The Role of Identity and Power in Organizational Learning

The paper discusses theoretical implications of a case study of an organizational learning project on a teacher training college. Organizational learning activities are often discussed and organized as if learning was a rational process. Practice –and this includes the case presented in this paper- reveals something else; namely that learning seems highly irrational, inconsistent and ambiguous. We will use these results to discuss the theoretical implications in terms of approaching organizational learning: We argue that three interconnected concepts are helpful in this respect: negotiation of meaning, identity and power. As such these concepts have major implications in terms of organizing organizational learning processes. We mention three such implications: (1) that organizational learning has to seen, organized and evaluated as if they are a collection of relatively loosely coupled network of activities, which have their own direction; (2) that we have to focus much more on individuals and individuality in organizing learning processes in organizations; (3) it follows that organizations have to give up the illusion that it can may control learning processes in a narrow organizational goal-oriented sense. Instead organizational learning must be nurtured from different agendas, motives, and intentions, which push learning in different directions