New directions for organizational learning in Eastern Europe

Academic and professional interest in the mechanics of 'organizational learning' have expanded as the investigators and practitioners of international business have sought to establish primary approaches to the ways in which individuals interact in and between cultures and institutions (see Huber 1991 for a review of the organizational learning concept). Within the rapidly changing economic climate of eastern Europe, the theme of organizational learning has recently become a focus of special interest, highlighting many of the conceptual and practical differences between what was once considered the 'East' and 'West' of a socio-political gulf. Acting as a bridge of mutual interest between the sides of this (considerably abstract) divide, the issues of organizational learning incorporate many of the contemporary concerns of socio-economic transformation in eastern Europe - particularly from the indigenous perspective of east Europeans themselves. As shall be demonstrated below, not only is the nature of the traffic on this 'bridge' open to question, but the very building blocks of the structure's construction are contested.

Including reference to the preceding set of articles selected from the European Management and Organizations in Transition (EMOT) workshop on 'Managerial Learning in the Transformation of Eastern Europe', this paper seeks to critically examine some of the fundamental issues of organizational learning in the regional context. In addition, by drawing upon the author's own research interests in this area, it also advocates specific directions for future research and business practice. Four inter-related themes are addressed below, each representing an integral part of what is considered by the author to comprise the foundation of future debate on organizational learning: agency, communication, typification and contextuality.

Much of the analytical footing for such emphasis is based on the author's management consultancy and research experience since 1989, primarily dealing with joint venture enterprises in Hungary. This admission is consistent with the notion that it is impossible to completely separate oneself from personal experience or to discount the uniqueness of such subjectivity. A similarly exacting perspective should be taken on the empirical data in question. Consequently, the discussion as a whole underlines a general proposition grounded in the traditions of qualitative inquiry, namely, the situation-specific nature of all action and inter-action within (and outside) the workplace. As will become evident in the following discussion, organizational learning cannot be separated from the individual and social context in which it occurs.

My own view on the subject of organizational learning in the popular framework of 'learning organizations' is discriminating. It is one based on the empirical character of classical social anthropology and a concern with what Goffman (1959) terms 'face-to-face' social interaction. As I see it: organizations do not learn, people do; all frames of reference must follow from this social fact. In order to understand the nature of 'learning in organizations' - the phrase astutely emphasized in Villinger's article of this issue (pace Huber 1991; Pawlowsky 1992) - it is necessary to understand people as individuals, as independent social actors willing and able to make their own decisions within a matrix of both personal and social influences in specific situations. This is an approach to learning shared by Geppert, whose current article also underscores a shift away from organizational learning as a bureaucratic, institutional monopoly to organizational learning as an individual activity informed by a range of social and cultural factors.

Agency

The theme of agency can be considered an oblique commentary on the structure of power relations within an organization, especially if one does not automatically approach it from the standard Game Theory angle of decision making. From this divergent perspective, it is impossible to address the subject of organizational learning without first qualifying the ubiquitous emphasis on managerial learning in the relevant literature. Often, the two seem to be conflated both by scholars and business practitioners alike. While this confusion points towards certain (erroneous) assumptions of the role of managers in effecting and controlling change in the workplace, it also frames present business approaches to the ethnocentric way in which the transfer of knowledge in eastern Europe is bracketed, both in logical and bureaucratic terms. This connection raises a number of questions on its own which will require investigation in the future. What is the relationship between theories of organizational learning and the priorities of organizational hierarchy? How valid is the idea of reducing the organizational learning concept to component populations? What range of employees acts as a lynchpin in the learning process in eastern Europe? Does this vary between industries or enterprises?