1 semiotic learning - from organisational semiotics to organisational learning Ângela araújo...
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Semiotic Learning - from
Organisational Semiotics to Organisational Learning
Ângela Araújo Lacerda [email protected], [email protected]
ESCE-IPS PortugalSemiotics 2009 - September – A Coruña
Introduction
“Semiotics is currently the most complete and sophisticated theory of meaning and culture” (Lagopoulos, 1993)
Semiotic Learning (SL): – is the output of a research project on
Organisational Learning (OL) (Knowledge Economy context)
OS and OL OS - initiated by Stamper (1973) OL - initiated by Argyris (1978) Both address the organisational context OS aims at improving the effectiveness
of Information Systems design and implementation
OL aims at improving overall organisational effectiveness – parallel to Knowledge Management (KM)
Theoretical background
Socio philosophy theory Social tradition on Organisational
Learning Peirce’s pragmatism Heidegger’s ontology Halliday’s social semiotics
Key theories Pragmatism – it rejects all dualisms
(inside/outside, internal/external, individual/social, theory/practice, …)
Ontology – being-in-the-world is a broader instance of knowledge than subject-object, which is a particular case of the former
Social semiotics – meaning is created by active participation in social practices and use of language
From research to education Semiotic Learning (SL) – it revises key
social philosophy theory that is crucial to the fundamentation of management sciences
Management education severely lacks adequate theoretical basis, able to deal with the changing global environment and the increase in complexity
Semiotics may play that role of complementing traditional education with innovative perspectives
Rationale of SL
Tacit knowledge cannot be copied It is a source of sustainable competitive
advantages It can only be shared by active
participation in collective practices This implies: strengthening
organisational communities and organisational sense-making => SL
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Research question – (extended
version of the presentation)
“Is it possible to develop a conceptual framework and a
practical method that will facilitate learning in knowledge intensive organisations (KIO)?”
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Research objectives
• To analyse real cases of organisational community life
• To design a framework and method to facilitate organisational learning (OL)
• To test and validate such method
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Research method
Qualitative research method - Multi-grounded theory:
1 - Case studies and identification of key themes (social ties + community relations)
2 – Design framework to improve OL – Semiotic Learning (SL)
3 – Implementation and testing SL
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1 Cases - analysis of data (1/2)
4 organisations were analysed:
Type Study duration
Case A Eur. Agency 8 months
Case B Eur. Agency 1 week
Case C Nat. Agency 2 months
Case D Serv. Prov. 2 months
1 Cases – key themes (2/2)
1. organisational culture
2. leadership / followership relations
3. organisational images
Key insight: the greater the social interaction and level of trust, the greater the opportunities for sharing tacit knowledge, thus strengthening OL
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2 Design of SL (1/3)
In order
to strengthen OL enhancing
factors
to control OL hindering aspects
to promote organisational practices
that empower community-level
meaning-making
1. Framework: theoretical principles that direct practice
2. Method: set of procedures
3. Learning cycle
4. Learning steps
5. Relating theory and practice
6. Relating OL and socio-philosophical foundations
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2 Design of SL (2/3)
• To transmit to people/ groups/ organisations the importance of community relations
• To transmit this knowledge through practical experimentation
• To enable experimenting with new approaches to group interaction
• Key insight: concrete practices may be improved through new experimentations
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2 Design of SL (3/3)
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3 Testing (1/2)
4 organisations/ groups were used:
Type Profess. Backgr.
Group 1 Indep. Profes. psychologists
Group 2 IT company diverse
Group 3 IT company diverse
Group 4 Telecomm. diverse
To assess the raise in sensitiveness related to OL practices
Through the analysis of two indicators, according to the participants’ own perspectives:
• Raise in awareness• Professional and personal gains
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3 Testing (2/2)
In the organisations where SL was tested:• There was evidence of raise in
awareness towards OL• This suggests that it is possible to
facilitate learning and to improve OL processes
• The results are not to be generalised to all organisations
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Research results
SL OL is a meaning-making collective process, embodied in the organisation community and embedded in the organisational discursive practices.
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Key insights
Practice:The role of community relations
Semiotic Learning:
The practice of reflexive discussion
Theory:The role of
social context
An important contribution of this research is the development of a framework and a method that can help improve OL at a practical level, using different theoretical concepts that have seldom been applied in practice.
These positive exploratory results suggest that there is a rich potential to be further developed in future research.
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Conclusions