1 Semiotic Learning - from Organisational Semiotics to Organisational Learning Ângela Araújo Lacerda Nobre ESCE-IPS Portugal Semiotics September – A Coruña

Introduction 4 “Semiotics is currently the most complete and sophisticated theory of meaning and culture” (Lagopoulos, 1993) 4 Semiotic Learning (SL): 4 – is the output of a research project on Organisational Learning (OL) (Knowledge Economy context)

OS and OL 4 OS - initiated by Stamper (1973) 4 OL - initiated by Argyris (1978) 4 Both address the organisational context 4 OS aims at improving the effectiveness of Information Systems design and implementation 4 OL aims at improving overall organisational effectiveness – parallel to Knowledge Management (KM)

Theoretical background 4 Socio philosophy theory 4 Social tradition on Organisational Learning 4 Peirce’s pragmatism 4 Heidegger’s ontology 4 Halliday’s social semiotics

Key theories 4 Pragmatism – it rejects all dualisms (inside/outside, internal/external, individual/social, theory/practice, …) 4 Ontology – being-in-the-world is a broader instance of knowledge than subject-object, which is a particular case of the former 4 Social semiotics – meaning is created by active participation in social practices and use of language

From research to education 4 Semiotic Learning (SL) – it revises key social philosophy theory that is crucial to the fundamentation of management sciences 4 Management education severely lacks adequate theoretical basis, able to deal with the changing global environment and the increase in complexity 4 Semiotics may play that role of complementing traditional education with innovative perspectives

Rationale of SL 4 Tacit knowledge cannot be copied 4 It is a source of sustainable competitive advantages 4 It can only be shared by active participation in collective practices 4 This implies: strengthening organisational communities and organisational sense-making => 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: TypeStudy duration Case AEur. Agency8 months Case BEur. Agency1 week Case CNat. Agency2 months Case DServ. Prov.2 months

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

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

1. Framework: theoretical principles that direct practice 2. Method: set of procedures 3. Learning cycle 4. Learning steps 5. Relating theory and practice 6. Relating OL and socio-philosophical foundations 14 2 Design of SL (2/3)

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 15 2 Design of SL (3/3)

16 3 Testing (1/2) 4 organisations/ groups were used: TypeProfess. Backgr. Group 1Indep. Profes.psychologists Group 2IT companydiverse Group 3IT companydiverse Group 4Telecomm.diverse

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 17 3 Testing (2/2)

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 18 Research results

SL OL is a meaning-making collective process, embodied in the organisation community and embedded in the organisational discursive practices. 19 Key insights Practice: The role of community relations Semiotic Learning: The practice of reflexive discussion Theory: The role of social context

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. 20 Conclusions