A Dialogic Analysis of Organizational Learning

Dialogue is often seen as the process through which the gap between individual and organizational learning is bridged. Here we demonstrate how the enactment of a discursive epistemology – a process which involves the social construction of a dramatized narrative – can be used to generate insights into organizational learning. Using extracts taken from the transcripts of 90 hours of tape-recorded dialogue, we illustrate how a small group of organizational stakeholders construct, deconstruct and re-construct meaning in relation to a critical organizational event (i.e. a learning opportunity)through a generative dialogical process. As a result of this analysis the dominant conceptualization of the role of dialogue in organizational learning – exemplified in Peter Senge's work – is challenged. Here Senge's output-driven, univocal account is rejected in favour of a polyphonic perspective which enables a deeper, richer and less constrained understanding of organizational learning to be developed.