Knowing and learning in practice-based studies : an introduction
By: GHERARDI, Silvia
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ArticlePublisher: Bingley, UK : Emerald, 2009The Learning Organization 16, 5, p. 352-359Abstract: Purpose The aim of this introduction to the special issue is to furnish a panorama on how practice-based studies (PBS) concerned with organizational learning have developed in recent years, and to describe the topics that such studies have debated. Design/methodology/approach The articles in this special issue were first presented at the standing working group on Practice-based Studies of Knowledge and Innovation in Workplaces of the European Group for Organizational Studies, and will therefore provide the background to PBS and an idea of its methodology. Findings The practice- based approach may be useful for: a renewed conception of organization as a texture of interrelated practices which extend to form an action-net sustained by a knowing-in-action which renews itself and transforms itself into being practiced; a renewed conception of knowledge as a situated, negotiated, emergent and embedded activity; a renewed conception of materiality as a form of distributed agency and an intimate relationship with humans; a methodology for analysis of the new forms of work as knowing-in-practice; and a lexicon which comprises new expressions and concepts for the renewal of organization studies. Research limitations/implications The special issue does not represent an extended review of the literature on PBS. Originality/value This paper offers an overview of an emergent field of studies.
Purpose The aim of this introduction to the special issue is to furnish a panorama on how practice-based studies (PBS) concerned with organizational learning have developed in recent years, and to describe the topics that such studies have debated. Design/methodology/approach The articles in this special issue were first presented at the standing working group on Practice-based Studies of Knowledge and Innovation in Workplaces of the European Group for Organizational Studies, and will therefore provide the background to PBS and an idea of its methodology. Findings The practice- based approach may be useful for: a renewed conception of organization as a texture of interrelated practices which extend to form an action-net sustained by a knowing-in-action which renews itself and transforms itself into being practiced; a renewed conception of knowledge as a situated, negotiated, emergent and embedded activity; a renewed conception of materiality as a form of distributed agency and an intimate relationship with humans; a methodology for analysis of the new forms of work as knowing-in-practice; and a lexicon which comprises new expressions and concepts for the renewal of organization studies. Research limitations/implications The special issue does not represent an extended review of the literature on PBS. Originality/value This paper offers an overview of an emergent field of studies.
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