Semiotic Learning from Organisational Semiotics to Organisational Learning

1
Semiotic Learning - from Organisational
Semiotics to Organisational Learning

• Ângela Araújo Lacerda Nobre
• anobre_at_esce.ips.pt, lacerda.nobre_at_gmail.com
• ESCE-IPS Portugal
• Semiotics 2009 - September A Coruña

2
Introduction

• Semiotics is currently the most complete and
  sophisticated theory of meaning and culture
  (Lagopoulos, 1993)
• Semiotic Learning (SL)
• is the output of a research project on
  Organisational Learning (OL) (Knowledge Economy
  context)

3
OS and OL

• OS - initiated by Stamper (1973)
• OL - initiated by Argyris (1978)
• Both address the organisational context
• OS aims at improving the effectiveness of
  Information Systems design and implementation
• OL aims at improving overall organisational
  effectiveness parallel to Knowledge Management
  (KM)

4
Theoretical background

• Socio philosophy theory
• Social tradition on Organisational Learning
• Peirces pragmatism
• Heideggers ontology
• Hallidays social semiotics

5
Key theories

• Pragmatism it rejects all dualisms
  (inside/outside, internal/external,
  individual/social, theory/practice, )
• Ontology being-in-the-world is a broader
  instance of knowledge than subject-object, which
  is a particular case of the former
• Social semiotics meaning is created by active
  participation in social practices and use of
  language

6
From research to education

• Semiotic Learning (SL) it revises key social
  philosophy theory that is crucial to the
  fundamentation of management sciences
• Management education severely lacks adequate
  theoretical basis, able to deal with the changing
  global environment and the increase in complexity
• Semiotics may play that role of complementing
  traditional education with innovative perspectives

7
Rationale of SL

• Tacit knowledge cannot be copied
• It is a source of sustainable competitive
  advantages
• It can only be shared by active participation in
  collective practices
• This implies strengthening organisational
  communities and organisational sense-making gt SL

8
Research question (extended version of the
presentation)

• Is it possible to develop a conceptual framework
  and a practical method that will facilitate
  learning in knowledge intensive organisations
  (KIO)?

9
Research objectives

• To analyse real cases of organisational community
  life
• To design a framework and method to facilitate
  organisational learning (OL)
• To test and validate such method

10
Research method

• Qualitative research method - Multi-grounded
  theory
• 1 - Case studies and identification of key
  themes (social ties community relations)
• 2 Design framework to improve OL Semiotic
  Learning (SL)
• 3 Implementation and testing SL

11
1 Cases - analysis of data (1/2)

• 4 organisations were analysed
• Type Study duration
• Case A Eur. Agency 8 months
• Case B Eur. Agency 1 week
• Case C Nat. Agency 2 months
• Case D Serv. Prov. 2 months

12
1 Cases key themes (2/2)

• organisational culture
• leadership / followership relations
• organisational images
• Key insight the greater the social
  interaction and level of trust, the greater the
  opportunities for sharing tacit knowledge, thus
  strengthening OL

13
2 Design of SL (1/3)

• In order
• to strengthen OL enhancing factors
• to control OL hindering aspects
• to promote organisational practices that
  empower community-level meaning-making

14
2 Design of SL (2/3)

• Framework theoretical principles that direct
  practice
• Method set of procedures
• Learning cycle
• Learning steps
• Relating theory and practice
• Relating OL and socio-philosophical foundations

15
2 Design of SL (3/3)

• To transmit to people/ groups/ organisations the
  importance of community relations
• To transmit this knowledge through practical
  experimentation
• To enable experimenting with new approaches to
  group interaction
• Key insight concrete practices may be improved
  through new experimentations

16
3 Testing (1/2)

• 4 organisations/ groups were used
• Type Profess. Backgr.
• Group 1 Indep. Profes. psychologists
• Group 2 IT company diverse
• Group 3 IT company diverse
• Group 4 Telecomm. diverse

17
3 Testing (2/2)

• To assess the raise in sensitiveness related to
  OL practices
• Through the analysis of two indicators, according
  to the participants own perspectives
• Raise in awareness
• Professional and personal gains

18
Research results

• In the organisations where SL was tested
• There was evidence of raise in awareness towards
  OL
• This suggests that it is possible to facilitate
  learning and to improve OL processes
• The results are not to be generalised to all
  organisations

19
Key insights
Practice The role of community relations
Semiotic Learning The practice of reflexive
discussion
Theory The role of social context

• SL OL is a meaning-making collective process,
  embodied in the organisation community and
  embedded in the organisational discursive
  practices.

20
Conclusions

• An important contribution of this research is the
  development of a framework and a method that can
  help improve OL at a practical level, using
  different theoretical concepts that have seldom
  been applied in practice.
• These positive exploratory results suggest that
  there is a rich potential to be further developed
  in future research.