Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

The Epistemology of Practice

To gain better understanding of the epistemology of practice—and therefore move away from analysis that privileges action as the product of actors in a given context—it is useful to recall how Ira Cohen (1996) distinguishes between theories of action and theories of practice. We may say that whilst the former theories privilege the intentionality of actors, from which derives meaningful action (in the tradition of Weber and Parsons), the latter locate the source of significant patterns in how conduct is enacted, performed, or produced (in the tradition of Schutz, Dewey, Mead, Garfinkel, and Giddens). Hence, theories of practice assume an ecological model in which agency is distributed between humans and non-humans and in which the relationality between the social world and materiality can be subjected to inquiry. Whilst theories of action start from individuals and their intentionality in pursuing courses of action, theories of practice view actions as ‘taking place’ or ‘happening,’ as being performed through a network of connections-in-action, as life-world and dwelling (as the phenomenological legacy names them, see Sandberg and Dall’Alba, 2009).

The adoption of an ecological model that gives ontological priority to neither humans nor non-humans, or discursive practices, constitutes the fundamental difference between theories of action and of practice. It is in this interpretative framework that the difference can be grasped between the study of practice ...