Revisiting the what, how and why of managerial learning: some new evidence

The relationship between individual and organisational learning remains one of the contested issues in Organisational Learning debates. It is assumed that we know enough about learning at the individual level to draw inferences about learning at the organisational level. This paper provides some new evidence about the nature of individual learning practices in organisations using the individual manager as a unit of analysis. The paper presents empirical evidence from a recent study in the Financial Services Sector in the UK in relation to the how, what and why of managerial learning within organisations. The analysis draws examples from the learning practices of managers in three retail banks and challenges the simplistic view of the relationship between individual and organisational learning currently propounded in the literature. The paper concludes with a review of the implications of the findings for the way we think about learning in organisations