Of the
social sciences, management is the least recognized as a field of scientific
scholarship and the least respected in terms of scientific rigor, basis and
theoretical strength. Management’s own, merely one hundred year history is a
testament to its having surrendered, with each passing decade, to the latest
fad or ‘big idea’ – presented in full gloss but lacking substance. When the
veneer invariably wears off, instead of attempting to emulate its cousins in
the social sciences, management simply grabs hold, once again, of whatever new
idea its so-called ‘gurus’ have printed. What drives management as a field is
well described by Stuart Crainer in his The Management Century. There is
a series of usually academic ideas, formulated into techniques and published in
the academic media, which are subsequently promoted as means of increasing
productivity, reducing costs, or whatever is currently exercising managerial
minds — or is fashionable to be thinking about. At some stage, authors,
consultants or charismatic spokesmen (they are invariably men) pick up on such
ideas and treat them as universal solutions applicable to wide ranges of
organizations. Once practical attempts fail to deliver the impressive results
promised, management once again realizes how difficult it is to convert bright
ideas into sustainable practice — there is hardly any consideration as to
whether the whole process is strewn with fault lines to begin with. In short,
management scholarship is overwhelmed by assertive prescriptions rather than
grounded descriptions, ignoring that it is only the latter which enable
understanding leading to informed practice.

Consider
the management highlights of the decades of the twentieth century. The first
decade saw the rise of so-called ‘scientific’ management as propounded by the
first recognized management thinker, Frederick Taylor. Management’s claims of
being a social science rest primarily on this approach — Drucker,
perhaps the most respected management thinker of all time, goes so far as to
suggest that Taylor be accorded the status of philosopher. Only that ‘scientific’
management presents no scientific proof or even reasoning to support its
principles. There is a distinct absence of scientific research and
experimentation. Instead, its empirical and concrete approach – focusing on how
to do rather than why it is done or even why it is – is
paraded as scientific to a captive audience (managers) who knows little about
science and, hence, laps up the idea that it can now consider itself as
belonging to that wider group of social scientists.

The
perfection of division of labor through Henry Ford’s assembly lines was an
extension of Tayloristic principles into the second decade of the century.
There followed, for each passing decade, new areas of concentration, each
presented as the resolution of management’s problems: 1920s’ organizational
infrastructure and decentralization, 1930s’ human and social dynamics, 1940s’
branding and production, 1950s’ corporation idea and marketing, 1960s’ strategy
focus and the emergence of the MBA degree, 1970s’ focus on the managerial role,
1980s’ quality focus, and 1990s’ business process reengineering and the switch
of importance from product to organizational structure. There is little in such
history, both in terms of content and of process of development which reflects
social science: management is the black sheep of social science, the
pretender to a kingdom which it could potentially conquer but which first
requires it to conquer and discipline itself. One thing cannot be in doubt:
given that human beings are born, live and die inside organizational molds, the
relevance of management as an idea for a field of thought is not to be
underestimated.

Having
seemingly tried out all its big ideas, as well as having borrowed ideas from
other fields, but with no grand unified theory of management in sight, the
crisis within management – as a field of thought – came to a head in the
mid-1990s, leaving management exasperated. And much like a patient suffering
from psychosis brought on by a kaleidoscopic and unconnected view of life, it
was to the organizational cerebrum that attention began to be directed.
Specifically, not only the secret of successful management but also the
underlying raison d´Ãªtre of organizations (in other words, the route
toward a proper scientific inquiry into management), was understood as lying in
the manner in which organizations learn and handle their organizational
knowledge. This is the fad with which management has entered the twenty-first
century. This time, however, perhaps it is more than just a fad.

The
idea in question has come to be labeled Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management. It is an idea constituted by four distinct, although interrelated,
parts. Broadly: (1) organizational learning refers to the process
through which learning occurs and is mainly characterized by theoretical
research; (2) organizational knowledge, as the label implies, is focused
instead upon the content of what is being learnt, although it retains a mainly
theoretical approach; (3) the learning organization is a much debated
ideal type of organization where organizational learning is practiced (as such,
this area of thought is more prescriptive); and (4) knowledge management
concerns itself with the practical consequences faced by organizations in
effectively storing and managing any emergent organizational knowledge (a
concern bound up with providing leading information technology solutions for
the purpose).

Of the
four, organizational learning and the learning organization have
generated much more impact, resting as they do upon a greater quantity of
research than their more practically focused, content oriented relations. Such
research is founded upon a number of disciplinary perspectives which inform the
field as a whole, ranging from psychological through economic to technological
perspectives. Of these, the psychological is the most pertinent for obvious
reasons: psychology is the leading field wherein may be found theories of
learning. One need only consider the length of the roll call: Ausubel, Bruner, Gagné,
Gowin, Guthrie, Hebb, Hull, Johnson-Laird, Kelly, Lewin, Novak, Piaget, Rogers,
Skinner, Thorndike, Tolman, Vygotsky and Watson to name only the more famous.
Indeed, the new management research agenda consists in translating the work of
such learning theorists for organizational contexts.

This
is questionable on two grounds. First, as the field itself acknowledges, it is
highly debatable whether theories of individual learning lend themselves to the
organizational or group context. The specifically learning
theory in organisational learning research rests, in the main, upon individual-oriented
psychology, highlighting an implied assumption in much of organizational
learning that theories based upon individual learning reflect
or can influence learning on an organisational scale. Secondly, the
entire focus upon organizational learning by definition demands a primary role
for psychologists, with management thinkers acting as auxiliaries, and not the
other way around. And yet, presently, management has single-handedly taken the
task upon itself. This is somewhat analogical to physicists attempting to apply
chemistry to their own field without first inviting the chemists to examine the
physicists necessities and reasons for the undertaking.

Notwithstanding
the questionable nature of the approach, it perhaps serves as an introductory
step toward understanding organizational learning. It seems, however, that with
almost a decade of research already underway, the only learning theorists which
have been seriously considered thus far are Lewin, Piaget, Skinner, Vygotsky
and Watson — with some concentration being given to Polyani – which indicates
that this latest management initiative has a long way to run.

Indeed,
one aspect yet to be even considered is the relevance of epistemology to the
whole idea of organizational learning. The significance of
epistemology to organizational learning stems from the latter’s own focus upon processes
through which (organizational) consciousness comes to know
phenomena. In this light, learning is essentially an epistemological concern.
Yet, what is notable is the absence of any distinct epistemology from, for and
by organizational learning . Now, organizational
learning may argue that its novelty, speed of development,
increasing diversity and specialization constrain its present ability to
consider an epistemology. This may be the case due to novelty and developmental
speed, although any number of developments may well be eventually discarded
when set against any future organizational learning
epistemology — a waste of work which might be avoided if epistemological
theorising is brought to the fore earlier. Increasing diversity and
specialisation, moreover, are no reasons against epistemological theorising

With
30 original contributory chapters, a useful introductory overview and a final
in-depth analysis of future research possibilities — all of which, taken
together, span over 650 pages with an additional 22-page index — there is no
doubt that The Blackwell Handbook far outweighs the fad-books in current
circulation. This can only be a good signal that, at the very least when it
comes to organizational learning, the matter lends itself to serious treatment
and consideration. All four parts to Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management are covered in depth, from the psychological inclinations of the
former to the technological aspirations of the latter, with excursions into
social identity, emotion and semantics in between more substantive chapters on
knowledge transfer, case studies and models of organizational learning.

The
book will be of interest to group psychologists and those with an eye on
management dynamics. Beware, however: there are long tracts herein which appear
to be going nowhere but boredom, leaving the reader with the feeling that there
is something substantial hiding — as opposed to revealed –
between the pages. A taste of that substantial je ne sais quoi is to be
found in a short seminal text published by Arie de Geus in the 1988 March/April
edition of the Harvard Business Review. For those psychologists interested in
getting involved, a read through that article will give them far more than the
hours demanded by this book.

©
2003 Ion Georgiou

Ion Georgiou is Visiting
Professor at the Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia, and Professor 
& Director of Scientific Research at the Faculdade de Tecnologia e Ciências,
both situated in Bahia, Brazil. He has also taught and undertaken research at
the London School of Economics, Kingston University (UK), and universities in Russia
and Spain. His main interests are Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General System
Theory, Husserlian and Sartrean phenomenology, philosophy of science and
organizational leanring. Fluent in five languages, he has consulted on
commercial and academically-linked public projects across Europe and Brazil.

Categories: General, Psychology