Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Abstract

A practice approach to organizational learning is based on the assumption that knowing and doing are inextricably entangled. Therefore, organizational learning takes places within working practices as a situated activity. The sociological roots of the concept of practice are traced and the expression ‘practice-based studies’ (PBS) is introduced as an umbrella-term. Within these studies two orientations are apparent: one which considers practices to be the object of empirical analysis (the site of learning and knowing), and one which assumes practice as epistemology.

If we consider the becoming of a practice and its function as a guide for knowledgeable collective doing, we can show that the epistemology of practice subtends a relational vision and an ecological model of inquiry within which practice is explored as sensible and tacit knowledge enacted in socio-material relations. It is then explored whether and how a practice theory of organization could come about and the theoretical and substantive contribution that it could make.