Learning in and from projects: the learning modes and a learning capability model

Abstract

The notion of ‘project delivery’ is well embedded in and across the management and organizational sciences literature – generating a narrative that reflects and recognizes the instrumental nature of projects and programmes in strategy execution. Project management, as a distinct and well-established body of research enquiry, has increasingly sought to focus our attention on the impacts of complexity, risk and uncertainty in projects; the corollary being a desideratum to strengthen our theoretical understanding of how insight and learning from projects may influence improvements to organizational efficiency. The wider literature suggests that organizational learning remains a challenging proposition, particularly in the context of organizations operating in environments of high complexity. In this paper, we enhance the conversation on organizational learning through a series of case studies, generating evidence of thirteen ‘learning modes’. The paper proposes that mature organizations tend to exhibit a greater number of learning modes and that there is a tendency to capture and socialize knowledge with a greater emphasis on the context of the learning situation rather than the learning artefact in isolation. The empirical evidence gathered in this paper forms the basis of a capability model, characterized by the thirteen modes of learning. The model intimates that learning occurs, and is more effective, when knowledge and information are enacted in practice through the learning modes which form a nucleus of the organizational learning capability. The research concludes with a 'call to action' that emphasizes the strategic importance of learning practices and routines in project oriented-organizations.     

再论吉登斯的阶级结构化理论

作为新韦伯主义社会分层理论的重要一支，吉登斯的阶级结构化理论以市场能力与准技术关系为轴心进行社会分层，将阶级关系作为一种社会结构，在阶级活动和阶级结构的互动中考察各个阶层的流动。阶级关系结构化包括阶级意识、阶级冲突、阶级剥削三个要素。依据“分工的规律是阶级划分的基础”的原则，可以解析其理论认识上的得失，阐明其理论在中国当前构建和谐社会中的现实意义。     

Organizational strengths and challenges of Kenyan NGOs serving orphans and vulnerable children: a template analysis

This qualitative study of Kenyan non-governmental organizations (NGOs) identified strengths and challenges associated with service provision to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). From September to December 2006, data were collected by Kenyan research assistants in 34 NGOs in Nairobi and Eldoret. In-depth interviews were used to explore the perceptions of directors and staff in relation to organizational strengths and challenges in serving OVC. Structuration theory and template analysis were used to identify higher-order codes related to strengths and challenges of human agents, organizations and societal forces. Emergent themes and supporting interview quotations are presented to highlight common patterns across organizations, including strengths such as staff commitment, client outcomes, and resourceful communities, as well as challenges such as lack of staff, funding, and parental involvement. Through the analysis we uncover insights about the recursive relationship between micro and macro realities in Kenyan NGOs and the accompanying human and social transformations that result from providing services to OVC.     

《强奸再现》评介

《强奸再现》是格雷戈里·马托辛关于强奸案及庭审互动研究的力作,是研究法律语言学的必读书目之一。格雷戈里·马托辛将强奸案的研究放在结构化的大框架中,揭示了强奸的社会机制;采用会话分析的方法,通过分析语料进行实证研究;将强奸研究纳入吉登斯的结构化理论框架中,揭示了法律、语言和社会的关系。     

走向教育的"二重性"--探求安东尼·吉登斯结构化理论的教育意义

安东尼·吉登斯是当代著名的社会学理论大师之一,以其结构化理论闻名于学术界.文章认为,吉登斯的结构化理论得以形成主要受三个因素的影响吉登斯自己的学术旨趣、20世纪60年代的社会运动、马克思的社会学思想.结构化理论主要是从结构二重性的角度出发,阐述了行动与结构之间的关系,这为分析教育提供了一个崭新的分析视角,个体受教育的过程就是一个个体行动与教育结构互动的过程,教育活动处处体现了结构的二重性.     

Language,structure and agency: What can realist social theory offer to sociolinguistics?

The sociolinguistic enterprise raises fundamental questions about the nature of the relationships between social phenomena (such as social class or gender) and linguistic variation, while within social theory a persistent concern is the nature of the relationship between structure and agency. Sociolinguistics can draw on social theory for analysis of the relationship between speaker and system, the role of language in the creation, maintenance and change of social institutions, and the role of human agency in sociolinguistic phenomena. This article summarises the key tenets of a sociological realism, based on the recent work of Margaret Archer (in particular her exploration of analytical dualism) and of Derek Layder (specifically his theory of ‘social domains’). It relates these ideas to sociolinguistics, arguing that language can be seen to have a different significance, depending on which domain is the focus of the researcher's interest. The article considers the distinctiveness of this approach, contrasting it with structuralist and social constructionist accounts and with structuration. It concludes by identifying some methodological implications, suggesting that sociological realism offers a productive theoretical framework for sociolinguistics in dealing with questions of language, structure and agency.     

Integrating institutional, relational and embodied structure: an emergentist perspective

This paper begins to develop an emergentist and realist account of normative social institutions. The argument is developed as a response to Lopez and Scott's historical portrait of the debate on social structure as a dialogue between two different concepts of structure: institutional structure and relational structure, integrated more recently through the concept of embodied structure. The paper argues that all these approaches tend to neglect the idea of structure as a whole and suggests that we cannot understand social structures without recognizing the nature of the corresponding wholes, and how they relate to the human individuals that comprise them. Such a perspective makes clear that embodiment alone is inadequate as a means of integrating institutional and relational conceptions of structure. For a fuller resolution, we must set social structure in an emergentist framework, which can reconcile the complementary roles of institutional structure, relational structure, and indeed embodiment, as aspects of the production of social structures as wholes.     

迈向社会全体的个案研究

个案研究的科学性，体现为一种社会全体的可能性解释。个案研究的策略，不同于以代表性为基础的假设检验，也不等于社会生活的单纯描述和记述，而是从具有典型性的案例出发，发现由具体社会生发的运行机制，在广度和深度上尽可能扩充、延展和融合与外部各种政治、社会、文化因素的关联。个案研究需要运用人文地理志、制图术、人口志、历史编纂学、传记学、语词编纂学等各类民族志方法，通过“事件化”的社会激活过程，呈现出多重社会构成的脉络。依据这些分析性线索，个案研究可进一步展现社会诸要素之间多重连续的相关关系和共变关系，发现主导性的社会机制或逻辑，并最终通过结构化的方式呈现出社会全体的完整图景。     

Knowledge representation by schemata in financial expert systems

This paper introduces the notion of knowledge structuring by schemata. A schema is a chunk of knowledge which generalizes the idea of functional dependence between pertinent concepts (objects). The rules are closely related to the schemata. Moreover the schemata are organized in a hierarchical network which takes into account the relative importance of the concepts. Examples are given in the financial field and the consequences with regards to knowledge engineering are discussed.     

Successful societies: Decision-making and the quality of attentiveness

Combining moral philosophy with sociological theory to build on themes introduced in Hall and Lamont’s Successful Societies (2009), the paper outlines a distinctive perspective. It holds that a necessary condition of successful societies is that decision-makers base their decisions on a high level of attentiveness (concern and comprehension) towards subjectively valued and morally legitimate forms of life. Late modern societies consist of a plurality of forms of life, each providing grounds for what Alasdair MacIntyre has called internal goods—valued and morally valuable practices. The status of such goods is examined, and distinctions are drawn between their manifest and latent, and transposable and situationally specific, characteristics. We integrate this refined idea of internal goods into a developed conception of habitus that is both morally informed and situationally embedded. The sociological approach of strong structuration theory (SST) is employed to demonstrate how this conception of habitus can guide the critique of decision-making that damages internal goods. We identify the most pervasive and invidious forms of damaging decision-making in contemporary societies as those involving excessive forms of instrumental reasoning. We argue that our developed conception of habitus, anchored in the collectively valued practices of specific worlds, can be a powerful focus for resistance. Accounts of scholarship in higher education and of the white working class in America illustrate the specificities of singular, particular, social worlds and illuminate critical challenges raised by the perspective we advocate.