Communities Of Practice, Foucault And Actor‐Network Therory

The paper discusses some of the main contributions to the theory of communities of practice (COP theory), especially as it relates to organizational learning. The paper does not attempt a full overview but concentrates on the notion of power relations. Early COP theory was formulated as part of situated learning theory, and promised to work on issues of social context and unequal power relations. Foucault’s work and actor-network theory (ANT) is introduced and forms the basis of a constructive critique of COP theory. The paper argues that COP theory and ANT can enrich each other and together make a stronger contribution to our understanding of organizational learning. Specifically, these perspectives question the value in viewing organizations as formal, canonical entities as far as learning and change are concerned.

[1]  Victoria J. Marsick,et al.  Informal and incidental learning in the workplace , 1834 .

[2]  M. Foucault,et al.  Madness and civilization : a history of insanity in the age of reason , 1966 .

[3]  P. Berger,et al.  Social Construction of Reality , 1991, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.

[4]  M. Foucault,et al.  The birth of the clinic : an archaeology of medical perception , 1974 .

[5]  M. Foucault,et al.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. , 1978 .

[6]  E. Eisenstein.  The printing press as an agent of change , 1969 .

[7]  B. Latour,et al.  Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts , 1983 .

[8]  M. Foucault,et al.  Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 , 1980 .

[9]  E. Sampson,et al.  Cognitive psychology as ideology. , 1981 .

[10]  M. Foucault.  The Subject and Power , 1982, Critical Inquiry.

[11]  S. Barley,et al.  Occupational Communities: Culture and Control in Organizations , 1982 .

[12]  H. Dreyfus,et al.  Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. , 1985 .

[13]  J. Burgoyne,et al.  NATURAL LEARNING AND MANAGERIAL ACTION: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY IN THE FIELD SETTING , 1983 .

[14]  Mark Easterby-Smith,et al.  Learning And Developing From Managerial Work Experiences , 1984 .

[15]  M. Callon.  Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay , 1984 .

[16]  M. Callon.  The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle , 1986 .

[17]  Stephen Fox.  Self knowledge and personal change : the reported experience of managers in part time management education , 1987 .

[18]  M. Foucault,et al.  Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault , 1988 .

[19]  J. Lave.  Cognition in Practice: Outdoors: a social anthropology of cognition in practice , 1988 .

[20]  Stephen Fox.  The Panopticon: From Bentham's Obsession to the Revolution in Management Learning , 1989 .

[21]  J. Forgas,et al.  Recent advances in social psychology : an international perspective , 1989 .

[22]  S. Fox.  The Ethnography of Humour and the Problem of Social Reality , 1990 .

[23]  M. Foucault,et al.  The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction , 1990 .

[24]  David Harvey,et al.  The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. , 1991 .

[25]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

[26]  John Seely Brown,et al.  Research that reinvents the corporation , 1991 .

[27]  Graham D. Burchell,et al.  The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality , 1991 .

[28]  D. Harvey,et al.  The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (an excerpt) , 1991, Journal of Economic Sociology.

[29]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[30]  Stephanie D. Teasley,et al.  Perspectives on socially shared cognition , 1991 .

[31]  G. Huber.  Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures , 1991 .

[32]  What Are We , 1992 .

[33]  E. Hutchins.  Understanding practice: Learning to navigate , 1993 .

[34]  A. Abbott.  The Sociology of Work and Occupations , 1993 .

[35]  J. Lave.  Understanding practice: The practice of learning , 1993 .

[36]  Martin B. Meznar,et al.  The Social Construction of Organizational Learning: Conceptual and Practical Issues in the Field , 1995 .

[37]  J. Lave,et al.  Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context , 1996 .

[38]  I. Walker,et al.  Social Cognition: An Integrated Introduction , 1996 .

[39]  M. Easterby-Smith.  Disciplines of Organizational Learning: Contributions and Critiques , 1997 .

[40]  Stephen Fox,et al.  From management education and development to the study of management learning , 1997 .

[41]  D. Wellman,et al.  Talking About Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job. , 1997 .

[42]  Stephen Fox,et al.  Situated learning theory versus traditional cognitive learning theory: Why management education should not ignore management learning , 1997 .

[43]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[44]  Davide Nicolini,et al.  Toward a Social Understanding of How People Learn in Organizations , 1998 .

[45]  J. Orr.  Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job , 1998 .