How can organisations learn: an information systems development perspective

This article sets out to argue that organisations can learn but that they cannot do so in their own right without infrastructural support. This article further examines the notion that individuals in organisations also require the cognitive participation of the organisation itself as a learning entity to learn. The close reliance and affiliation required between individuals and organisations to enable their learning from one another are discussed. In continuation of this, specific examples are provided through the industry sector of information systems development (ISD) projects to illustrate of how organisations can learn. Finally, the question of how one identifies organisational learning is analysed. Following on from the ISD and its use in the analogy of organisational learning, the article discusses an organisational empirical research project currently being undertaken by the authors, which utilises blogs. Though there are many potential organisational learning connotations associated with blogs, they could be perceived as a type of information system. The ongoing research being undertaken with the company using the blogs will attempt to identify indicators of learning at the individual, group and organisational levels. The significance of the issues explored in this article lies in the fact that it addresses an ISD approach to study how an organisation learns, and why this perspective is useful towards understanding the process of organisational learning. This article contributes to the organisational learning debate through an illustrative industry example of ISD projects. In doing so, we wish to argue that though individual learning can occur in ISD projects, the collective nature of projects primarily engenders the interpretive aspect of organisational learning. We further believe that it is the interactive nature of an ISD project that allows an organisation to learn in tandem with project members as exemplified through the stages of a project life cycle. We feel that this article contributes to the ISD and organisational learning literature in terms of linking both concepts together.     

“Talking things through”; and “putting it in writing”;: Two codes of communication in an academic institution

This study is an interpretive ethnography based on participant observation over a two‐year period of time as members of one academic institution responded to a Board of Trustees’ mandate to revise the system of governance. Two communication codes were identified in faculty and administration subcultures of this institution. The code of “collegiality,”; used by members of the faculty subculture, valued “talking things through,”; because this channel of communication best affirmed the individual self and facilitated personal and egalitarian relations among organizational members. The code of “professional management,”; used by members of the administration subculture, privileged “putting it in writing,”; because written codification best insured the rights and responsibilities of organizational members.     

“You're My Parent but You're Not”: Dialectical Tensions in Stepchildren's Perceptions About Communicating with the Nonresidential Parent

The nonresidential parent plays a role in the lives of stepchildren and in stepfamily households. The focus of the present study was on the interaction between the nonresidential parent and his/her child who resides as part of a stepfamily household. Grounded in relational dialectics theory, the researchers performed an interpretive analysis of 50 transcribed interviews with college-aged stepchildren. Stepchildren's perceptions of communication with the nonresidential parent were animated by two contradictions: parenting/nonparenting and openness/closedness. These two contradictions form a totality, interwoven with one another. The parenting/nonparenting contradiction reflected stepchildren's ambivalence over parenting attempts of nonresidential parents. Stepchildren wanted nonresidential parent involvement and parenting, and at the same time they resisted it, often finding communication to be awkward and challenging. In addition, stepchildren wanted open and intimate communication with their nonresidential parents, yet they found openness to be problematic and managed these contradictory demands via segmentation. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with insights to guide professionals working with stepfamilies and adults co-parenting children to better understand and interact in ways that promote healthy stepfamilies.