Introduction to special issueBuzzanell, Patrice M.
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-11-2017-0107
PurposeThis paper aims to first introduce the four contributions to the themed issue of The Learning Organization entitled “Learning Organization/Organizational Learning and Gender Issues”. Second, the commonalities among these articles function as themes that can generate further research and engaged or problem-driven scholarship and practice.Design/methodology/approachFeminist critique.FindingsThese articles challenge commonsense, blur boundaries between reality and imagined visions and form a multilevel matrix for understanding and change regarding gendered learning organizations.Originality/valueAs an introduction to a special issue, this essay summarizes and extends on the four contributions and then extends the insights to encourage discovery, learning and engagement.
Gender-equal organizations as a prerequisite for workplace learningJohansson, Kristina; Abrahamsson, Lena
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-05-2017-0050
PurposeThis paper aims to explore how gendering of the learning environment acts to shape the design and outcome of workplace learning. The primary intention is to reflect on the idea of gender-equal organizations as a prerequisite for workplace learning.Design/methodology/approachA review of literature relating to gender and workplace learning was conducted with the relation between gender-(un)equal organizations and the design and outcome of workplace learning as the focus of the analysis. This was followed by an analysis of the characteristics of an organization that promote both adoptive and developmental workplace learning.FindingsThe literature shows how the gendering of the learning environment acts to shape workplace learning, often by preventing development learning and limiting adoptive learning to already privileged groups. To facilitate development, workplace learning requires that organizations are guided by nuanced knowledge of work organization and strategically use workplace learning to challenge existing power relations; that they are not characterised by gender segregation; and that the presence and protection of gendered practices and identities do not dominate learning activities.Practical implicationsStressing gender-equal organizations as a prerequisite for learning requires stakeholders to integrate a gender perspective in the design of workplace learning.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature considering workplace learning by highlighting how gender-equal organizations constitutes a prerequisite for workplace learning and in defining a few basic characteristics of such organizations.
The gender subtext of organizational learningRaaijmakers, Stephan; Bleijenbergh, Inge; Fokkinga, Brigit; Visser, Max
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-05-2017-0048
PurposeThis paper aims to challenge the alleged gender-neutral character of Argyris and Schön’s theory of organizational learning (1978). While theories in organizational science seem gender neutral at the surface, a closer analysis reveals they are often based on men’s experiences.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the method of gender subtext analysis, centering on gendering and its interaction with gender, class and race.FindingsThe dichotomous learning scheme of Argyris and Schön, in which a limited learning approach with alleged masculine values and interaction styles is opposed to an ideal learning approach with feminine values and interaction styles, is related to Bendl’s subtexts of feminization and of unconscious exclusion and neglect in organizational theories. To overcome the binary character of the theory, a gradient and contextualized approach to organizational learning is proposed.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to apply gender subtext analysis to theories of organizational learning and, thus, to analyze their gender subtext.
Universities as inclusive learning organizations for women?Gouthro, Patricia; Taber, Nancy; Brazil, Amanda
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-05-2017-0049
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of the learning organization, first discussed by Senge (1990), to determine if it can work as a model in the higher education sector.Design/methodology/approachUsing a critical feminist framework, this paper assesses the possibilities and challenges of viewing universities as inclusive learning organizations, with a particular focus on women in academic faculty and leadership roles.FindingsIt argues that, ultimately, the impact of neoliberal values and underlying systemic structures that privilege male scholars need to be challenged through shifts in policies and practices to address ongoing issues of gender inequality in higher education.Originality/valueThe paper draws attention to the need to bring a critical feminist lens to an analysis of the concept of the learning organization if it is to be perceived as having merit in the higher education sector.
Unseen and unheard? Women managers and organizational learningMartin, Lynn M.; Lord, Gemma; Warren-Smith, Izzy
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-06-2017-0057
PurposeThis paper aims to use (in)visibility as a lens to understand the lived experience of six women managers in the headquarters of a large multinational organization in the UK to identify how “gender” is expressed in the context of organizational learning.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers take a phenomenological approach via qualitative data collection with a purposeful sample – the six female managers in a group of 24. Data were collected through quarterly semi-structured interviews over 12 months with the themes – knowledge, interaction and gender.FindingsOrganizations seek to build advantage to gain and retain competitive leadership. Their resilience in a changing task environment depends on their ability to recognize, gain and use knowledge likely to deliver these capabilities. Here, gender was a barrier to effective organizational learning with women’s knowledge and experience often unseen and unheard.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a piece of research limited to exploration of gender as other, but ethnicity, age, social class, disability and sexual preference, alone or in combination, may be equally subject to invisibility in knowledge terms; further research would be needed to test this however.Practical implicationsPractical applications relate to the need for organizations to examine and address their operations for exclusion based on perceived “otherness”. Gendered organizations cause problems for their female members, but they also exclude the experience and knowledge of key individuals as seen here, where gender impacted on effective knowledge sharing and cocreation of knowledge.Social implicationsThe study offers further evidence of gendered organizations and their impacts on organizational effectiveness, but it also offers insights into the continues social acceptance of a masculinized normative model for socio-economic practice.Originality/valueThis exploration of gender and organizational learning offers new insights to help explain the way in which organizational learning occurs – or fails to occur – with visibility/invisibility of one group shaped by gendered attitudes and processes. It shows that organizational learning is not gender neutral (as it appears in mainstream organizational learning research) and calls for researchers to include this as a factor in future research.
Organizational members as storywriters: on organizing practices of reflexivityGherardi, Silvia; Cozza, Michela; Poggio, Barbara
2018 The Learning Organization
doi: 10.1108/TLO-08-2017-0080
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how organizational members became storywriters of an important process of organizational change. Writing became a practice designed to create a space, a time and a methodology with which to author the process of change and create a learning context. The written stories produced both the subjectivity of practical authors and reflexively created the con/text for their reproduction.Design/methodology/approachA storywriting workshop inspired by a processual and participatory practice-based approach to learning and knowing was held in a research organization undergoing privatization. For six months, 31 organizational members, divided into two groups, participated in writing one story per week for six weeks. The written story had to refer to a fact that had occurred in the previous week, thus prompting reflection on the ongoing organizational life and giving a situated meaning to the change process.FindingsStorywriting is first and foremost a social practice of wayfinding, that is of knowing as one goes. Writing proved to be an effective practice that involved the authors, their narratives and the audiences in a shared experience where all these practice elements became connected and through their connection acquired agency.Originality/valueNarrative knowledge has been studied mainly in storytelling, while storywriting by organizational members has received less attention. This paper explores storywriting both as a situated, relational and material practice and as the process that produces narratives which can be considered for their content and their style.