1993, p. 13), criticaltheory, postmodernism or social constructionism cancontribute to the reconstruction of organizationalphenomena. Focusing on injustices and inequalities,critical theorist researchers intend to show the readerhow a particular dominant reading surfaces in orga-nizational life (Putnam et al. 1993). Engagingcollaboratively with those less powerful, the role ofthe researcher is to identify strategies for change(Laughlin 1995; Patton 2002; Steffy and Grimes1986). Critical perspectives on organizational learn-ing emphasize the social transformation whichcan be achieved through emancipation of organiza-tional members from oppressive beliefs and struc-tures. Critical perspectives highlight power as a coreissue in organizational learning (Fenwick 2003). Inorder to appreciate learning in organizations, criticaltheorists would argue that we should illuminatethe structures of dominance that govern the socialrelationships and cultural practices within theorganization.



The social constructionist approach allows for aparticipatory view of organizations by highlightingthe relational processes of knowledge construction inthe course of social interaction in organizations. Thisalso implies identity construction of individualmembers of an organization (Karatas-Özkan andChell 2010). Organizational learning is ascribed to themembers’ collective construction of knowledge inthe social constructionist accounts.The focus is on the

processes through which individual or local knowl-edge is transformed into collective knowledge as wellas the process through which this socially constructedknowledge influences identity formation of the indi-viduals and groups in organizations. Identity forma-tion is linked with competent participation in adiscursive practice as a part of the learning process.Postmodernism, which is relativistic in stance, likesocial constructionism and critical theory to some

Table 2. Selected organizational learning literature from a critical theorist perspective

Authors Research aim Type ofresearch/study

Key points/findings

Blackler andMcDonald (2000)

To explore the links betweenpower, expertise and OL.

Empirical OL can be conceptualized as the movement between familiarand emergent activities and between established and emergentsocial relations. The dynamics of power, mastery andcollective learning are inseparable.

Williams (2001) To capture the essentialprocess of OL and to adopta definition of learning whichis applicable to bothindividual and OL.

Theoretical A belief-focused process model of OL: Learning is a processin which relatively stable changes are brought about in theway we see things and behave in pursuit of goals. Individualand collective sense-making is what all this is about.

Ortenblad (2002) To illustrate a radicalperspective of organizationallearning that takes intoaccount power and control inorganizations.

Theoretical The radical perspective of organizational learning implies anorganization where the individuals learn as free actors.However, there are norms or rules to guarantee freedom. Thelearning space in the organization guarantees the occurrenceof different opinions, and allows everyone to reflect upon theiractions and learning.

Fenwick (2003) To investigate the emancipatorypotential of action learning,as an approach toorganizational learning.

Theoretical Action learning, as an approach to organizational learning,carries considerable emancipatory potential withinorganizational structures. In order to use this potential better,first there needs to be a focus on employees’ interests;secondly, organizational practices that unjustly marginalize orprivilege different people should be confronted; thirdly, thecontext-dependent and contested nature of learning should berecognized; and fourthly, action learning should be facilitatedusing democratic ‘power with’ not ‘power over’ approaches toworking with people.

Berends et al. (2003) To explore organizationallearning by using astructuration approach thatacknowledges the dualismof individual (agent) andorganization (structure).

Empirical Organizational learning evolves from distributed socialpractices, creatively realized by knowledgeable individuals,and these practices are enabled and constrained by existingstructures.

Ford (2006) To examine the role of CEOsin managing a supportiveenvironment conducive fororganizational learning.

Empirical A theory of practice defined as three process principles ofpower that aid in managing a supportive environmentconducive for learning as well as organizational change.

Antonacopoulou andChiva (2007)

To examine the socialcomplexity of organizationallearning by exploring tensionsthat underpin learning insocial contexts.

Theoretical By taking a complex science perspective to understandingorganizational learning, a re-conceptualization of tensions,which underpin learning in organizations, as revealingelasticity and not only conflict. Organizational learning as asource of tensions keeps the organization in tension, whichallows us to capture the dynamics of learning and organizingbetter.



extent, stresses how the discourses or social construc-tions in organizations inscribe an identity uponmembers of an organization (Ogbor 2000). In Pat-ton’s (2002) words, they are ‘presumed to serve some-one’s interests, usually those of the powerful’(p. 101).Thus, the postmodernist researchers do not havesimply a relativist perspective, but also are concernedwith advocating their preferred values (Weiss 2000, p.717) in deconstructing organizational discourses.

Given the thematic focus of each paradigmaticapproach, in methodological terms we agree withPatton (2002) in emphasizing the understanding ofthe multiple realities constructed by people and theimplications of those constructions for their livesand interactions with others in organizations. Thecapturing of these different perspectives of themembers of an organization allows us, as social con-structionist or critical theorist researchers, to providean account to the readers who can then constructtheir own understanding. The researcher’s role is toassist readers in the construction of knowledge(Stake 1994). The final report is therefore narrated asa story which carries the message that multiplevoices need to be heard and honoured (Patton 2002).Hatch (1996) has alerted us to face a problem oforganization researchers to relate the research to theinterests, needs and concerns of those who hope touse the products of their knowledge creation efforts.By positioning ourselves outside the practitioners’world, researchers face increasing demands to inter-pret their findings and state their implications fromwithin the practitioners’ frame (Hatch 1996, p. 372)– from that of the members of the organization understudy. If the ideals of critical theory or social con-structionism are to be realized, the role of theresearcher and the quality of the report constructedis crucial in going beyond abstract theorizing tostimulate different understandings.

In this paper, we have presented a discussion onparadigmatic approaches to organizational learningliterature. It is a well-established wisdom that thefield is dominated by functionalist perspectives. Wehave begun to see proliferation of social construc-tionist and critical theorist approaches in studyingorganizational learning since the late 1990s. Sharingthe concern that we have to move from abstractmodes of communicating knowledge to more narra-tive ways of conveying insight and understanding(Czarniawska 1997), we believe that both social con-structionist and critical theorist approaches can con-tribute to organizational research, in general, and canenrich the understanding of the learning experience

of individuals in organizational settings, in particu-lar. Consistent with social constructionism, noattempt is made to raise one approach or perspectiveover others, nor is there any intention to suggest thatthere is one way of conducting research on organi-zational learning, from a social constructionist orcritical theorist standpoint.

The findings of this review reveal the importanceof understanding and applying alternative paradig-matic perspectives in researching social phenomenain general and organizational learning in particular.The research focus and findings are largely influ-enced by choices made about research paradigms.We highlight the necessity of further developmentof organizational learning as a sub-domain of orga-nization studies, from alternative paradigmatic per-spectives such as social constructionism, criticaltheory and postmodernism, with a view to generat-ing more insights into the multifaceted, complexand changing nature of learning in contemporaryorganizations. How can the learning experience oforganizational members be facilitated for moreeffective generation and sharing of knowledge withan overall objective of strategic renewal, particularlyin times of economic and social uncertainties andcrises? What are the key characteristics of the socialprocesses and outcomes associated with organiza-tional learning, taking into consideration the chal-lenging nature of cultural change in organizations?Given the emphasis on collaborative innovation bya network of organizations in the current age ofdigital economy, how can inter-organizational learn-ing be fostered? What are the implications for lead-ership and organizational forms? How can a socialconstructionist, critical theorist or postmodernistapproach contribute to investigation of theseresearch issues, and how would the findings varyaccording to different paradigmatic perspectives?These challenging and unanswered questionswarrant future research.

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A Pragmatic Review of Organizational Review of Organizational Learning Literature