 Finding your Sea Legs: Exploring Newcomer Embodied Learning in an Extreme ContextIla Bharatan, Eivor Oborn and Jacky Swan Journal of Management Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 3, 1265-1299 Abstract: Embodied learning involves developing not only socio‐technical know‐how but also the bodily capacity to execute practices competently. In extreme contexts, newcomers encounter threatening experiences that may incapacitate their ability to participate. How newcomers develop the bodily capacity to participate in such situations is a research area that requires further attention. Using ethnographic data from a study of novices working in the risky context of seafaring, we show that newcomers encounter threat experiences (imagined, immediate, and attenuated) that trigger them to engage in three types of body work: priming, battling, and enduring, from which they develop the capacity to participate. Our analysis suggests a model of newcomer embodied learning in practices in an extreme context and contributes to embodied learning literature by showing: (1) body work directed at capacity to participate, (2) the mutually constitutive relationship between body work and threat experiences, and (3) the temporal complexity of embodied learning anchored in the body work and threat experiences. Date: 2025 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:62:y:2025:i:3:p:1265-1299 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of Management Studies is currently edited by Timothy Clark, Steven W. Floyd and Mike Wright More articles in Journal of Management Studies from Wiley Blackwell |
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