Conceptions of learning and managing the flow of knowledge in the project-based environment

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

Volumn 1, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 33-48

  Sense, Andrew J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG   (Australia)

Author keywords

Knowledge management; Learning; Social systems

Indexed keywords

EID: 70350085015     PISSN: 17538378     EISSN: 17538386     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/17538370810846405     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. Agashae, Z. and Bratton, J. (2001), “Leader-follower dynamics: developing a learning environment”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 89-103.
2. Andrews, K.M. and Delahaye, B.L. (2000), “Influences on knowledge processes in organizational learning: the psychosocial filter”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 797-810.
3. Antonacopoulou, E. (1997), “Towards the learning manager: an empirical investigation of managerial learning in the context of changing organizations”, Proceedings of the 13th European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, Budapest, Hungary, July.
4. Antoni, M. and Sense, A.J. (2001), “Learning within and across projects: a comparison of frames”, Journal of Work, Human Environment and Nordic Ergonomics, No. 2, pp. 84-93.
5. Argyris, C. and Schön, D.A. (1978), Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
6. Arthur, M.B., DeFillippi, R.J. and Jones, C. (2001), “Project based learning as the interplay of career and company non-financial capital”, Management Learning, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 99-117.
7. Ayas, K. (1996), “Professional project management: a shift towards learning and a knowledge creating structure”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 131-6.
8. Ayas, K. and Zeniuk, N. (2001), “Project based learning: building communities of reflective practitioners”, Management Learning, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 61-76.
9. Baumard, P. (1999), Tacit Knowledge in Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
10. Beard, C. and Wilson, J.P. (2002), The Power of Experiential Learning: A Handbook for Trainers and Educators, Kogan Page Limited, London.
11. Billett, S. (2000), “Guided learning at work”, Journal of Workplace Learning: Employee Counselling Today, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 272-85.
12. Billett, S. (2001a), “Learning through work: workplace affordances and individual engagement”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 209-14.
13. Billett, S. (2001b), Learning in the Workplace: Strategies for Effective Practice, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
14. Billett, S. (2004), “Workplace participatory practices: conceptualising workplaces as learning environments”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 16 No. 6, pp. 312-24.
15. Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (1999), “Understandings of workplace learning”, in Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (Eds), Understanding Learning at Work, Routledge, London, pp. 1-12.
16. Bresnen, M., Edelman, L., Newell, S., Scarbrough, H. and Swan, J. (2003), “Social practices and the management of knowledge in project environments”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 157-66.
17. Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991), “Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation”, Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 40-57.
18. Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2000), The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
19. Choo, C.W. (1998), The Knowing Organization: How Organizations use Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge and Make Decisions, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
20. Coombs, S.J. and Smith, I.D. (1998), “Designing a self-organized conversational learning environment”, Educational Technology, May/June, pp. 17-28.
21. Davenport, T.H. and Prusak, L. (1998), Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
22. Denton, J. (1998), Organisational Learning and Effectiveness, Routledge, London.
23. Dewey, J. (1938), Experience and Education, Collier Macmillan Publishers, New York, NY.
24. Dixon, N. (1999), The Organizational Learning Cycle: How We Can Learn Collectively, 2nd ed., Gower, Aldershot.
25. Dodgson, M. (1993), “Organizational learning: a review of some literatures”, Organization Studies, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 375-89.
26. Dunphy, D., Turner, D. and Crawford, M. (1997), “Organizational learning as the creation of corporate competencies”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 232-44.
27. Easterby-Smith, M., Crossan, M. and Nicolini, D. (2000), “Organizational learning: debates past, present and future”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 783-96.
28. Elkjaer, B. (2001), “Book review, the dance of change: the challenges of sustaining momentum in learning organizations”, Management Learning, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 153-6.
29. Fernie, S., Green, S.D., Weller, S.J. and Newcombe, R. (2003), “Knowledge sharing: context, confusion and controversy”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 177-87.
30. Fox, S. (1997), “From management education and development to the study of management learning”, in Burgoyne, J. and Reynolds, M. (Eds), Management Learning: Integrating Perspectives in Theory and Practice, Sage, London, pp. 21-37.
31. Fox, S. (2000), “Communities of practice, foucault and actor-network theory”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 853-67.
32. Garrick, J. (1998), “Informal learning in corporate workplaces”, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 129-44.
33. Garrison, D.R. (1991), “Critical thinking and adult education: a conceptual model for developing critical thinking in adult learners”, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 287-303.
34. Gherardi, S. (2001), “From organizational learning to practice-based knowing”, Human Relations, Vol. 54 No. 1, pp. 131-9.
35. Gherardi, S. and Nicolini, D. (2000), “To transfer is to transform: the circulation of safety knowledge”, Organization, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 329-48.
36. Gherardi, S., Nicolini, D. and Odella, F. (1998), “Toward a social understanding of how people learn in organizations”, Management Learning, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 273-97.
37. Hansen, M.T., Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. (1999), “What’s your strategy for managing knowledge?”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 77 No. 2, pp. 106-15.
38. Hedberg, B. (1981), “How organizations learn and unlearn”, in Nystrom, P.C. and Starbuck, W.H. (Eds), Handbook of Organizational Design: Volume 1, Adapting Organizations to Their Environments, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 3-27.
39. Holman, D., Pavlica, K. and Thorpe, R. (1997), “Rethinking Kolb’s theory of experiential learning in management education: the contribution of social constructionism and activity theory”, Management Learning, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 135-48.
40. Ingelgård, A., Roth, J., Shani, A.B. and Styhre, A. (2002), “Dynamic learning capability and actionable knowledge creation: clinical R&D in a pharmaceutical company”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 65-77.
41. Järvinen, A. and Poikela, E. (2001), “Modelling reflective and contextual learning at work”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 13 Nos 7/8, pp. 282-9.
42. Kasvi, J.J., Vartiainen, M. and Hailikari, M. (2003), “Managing knowledge and knowledge competencies in projects and project organisations”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 21 No. 8, pp. 571-82.
43. Kezsbom, D. and Edward, K. (2001), The New Dynamic Project Management: Winning Through the Competitive Advantage, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York, NY.
44. Kolb, D.A. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
45. Kolb, D.A., Baker, A.C. and Jensen, P.J. (2002), “Conversation as experiential learning”, in Baker, A.C., Jensen, P.J. and Kolb, D.A. (Eds), Conversational Learning: An Experiential Approach to Knowledge Creation, Quorum books, New York, NY, pp. 51-66.
46. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
47. Leonard-Barton, D. (1992), “The factory as a learning laboratory”, Sloan Management Review, Fall, pp. 23-38.
48. Leonard-Barton, D. (1995), Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
49. Lewin, K. (1946), “Action research and minority problems”, The Journal of Social Issues, Vol. II No. 4, pp. 34-46.
50. Linde, C. (2001), “Narrative and social tacit knowledge”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 160-70.
51. Lundin, R.A. and Hartman, F. (2000), “Pervasiveness of projects in business”, in Lundin, R.A. and Hartman, F. (Eds), Projects as Business Constituents and Guiding Motives, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 1-10.
52. Lundin, R.A. and Söderholm, A. (1998), “Managing the black boxes of the project environment”, in Pinto, J.K. (Ed.), The Project Management Institute: Project Management Handbook, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA, pp. 41-54.
53. McLellan, H. (1996), “Situated learning: multiple perspectives”, in McLellan, H. (Ed.), Situated Learning Perspectives, Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 5-17.
54. Marsick, V.J. (1987), “New paradigms for learning in the workplace”, in Marsick, V.J. (Ed.), Learning in the Workplace, Croom Helm, New York, NY, pp. 11-30.
55. Marsick, V.J. and Watkins, K. (1990), Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace, Routledge, London.
56. Marsick, V.J. and Watkins, K. (1999), “Envisioning new organizations for learning”, in Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (Eds), Understanding Learning at Work, Routledge, London, pp. 199-215.
57. Mårtensson, M. (2000), “A critical review of knowledge management as a management tool”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 204-16.
58. Matthews, J.H. and Candy, P.C. (1999), “New dimensions in the dynamics of learning and knowledge”, in Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (Eds), Understanding Learning at Work, Routledge, London, pp. 47-64.
59. Miettinen, R. (2000), “The concept of experiential learning and John Dewey’s theory of reflective thought and action”, International Journal of Lifelong Learning, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 54-72.
60. Miner, A. and Mezias, S. (1996), “Ugly duckling no more: pasts and futures of organizational learning research”, Organization Science, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 88-99.
61. Morris, P.W.G. (2002), “Managing project management knowledge for organizational effectiveness”, Proceedings of PMI® Research Conference, Seattle, USA, July, pp. 77-87.
62. Nonaka, I. and Konno, N. (1998), “The concept of ‘Ba’: Building a foundation for knowledge creation”, California Management Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 40-54.
63. Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
64. Park, P. (1999), “People, knowledge, and change in participatory research”, Management Learning, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 141-57.
65. Piaget, J. (1953), The Origin of Intelligence in the Child, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London.
66. Raelin, J.A. (1998), “Work-based learning in practice”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 10 Nos 6/7, pp. 280-3.
67. Richter, I. (1998), “Individual and organizational learning at the executive level: towards a research agenda”, Management Learning, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 299-316.
68. Ruggles, R. (1998), “The state of the notion: knowledge management in practice”, California Management Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 80-9.
69. Saint-Onge, H. and Wallace, D. (2002), Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage, Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam.
70. Scarbrough, H., Swan, J. and Preston, J. (1999), Knowledge Management and the Learning Organization, IPD, London.
71. Schein, E.H. (1993), “How can organizations learn faster? The challenge of entering the green room”, Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 85-92.
72. Senge, P.M. (1990), The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Random House Australia, Sydney.
73. Senge, P.M. and Scharmer, O. (2001), “Community action research: Learning as a community of practitioners, consultants and researchers”, in Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (Eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage, London, pp. 238-49.
74. Sense, A.J. (2003), “Learning generators: project teams re-conceptualized”, Project Management Journal, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 4-12.
75. Sense, A.J. (2005), “Facilitating conversational learning in a project team practice”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 178-93.
76. Sense, A.J. (2006), “Project learning relationships and situated learning: defensive deflection and protective veneers”, International Journal of Learning and Change, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 345-61.
77. Sense, A.J. (2007a), “Stimulating situated learning within projects: personalizing the flow of knowledge”, Knowledge Management Research & Practice, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 13-21.
78. Sense, A.J. (2007b), Cultivating Learning Within Projects, Palgrave Macmillan, London.
79. Sense, A.J. (2007c), “Structuring the project environment for learning”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 405-12 (special issue on the European Academy of Management (EURAM 2006) Conference).
80. Sense, A.J. (2007d), “Learning within project practice: cognitive styles exposed”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 33-40.
81. Sense, A.J. and Antoni, M. (2003), “Exploring the politics of project learning”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 21 No. 7, pp. 487-94.
82. Shani, A.B. and Docherty, P. (2003), Learning by Design: Building Sustainable Organizations, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford.
83. Smith, B. and Dodds, B. (1997), Developing Managers through Project Based Learning, Gower Publishing Limited, London.
84. Solomon, N. (1999), “Culture and difference in workplace learning”, in Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (Eds), Understanding Learning at Work, Routledge, London, pp. 119-31.
85. Starkey, K. (1998), “The organizational learning cycle: how we can learn collectively”, Human Relations, Vol. 51 No. 4, pp. 531-46.
86. Swan, J., Newell, S., Scarbrough, H. and Hislop, D. (1999), “Knowledge management and innovation: networks and networking”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 262-75.
87. Tsang, E.W.K. (1997), “Organizational learning and the learning organization: a dichotomy between descriptive and prescriptive research”, Human Relations, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 73-89.
88. Watkins, K.E. and Cervero, R.M. (2000), “Organizations as contexts for learning: a case study in certified accountancy”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 187-94.
89. Weick, K.E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
90. Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
91. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W.M. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
92. Willmott, H. (2000), “From knowledge to learning”, in Pritchard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (Eds), Managing Knowledge: Critical Investigations of Work and Learning, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, pp. 216-22.