The power of action learning to develop leaders and learning organizations.

Learning in Struggle: Argentina’s New Worker Cooperatives as Transformative Learning Organizations

Relations industrielles ◽

10.7202/1024212ar ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 69 (1) ◽

pp. 186-218 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Marcelo Vieta

Keyword(s):

Transformative Learning ◽

Workplace Learning ◽

Social Relations ◽

Social Action ◽

Learning Organizations ◽

Action Learning ◽

Self Awareness ◽

Learning Approaches ◽

Economic Crises ◽

Worker Cooperatives

SummaryThis article considers Argentina’sempresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores(worker-recuperated enterprises, or ERTs) astransformative learning organizations. ERTs are illustrative of how workers’ conversions of capitalist firms into worker cooperatives—especially conversions emerging from troubled firms and in moments of deep socio-economic crises—transform workers (from managed employees to self-managed workers), work organizations (from capitalist businesses to labour-managed firms), and communities (from depleted to revitalized and self-provisioning localities).Theoretically, the study is grounded in class-struggle, workplace learning, and social action learning approaches. These theoretical perspectives help the study work through how workplace conversions by workers, when converting troubled investor-owned or proprietary firms into worker coops, act as catalysts for contesting workplace exploitation and capitalist crises, while also beginning to move beyond them by forging new social relations of production and exchange. In the case of Argentina’s ERTs, crises in the political economy and micro-economic crises at the point of production during the collapse of the neoliberal model at the turn of the millennium heightened workers’ self-awareness of their situations of exploitation and motivated collective action. As a result, new worker cooperatives were created that also stimulated the social, cultural, and economic renewal of surrounding communities.The study’s research method relies on extended case studies of four diverse ERTs, which included ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews. Observations of daily workflows were conducted, as well as interviews and informal conversations with founding and newer ERT workers. In a more structured portion of the interview protocol, key-informants were asked to reflect on how they had personally changed after being involved in the ERT, and how production practices and involvement with the community had transformed in the process of conversion.The article concludes by outlining how worker, organizational, and community transformations emerge from workers’ processes ofinformal learningandlearning in struggleas they collectively strive to overcome macro- and micro-economic crises and learn to become cooperators. This learning, the study shows, occurs in two ways:intra-cooperativelyvia informal workplace learning, andinter-cooperativelybetween workers from different ERTs and with surrounding communities. The self-management forged by ERTs thus embodies new, cooperative, and community-centered values and practices for these workers that, in turn, sketch out different possibilities for economic and productive life in Argentina.

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Building Learning Organizations With Action Learning

The Oxford Handbook of the Learning Organization ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198832355.013.23 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 104-118

Author(s):

Michael John Marquardt

Keyword(s):

Organizational Learning ◽

Learning Organization ◽

Learning Organizations ◽

Action Learning ◽

Organizational Leaders ◽

The Past ◽

Complex Problems ◽

Learning Programs ◽

Unique Ability

Very few organizations have ever been able to achieve their goal of becoming a learning organization due to the complexity of organizational learning and the impatience and lack of skills of organizational leaders. Over the past twenty-five years, the author of this chapter has discovered that the introduction of action learning programs into the organization is the most effective way of building a learning organization. This chapter briefly summarizes the five subsystems of a learning organization: (1) learning, (2) organization, (3) people, (4) knowledge, and (5) technology. Action learning is a powerful tool that enables a group to learn while in action. It has the unique ability to solve complex problems while simultaneously creating leaders, building teams, and developing each of the five learning organization subsystems.

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Nancy Dixon: empowering the learning organization through psychological safety

The Learning Organization ◽

10.1108/tlo-01-2020-0015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 259-266

Author(s):

Yusuf Sidani ◽

Simon Reese

Keyword(s):

Learning Organization ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Learning Organizations ◽

Action Learning ◽

Psychological Safety ◽

Content Type ◽

Speak Up

Purpose This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of learning organization concepts from the perspective of Nancy Dixon, who has been at the forefront of the learning organization discussion since the 1980s. Design/methodology/approach Through a conversation with Dixon, and a scan of some of her works, this paper discusses several topics pertaining to the evolution of the learning organization debate, from Dixon’s perspective. Findings Dixon’s understanding of learning organizations was influenced by concepts related to action learning where people in organizations learn through meeting and talking about their problems. What distinguishes her understanding from others in that it is built more on the perspective of psychological safety, as inspired by Amy Edmonson's work. Originality/value Dixon acknowledges that her work has had more impact on the practitioner side. Dixon maintains that learning organizations are more egalitarian and move away from hierarchy. There are ethical underpinnings to this understanding as, with psychological safety, people are willing to speak up in those situations when their voices are needed to be heard.

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