Kupers, W. (2008). Embodied “inter-learning” – an integral phenomenology of learning in and by organizations

Kupers, W. (2008).  Embodied “inter-learning” – an integral phenomenology of learning in and by organizations.  The Learning Organization, 15(5) , pp. 388 - 408.  Retrieved on June 5, 2010 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/1190150503.pdf


Introduction
Globalisation has made apparent the need for continuous and connected learning to stay abreast of ongoing practice.  Gathering the knowledge required to maintain strong external links also initiates insight for forward thinking practice. Insight developed from archived artefacts has been widely recognised as a means for investigating adaptability and transformation.  Kupers suggests that one perspective is to view organisational learning as gestalt.


Investigations into gestalt unveils the relation the body plays in individual and collective learning.  Rational strategies are often unaccommodating of human behaviour.  Inclusive practice integrates mind and body, and offers an alternative.


A phenomenology of embodied learning
Phenomenology is the science of observation made popular in the 19th century.  Its foundation lies in an ecological balance of rational thought and embodied learning (e.g. living knowledge).  It proposes that all thought must first be lived in order to process knowledge.  Embodied learning is therefore the result of behavioural processes that facilitate individual meaning-making.  Tacit knowledge is the daily encounters an individual has that bring about holistic meaning.  The four categories that represent embodied learning are:

• experiential;
• presentational;
• propositional; and
• practical knowing.

Without embodiment, an individual is unable to communicate.  Paideia is the phenomenon that results in prior learning.  It facilitates in knowing why we behave the way we do.  Kinaesthetic learning addresses individual behavioural output in relation to social connections, artefacts and communities.

Learning as embodied responsive practice in organisations

Organisational literature has been critiqued for not applying the value of kinaesthesis as a link to learning and organisational practice.  The reconnection of cognitive capacity with corporeal presence.  Phenomenology can be used to view the re-integration of a learning body and mind.

Social connections are not based on the idea that individuals think about projected behaviour.  There is a link between what is done and what is felt.  A logical starting point is when the individual makes a choice between what can be done and what cannot.  This stage of learning precedes what is known, indicating a learning process that occurs between choice and acquiring knowledge.  Correspondingly, there is a strong connection to intention, context, and performance.  Individuals who embody knowledge are inclined to engage in active participation, where active participation encapsulates the study of organisational process and meaning-making.

Diversity in learning occurs as a result of differences in historical, cultural, and media exposure.  Specifically, it is how these aspects of an individual create patterns and ways of living that relate to context.  Praxis constitutes the embodied knowledge of individual and group that is enacted on a daily basis.  Transactive memory guides members to make community-centric decisions based on experience and learning.

An outline of an integral framework of learning

The domains of learning within a community focus on the individual (e.g. internal reality), group (e.g. competency, ability) and necessary external relations.  The design of organisational framework and culture enable multi-level learning.  All these components together rely on the other to sustain development, or delay progress.

Developmental level and lines within an integral cycle of learning

Psychological theory has identified stages of development in human growth (e.g. matter, body, mind, soul and spirit), and the capacity for awareness and complexity at each given stage.  Transformation from one stage to the next is defined by an increase in skill and performance, and each individual attains these stages according to need and environmental pressure.

Learning trajectories develop according to motivational needs that emerge from personal capability to transform.  Maturity leads to more responsible acceptance of function and role that benefits group and community.  While the strength of knowledge acquisition propels learning trajectories and ongoing developmental lines, weak areas become apparent and may hinder performance  or further learning.  For example, an individual may have attained a high cognitive stage of development, but have low to weak stages of development in self-verification processes.

Processional turn towards 'inter-learning'

In applying phenomenology to the sequence of organisational learning, dysfunction is identified and addressed as an outcome of kinaesthetic limitations.  This perspective indicates that learning occurs indiscriminately throughout the community, and self-configures.  Turning focus from activity to intention, phenomenology highlights the interaction between group members and the artefacts-in-use. Learning is based on experience that has been performed by the individual.  Each time an individual has cause to use artefacts and interact with other members is an opportunity to embed the activity.

Asynchronous communication creates a space between postings that identifies bifurcated lines of development.  On one hand, response to communication may be viewed as instructional or constructive, or it may be looked upon as a source of conflict (e.g. irritation or tension caused by missive).  It is a stage of development that embodies creativity and identity as individuals adapt and learn together.

Conclusion - implications and perspectives

Phenomenology has an integral approach to analysing and understanding coherent discourse in learning.  Embodied learning stabilises cognitive and behavioural methods of delivery.  As sentient beings, humans embed what they have learned by performing daily activities until it is an habitual and unconscious process.  Kupers proposes that inter-learning is the nexus for considered learning methods that add to, increase, or replace epistemic philosophy.

Dysfunction lies in tacit knowledge that accurately defines what has been learned and what is known.  Emotional interpretation of experience has a powerful effect on learning.  Power-relations within the community have causal links to micro-politics and resistance, and further investigation may reveal the correlation between conflict and the reality of learning.  Role models, or individuals of authority, may then be seen as unconscious instigators of tension as learning itself exposes change and the unresolved issues of transformational behaviour.

As phenomenology considers individuals in the first person singular, it is required that research extend to investigate the dimensions of plurality to re-frame the complexity of inter-learning.  A common language to interpret and analyse discourse suggests the need for an integral methodology.  Results emphasise the areas of weakness that improve with reflexion.  To bridge the link between cognition and embodiment of learning, adopting a gestalt perspective underscores the value of integrated practice.


Imagination Is Everything

Edwards, M.G. (2009). An integrative metatheory for organisational learning and sustainability in turbulent times

Edwards, M.G. (2009).  An integrative metatheory for organisational learning and sustainability in turbulent times.  The Learning Organization, 16(3), pp. 189 - 207.  Retrieved on June 5, 2010 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/1190160301.pdf

Introduction

Organisations that develop learning management systems, create an ongoing observation of praxis by documentation and reflexion (e.g. self-evaluation) on performance.  Groups that learn from self-management systems go through  developmental stages that are reflected in function and purpose.  Emergent responsibility and commitment to group development are enhanced with progressive knowledge acquisition that sustains credibility.


Organisations face increased responsibility as global presence leads to concern for sustainability.  Responsibility towards the environment ensures steady growth across the board.  Group dynamics changes the sphere of influence that organisations wield, resulting in identifiable dysfunction as teams grow progressively more diverse.


Integrative metatheorising
Metatheory is the formal acceptance of all theory.  Scientific theory (e.g. research) should be recognised as the ecological framework from which to structure knowledge.  Organisational development occurs through growth that is, in general, sustained in terms of economics.  Growth creates the instability that is reflective of turbulence.  Metatheory provides a view that acts as a magnifying lens to draw details of links and connections that define probable cause.


Some conceptual lenses for sustainability
The developmental lens
Commitment to sustainability requires a wider perspective.  Internal values create external standards.  A language develops to define purpose and function.  Social connections become goal-oriented representations.


As each organisation will encounter the same dysfunctions and issues, the developmental lens suggests that sustainability is interconnected with internal qualities and environmental conditions:

• Subsistence organisation - based on hard work and maximisation of profit for survival.
• Avoidant organisation - ignorance of environmental ethics results in external attack on organisational sustainability.
• Compliant organisation - sustainability is a responsibility drawn from regulation.
• Efficient organisation - sustainability is enacted from a budget-conscious perspective.
• Committed organisation - sustains economic, environmental and social activity, often setting standards higher than regulation requires.
• Sustaining organisation (local) - sustainability is developed from an  emphasis on  social integration, and economic development results from environmental concern.
• Sustaining organisation (global) - the organisations' purpose is to develop sustainable communities.

An organisation can only be sustained by drawing upon core competencies, thus future development can be regarded as maintenance of the present.  Each level of development is the sequential progress of learning.  The transformation of each group sustains a more complex form of organisation.

The internal-external lens and the field of turbulence
Developing internal-external links that connect an organisation to its environment is the key to sustainability.  When positivist attitudes are taken, only one part of the equation is considered and growth becomes unbalanced.  Dynamism in leadership has a twofold effect: transformation of an organisation from low complexity to high complexity occurs, however this growth also generates new uncertainty (e.g. turbulence) as organisations strive to remain stable.  Large organisations are said to have more complex internal networks and intricate connections to the environment.  By applying Occam's Razor, organisations have the opportunity to go to either high or low complexity states to achieve sustainable practice.


Environmental turbulence can then be seen to develop or enhance more forward thinking strategy, as practitioners learn from mistakes and process a more desirable state of conduct.


The learning lens
Metatheory indicates that there are four phases in a cycle of learning:

1. active behavioural phase - active physical engagement;
2. a reflective thinking phase - conceptual reflection;
3. an interpretive sense-making phase - cultural interpretation; and
4. social validation - evaluative phase.

Each phase can be viewed through either concrete experience as it pertains to the abstract, or by activity and its relation to interpersonal congruence.  In hierarchical terms, each cycle represents the level of learning and knowledge acquired.  The practice is often referred to as Sustainability-focused Organisational Learning (SFOL).  While it is crucial to have employees contribute to the organisational core, higher levels of individual learning will raise the potential of future development.  Communities that are unable to commit to this level of learning remain in existing conditions.

One issue that organisations face is implementing hierarchical learning that replaces single-loop learning.  By deconstructing values or institutionalised methods, communities are able to view the bare framework of function and purpose to embed new best practice policies.

Metatheorising sustainability paradoxes

The growth paradox

Indications to sustainable development require vertical growth in an organisation that correlates with increased internal development.  Internal activity during non-turbulent times causes the transformation that occurs during periods of instability.  Strategic planning may have adverse effects if the focus is on economic gain without consideration for sustaining and maintaining the community.

The learning paradox

Learning lenses consider growth, knowledge acquisition and sustainability where single loop learning is indicative of 'know what', double loop learning acquires 'know how', and triple loop learning reveals 'know why'.  Triple loop learning is the most functional in organisations that have a global span.

The sustainability paradox
While organisations face certain stress during inclement periods, care should be taken to retain articulated and persistent identity as transformation occurs. The paradox occurs as the organisation attempts the balance of sustainable growth through change and stability that in turn, leads to further development.  As organisations are complex structures, different stages of individual and team development effect multi-level learning.


Conclusion
Sustainable development is seen to be the key route to the growth of an organisation through embedded practice and learning.  It has been suggested that there is a fundamental difficulty in knowing how to embed triple loop learning within the existing single loop model.  Orthodox thinking requires metatheory to facilitate the understanding, deconstruction and rebuilding of familiar concepts.

Harrison, M. (2005). What makes al-Qaida a global learning network?

Harrison, M. (2005).  What makes al-Qaida a global learning network?  Foresight, 7(1), pp. 4 - 10.  Retrieved on June 5, 2010 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/2730070101.pdf


Introduction
Harrison looks at the source point of the al-Qaida network to understand how global learning can operate successfully through holonomics.  He suggests that we consider how the source is a uni-directional path of information (e.g. from leader to group member and vice-versa).  The inner circle has clarity of organisational direction and strategy, and can therefore plan how to implement action through the spread of individual social information networks.  Harrison indicates that the al-Qaida is an excellent model from which to view how global learning networks perform successfully as a devolved, multi-cellular structure and entrepreneurial culture.  Loosely coupled networks and self-managing teams are attributes that lead to effective transnational enterprise.


The learning organisation
Within such organisations, leaders must be able to share their strategy and vision with other group members to align and hold them to group function and purpose.  Leaders themselves are lifelong learners.  Each member is expected to continually share and build group knowledge.  Great leaders are able to motivate and inspire.  Dialogue builds a shared vision.  Modification of vision directs towards a preferred future.


Knowledge dissemination allows members to quickly adapt to external environments through clarity of situation monitoring.  As individual members are aware of the vision and direction, actions are carried out with a feeling of purpose and significance that leads to personal and professional goal setting abilities.  Harrison's focus is on how leaders best lead and manage and flattens the traditional view of hierarchies.  Hierarchies limit innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.


Fourth blueprint management
Harrison points out essential features that place significant emphasis on attributes that allows this kind of organisational structure to occur.  Relationships and links develop the strategies of possible future direction.  Collaborative individualism is a level of maturity where intrinsic motivation and goal setting is an available asset to group members.  Dialogue and open communication reveal that leadership can change points as each group members' contribution is analysed and accepted as a valuable source of information.


Calculated risks form part of the initial strategy and have become an important part of management practice.  When all group members have alignment to organisational vision, it is easier for them to make meaning from their own work, creating or innovating from standard practice.


On a more detailed front, individuals can identify their own role and placement within the group as they recognise strengths that uphold corporate vision.  Interactive sharing builds strengths from within as individuals become accustomed and are more willing to trust their co-workers.  Individual perspectives of epistemic beliefs as they relate to the group as a whole brings new knowledge to others.  As informal networks break down traditional hierarchical barriers that are based on social perception rather than the truth, the organisations relationship with individual member networks creates the learning network.  Harrison notes that investment in networking yields productive results.


Creating global learning networks
Vital functions that result from fourth blueprint management literature are learning in organisations and entrepreneurship.  Harrison indicates that by leading small teams interpersonal skills can be regulated.  To bring down exorbitant costs associated with global networking, technologies such as ICT and the internet are used.  Individuals who consider themselves as 'front-line' (e.g. access to external communication networks) can be seen as "environmental scanners" (pg. 2).  Knowledge that the front-liner receives is fed back to the group and builds organisational knowledge.  Harrison notes that this kind of organisational structure allows departments or substructures within to cease operation without causing disturbance or loss of momentum to the entity.


Structured organisations that use this model adapt and respond to the environment from an internal multi-level perspective meaning that the organisation as a whole can change and adapt nimbly to market demand.


The metastrategic analysis of al-Qaida
Vision
Founding visionaries require mission statements and precise goals.  The vision is inclusive and reveals an achievable better state of being that is self-regulating and self-managed.  Mission statements provide clarity for all group members as "a continual process of creating a view of the future and testing the present against it" (pg. 3).


Identity
In growing an organisation, leaders must ensure that they have the right commitment from individual members and that joining members are aware of the organisations statements and direction to ally themselves as an on-going process.  Staff recruitment takes into account individual:

• ideology;
• confidentiality;
• patience;
• intelligence;
• analytical ability;
• prudence; and
• unflappability.

Training new recruits is vital to introduce members to embedded technologies and networks that serve the organisation.  Providing members with guiding manuals has merit in outlining tacit knowledge.  Past achievements are highlighted to motivate individuals.  Shared learning and knowledge dissemination are encouraged.  Cultures that move towards change without fear are more likely to succeed.  Manual content must be a strategy in itself, and requires careful planning.


Configuration design
When individuals have clarity of objective and direction, they have more autonomy which encourages and facilitates innovation and creativity in work ethic.  As an organisation flattens its hierarchy and performs more as a multi-cellular organism with sources of energy that change and spread fluidly, alliances developed through loosely-formed networks benefit the complete unit.


Systems of action
Embedded activities produce outcomes that turn desired states into actuality.  Trust enables individual group members to carry their work load to a new level of decision-making and action.  Individuals thus are seen to take on multiple leadership roles.  Global networking is too big for a single person, which is why environmental scanners take on more responsibility.  Managing and controlling diverse cells is impossible when there are so many, so it is left to the individuals within the group to be aware and committed to organisational strategy as they direct their own progress.

Conclusion
Harrison indicates that al-Qaida should be seen from the perspective of a metastrategy that embraces the new paradigm of leadership skills that work effectively in the 21st century global networking environment.  Strong leadership encourages group motivation.  Identity is built upon history.  The configuration of such organisations creates the spirit of entrepreneurship from within.  Distance and cost formerly associated with global networking is a thing of the past with readily available technology and the internet.  Conventional modes of thinking require updated thought sequencing to align with modernity.


Example

Ghazali , K. Communication as a tool in developing organisational culture

Paper:        Literature Review

Abstract:    Communication as a tool in organisational learning has generated interest in academic scholars and Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioners.  Research has highlighted the various perspectives that constitute working models and directions for further development.  Schon believed that organisational learning developed from a mutually beneficial relationship between the organisation and the individual.  Critical reflection, experience and intuition are valuable assets in generating knowledge through questioning characteristics of actions and listing the effects on the group.  More effective processes can be implemented as a result of collaborative learning.  Organisation purpose is reflected in clear goals and practices.  Organisational culture expresses the identity, value and beliefs systems that drive the organisation to achieve industry market share.  When individuals are unable to sustain organisational culture, primary factors to maintaining professional commitment and efficacy are negatively affected.  Pratt indicates that there may not be a “one-size fits all” mentality, but models that use Wenger’s communities of practice (COP) can broaden perspectives through positive transformation. 

Introduction

The current era (Thite, 2001) of knowledge gathering is the fastest we’ve experienced.  Technology connects the world and drives evolution in unanticipated global directions as industry moves to define best practice models to achieve the winning edge.  The continuous process of research underscores the need in organisations to make full use of generated knowledge as a learning platform for employees.  Garavan and McCarthy (2003) indicate that project teams benefit organisational learning when collaborative knowledge is shared.  The relationship between individual and organisation has an emphasis on social constructivism (Ryle and Cumming, 2007).  The focus is on the context of activity and researchers are challenged to understand the process of social interaction that shapes collective identity.  Individual learning is valueless to understanding learning in collectives.  A shared repertoire of knowledge and resources are tacit learning methods in collectives that can be used to enhance and negotiate sense-making within the organisation.  Embedded practice through daily activities expresses information and know-how that:

1. regulates individual cooperation with the collective; and
2. ensues in behavioural change that is reflected in performance outcomes.

Individuals depend on each other for acquisition, recall and generation of knowledge.  Although literature has not explained how it is created, sustained or changed we understand that the collective mind is located in interaction.  The behavioural process of goal-driven adaptive capacity and strategies facilitates collective learning.  The key to social construction of meaning making lies in participation and the development of a shared perspective.

Learning in organisations leads to a development of best practice models that are supported through embedded practices.  To implement systems, processes, policies and mechanisms that promote learning, aspects of open communication, communication and dialogue, team working, empowerment and participation within the organisation must be addressed.  By engaging in discussion and reflecting on experience individuals explore reasons for differences in judgment.  Interests, ideologies, agendas, epistemologies and methodologies characterise differences.  Different cultures express different perspectives of experience and being.  By focusing on the evolution of shared meaning and understanding the collective integrated context, individuals are connected through multiple links.

Mezirow’s theory of transformation cited in Anderson (2008) uses prior interpretation of experience to build a new and revised interpretation to guide future action.  He indicates there are five interactive contexts in learning that are significant to organisational learning:

• the frame of reference or meaning perspective in which learning is embedded;
• the conditions of communication;
• the process/sequence in which learning occurs;
• the self-image of the student; and
• the situation encountered during the process.

The reflective transformation of beliefs, attitudes, opinions and emotional reactions are sustained in a mutually beneficial relationship.  Positive outcomes are reflected in performance of the individual and ultimately in organisational achievement.  Facilitated community learning allows for better responses to challenges from the external environment.

Environmental factors that sustain interactive learning systems

Pelz (2004) indicates effective learning is sustained through lifelong learning (Hilsen & Ennals, 2007; Ala-Mutka, Punie & Ferrari, 2009) to create new links to existing philosophies.  Technology creates innovation in skills and abilities (Bennet et al., 2008) that do not relate to critical or analytical production of digital tasks.  Higher order thinking (Anderson, 2008) is supported by asynchronous communication.  The process of higher-order thinking in organisations is facilitated by engaging individuals in negotiated sense-making through collaborative social networks (e.g. professional blogs).  Anderson suggests that it is instructional learning that enhances and supports workplace collaboration through contextual interaction.  Critical aspects of learning are gained through collaboration.

Garavan and McCarthy (2003) examine the characteristics, factors and processes of learning that occur at individual, team and organisational level through interactive learning systems.  Significant indicators of organisational level learning consider routine and the role of culture while individual level learning identifies cognitive and behavioural aspects of self.  Garavan and McCarthy state the objective of organisational learning is learning to enhance company action through processes of knowledge gathering and understanding.  Action, reflection and change through the creation of new knowledge and insight are effective in organisational learning.  Negligible learning occurs when there are gaps in individual level learning.  Strategic organisational learning enhances creativity towards inter-organisational innovation and incorporates two interpretations:

1. learning from experience (sense making as a social process); and
2. learning that is proactive (where specific knowledge gained in real time is applied to strategic initiatives.

Feedback (Kyndt, Dochy and Nijs, 2009) from action reflects the need to adapt or improve current practices.  Poor communications between teams, poor learning or failure to adapt indicate issues in hindering organisational learning.  Team learning provides the interface between the individual and the organisation that has effects at multiple levels.  A cognitive focus sees the organisation in a process of evolution, an entity that gains positive results through shared conceptualisation.  The collective cognition is a shared worldview.  The behavioural process reflects the goal oriented and adaptive capacity of the collective.  The desired outcome is behavioural change that positively affects the collectives’ performance index.

Sustainable outcomes

Although collective learning produces functional outcomes, literature is bringing in to focus some dysfunctional outcomes.  Consistency in individual and collective goals is not sustained.  Significant to this is the relationship to power.  Negative beliefs disable contribution and open communication.  Build up of stress and anxiety affect behavioural and cognitive outcomes.  Collective learning is seen as planned, structured and organised through embedded systems that guide future learning.  It can also be seen as unplanned, organic and iterative meaning that organisations can be hard to train.  A long-term and adaptive approach is required.

Organisational culture and structure influence the context of individual learning.  Integrated contexts connect individuals through multiple links to knowledge, information and viewpoints.  Experience motivates the learning of team members, and viable open communication depends on frequency, depth and quality of dialogue.  Strategic organisational learning focuses on collective learning that can be codified and enhances the organisations learning effectiveness.  Working and learning are interrelated and compatible.  Through collective learning, the organisation is better suited to adapt to external environments.  Difficulties lie in managing the emerging nature of the collective.

HRD face certain challenges in accepting their role and function within the organisation while still creating the framework that facilitates the individuals motivation and willingness to commit.  The processes of learning are considered to be dynamic and highlight the importance of social networking.

The purpose of self-verification

Jorgensen and Keller (2008) point out HRD is a dynamic and heterogeneous discipline where outcomes are characterised by differences.  HRD practitioners construct the framework of HRD through their language.  Jorgensen and Keller suggest that particular attention to working communities of practice within HRD will greatly enhance the learning community.  What is needed to understand the practice of practice is the language that identifies tacit and informal learning.  Instead of looking at HRD activities, focus should be moved to the interplay of activities and their communities or contexts.  Emphasis is given to learning styles and histories based on real situations.  This provides the opportunity for reflection and meaning-making.

Jorgensen and Keller consider organisational learning from a perspective of identity formation.  In negotiating meaning-making, individuals negotiate identity.  Tension exists as it is recognised that from an individual level HRD works towards fulfilling personal potential.  From an organisational level HRD assumes the individual is a resource.  The contradiction faced in organisational learning is due to learning being about creating differences and organising about creating standards.  Identity works simultaneously with the individual and the collective, where the collective is seen as the identity capital – the concept that individuals identify with.  Learning through participation allows the individual to traverse from the periphery to becoming a community member.  The community is created by mutual rules of engagement and language.  Within the community, each individual contributes towards the social in mutually beneficial ways that can only be accomplished through the practices of a culturally specific framework.

Progression towards the objective

Situated learning is indicated to be identity building.  The use of symbols, artifacts and reification in a culturally given context becomes internalised and better developed through communities of practice.  Identity formation becomes a mutually consensual, integrated process of participation.  Narration adds coherence to view activities as part of a larger frame of reference.  Johansson and Heide (2008) have identified an absence of literature in HRD from the perspective of communication and its’ relationship to organisational change.  When communication is used as a tool, participating individuals feel more included, committed and in control.

Alignment occurs when individuals coordinate themselves with the culture and tradition of a community.  Communities of practice positively affect the interactions between HRD practice and modes of participation.  The informal relationship between individual and organisation is structured in Foucauldian-style power.  There is no reason or intention to remove power, as it is not concentrated in one place.  It is found embedded within a network of relationships.  Foucault’s concept of power is structured toward interplay of individuals distributed around the network whose significant characteristic is difference.  We are reminded that power is energy.  How the energy is distributed depends on how it is externalised.  The hierarchy in organisations forms a pyramid where it is directed from the top down.  Managerial discourse in literature links strategy to HRD with emphasis on company perspectives.  Power play is insignificant and invisible during conceptualisation of organisational goals and objectives.

Communities of practice have a more subtle approach where emphasis is on the individual, their backgrounds and their learning trajectories.  The possibilities in attaching communities of practice to HRD contribute to intelligent working systems.  Clashes in discourse at structural and communicative levels explain the lack of common ground on which to base dialogue.  Change that occurs at communicative levels may not similarly occur at stakeholder level.   Studies on occupational identity found overt consent to be a form of resistance.  Talking about a process while activating the opposite constitutes cooperation with management and resisting legitimate authority or shared world view.

Owing to rapid change, the concept of educating is no longer left to formal educational institutions.  Organisations have the competitive advantage through workplace learning.  Members are trained on the job which is considerably cheaper than opting for formal training.  It is said that on the job training provides specific skills not fully appreciated in formal training.  Kyndt, Dochy and Nijs (2009) describe informal learning as implicit yet unplanned with unpredictable results.  Practical experience creates an active learning environment.  In non-formal learning the individual learns through self-motivation or as a by-product of HRD activities.  Organisations facilitate learning through culture, policy and procedure.  It is the reciprocal interplay between organisation and individual that determines learning outcomes.  Emphasis is placed on conditions that make workplace learning possible.

Task-based learning structure
Gharavi, Love and Cheng (2004) propose an ecological framework as a perspective to view organisational adaptation.  Variety in organisation ensures effective change can help survival.  Natural selection is based on the most adaptable and occurs during scarcity of resource.  The environment chooses organisations that best represent the niche.  The adaptation process to include structures and forms that principally affect the population when organisations replace the old or less adapted.  Their study looks at the way the stock broking industry was revolutionised by its’ adoption of ICT.  A typical cluster structure has the stockbroker as an intermediary between the market and the organisation.  Stockbrokers evolved into gate keepers.  Individual knowledge in capacity and industry best serve market, individual and organisation.  This was driven by conscious experimentation of industry directing evolution.  Organisational evolution is not always straightforward.  Factors examined include socio-cultural, influence, values, power and coalitions.  As organisations are built on values, norms, traditions and other traits of individual members, blueprints on form in policy and procedure are established as best practice.

Corporate communications stem from the need to influence and educate the service team (e.g. stakeholder, employee, customer) to organisational values.  Success is measured through reputation and respectability.  Dhir (2006) observes the attention researchers have focused on economic effects of reputation.  Persuasive language is critical in successful influencing.  Critics have observed that while literature on organisational communication engages discursive and rhetorical analysis, there is not much written form the perspective of public relations.  Literature suggests the lack of interest is the failure in that field to adapt to the environment.  Organisations unable to effectively sustain communication internally and respond to the environment in an era of knowledge economy risk damage to their image and a cycle of decline.  Some rhetoric explores aggressive forms of militaristic style communication to remain competitive.  Standardised communication enhances efficiency, but this dehumanised approach distances individual members.  Much has been done to improve communications theoretically and technologically, but the potential to incur irresponsible corporate social behaviour suggests the need for alternative approaches.

Effective leadership
While an organisations’ main role is to function competitively in industry, protocols and understandings towards ethical practice cannot be breached (e.g. taxes, safety standards).  Tasks are allotted time according to a returns based priority.  Tasks that lack quick returns appear to reflect badly on corporate leadership.  Pace of activity may reflect consumer demand or the need to remain competitive.  Expediency and efficiency are typical and universal measures of effectiveness and success.  But it creates a bottleneck in gathering new information and knowledge, in raising learning levels and in the application of wisdom.  Human fallibility is overcome through dehumanisation processes.  Dehumanisation leads to aggressive behaviour.  Major barriers to change lie in commitment and communication levels in management.

Ferili, Basile, Di Mauro and Esposito believe that language lacks accurate description that can effectively represent the target concept in learning.  The choice of representation has a significant impact on performance.  Low level representation provides information to carry out tasks, but is only remotely related to the target concept.  General abstraction is used as a multi-strategy model introduced before the learning process begins.  When learning takes place at multiple levels, it is said to be effective which can then be compared to the language bias shift, a perspective useful in integration.

Constructive environment

Baxter, Connolly and Stansfield (2009) agree that social reality is a construct but do not agree that organisational learning is influenced and developed by social environment.  Individual and organisations learn through mutual didactic support.  Concepts and ideologies range according to interpretation and perspective on raised view points.  Language is seen as a key aspect of communication and interaction.  Communities of practice is seen to facilitate and define social practice.  The most prominent social aspect is embedded on creation as organisations are established for a particular purpose.  Values are instilled based on their foundation.  The rules and regulations consist of procedures for interaction.  This infrastructure gives the organisation the impetus to learn.  Individual and social groups support evolution.  As structural changes occur, the organisation evolves to adapt and modify behaviour, groups evolve and develop cognitively.  A mutual relationship of learning occurs.

Lifelong learning

Assimilation of new knowledge and accommodation of existing knowledge gives structure to new situations.  Learning is an ongoing cycle of a sequence of phases where concrete experiences generate an opportunity for observation and reflection.  Traditional learning theories were developed pre-ICT and consequently do not take account of a network as the basis for learning processes.  This age of information requires individuals to update knowledge through building, maintaining and using connections (Ala-Mutka, Punie and Ferrari, 2009; Brousseau, Driver Eneroth and Larsson, 1996).  Ala-Mutka, Punie and Ferrari use Communities of Inquiry (COI) as a framework to develop online collaborative learning processes.  Reflective discussions are required when developing approaches to real inquiries.

While the individual is not motivated to join a community from a desire to learn, transformation occurs from meaning-making processes.  Connection to others provides strong emotional and cognitive support that increases effectiveness.  Studies indicate novices with low prior knowledge improve when given structure.  Moderated discussion facilitates knowledge construction.  Knowledge that supports identity and practices of the community are more likely to be adopted than knowledge that challenges.  Methods of assessment should include understanding competencies.

Conclusion

Organisational learning and organisational commitment are co-dependent.  Psychological and emotional attachments depend on the strength of employee identification with the goals and values of the organisation (Fornes, Rocco and Wollard, 2008).  Work performance and the internalisation of organisational values affect the self-esteem and self-image of the individual.  Team commitment is derived from individual identification and sense of cohesiveness.  It is enhanced through social involvement and ties between individual and organisation.  Career commitment depends on how deeply motivation, attitude, affect, belief and behavioural intention are embedded in individual identity.  Wengers’ conceptualisation of communities of practice integrates project-initiated knowledge to add to collective learning.  Mentoring and coaching are examples of induction and social networking that facilitates collaborative learning.  It is suggested that HRD create infrastructures, systems and resources to serve collective learning.


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