Semiotic Learning
- from
Organisational Semiotics
to Organisational Learning
Ângela Araújo Lacerda Nobre
[email protected], [email protected]
ESCE-IPS Portugal
Semiotics 2009 - September – A Coruña
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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)
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)
Theoretical background
 Socio philosophy theory
 Social tradition on Organisational
Learning
 Peirce’s pragmatism
 Heidegger’s ontology
 Halliday’s social semiotics
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
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
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 => SL
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)?”
8
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
9
Research method
Qualitative research method - Multigrounded 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
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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
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1 Cases – key themes (2/2)
1. organisational culture
2. leadership / followership relations
3. organisational images
Key insight: the greater the
social interaction and level of trust, the
greater the opportunities for sharing
tacit knowledge, thus strengthening OL
12
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
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2 Design of SL (2/3)
1. Framework: theoretical principles that
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
direct practice
Method: set of procedures
Learning cycle
Learning steps
Relating theory and practice
Relating OL and socio-philosophical
foundations
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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 experimentations15
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
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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
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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
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Key insights
Theory:
The role of
social context
Practice:
The role of
community
relations
Semiotic
Learning:
The practice
of reflexive
discussion
SL OL is a meaning-making collective
process, embodied in the organisation
community and embedded in the
organisational discursive practices.
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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.
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