Re-Embedding Situatedness: The Importance of Power Relations in Learning Theory

Alessia Contu () and Hugh Willmott ()
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Alessia Contu: Department of Management Learning, University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, Lancaster, United Kingdom LA1 4YW
Hugh Willmott: Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CB2 1AG

Organization Science, 2003, vol. 14, issue 3, 283-296

Abstract: This paper critically addresses the coherence, reception, and dissemination of “situated learning theory” (Lave and Wenger 1991). Situated learning theory commends a conceptualization of the process of learning that, in offering an alternative to cognitive theories, departs radically from the received body of knowledge on learning in organizations. The paper shows how elements of situated learning theory have been selectively adopted to fertilize or extend the established terrain of organizational learning. In this process, we argue, Lave and Wenger's embryonic appreciation of power relations as media of learning is displaced by a managerial preoccupation with harnessing (reified) “communities of practice” to the fulfillment of (reified) corporate objectives. We illustrate our argument by reference to Orr's (1990, 1996) study of photocopier technicians, which is very widely cited as an example of the “new,” situated conceptualization of learning in communities of practice. We commend a revitalization of situated learning theory in which learning practices are understood to be enabled and constrained by their embeddedness in relations of power; and, more specifically, by the unstable institutionalization of power relations within capitalist work organizations.

Keywords: Organizational Learning; Power; Situated Learning; Community of Practice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

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