Anna Jonsson

Senior lecturer

A Researcher’s Reflexive Note and Call for Collaborative Learning

Author

Anna Jonsson

Editor

Bente Elkjaer
Maja Marie Lotz
Niels Christian Mossfeldt Nickelsen

Summary, in English

Although it is vital for organizations to learn in order to be competitive, efficient, and innovative, it is one of the profound organizational dilemmas: organizations understand and have learnt that it is important to learn and yet it is difficult to ensure organizational learning. This is a personal and reflexive note about what I have learnt from research and practice about various attempts to understand and make organizational learning work. Based on my ethnographically inspired research studies, where I take a practice-based perspective on learning and knowing, I note that there is a need for researchers and practitioners to engage in learning (more) from each other and to demystify organizational learning. Reflections and lessons are drawn from studying how IKEA, Manheimer Swartling and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group learn. I call for collaborative learning as an approach to develop an understanding of organizational learning, rather than suggesting yet a(nother) concept. I illustrate how old wisdom – with a focus on learning by doing and learning by observation – can guide both researchers and practitioners who share an interest in learning about learning. Rethinking lifelong learning for the twenty-first century relates to a need to think and (re)learn about organizational learning – both in theory and practice – rather than engaging in new concepts.

Department/s