CALL FOR PAPERS: Are organizations able to learn?
A special issue of the journal Learning Inquiry

Special Issue Editor:
Anders Örtenblad
Halmstad University, Sweden
Email: [log in to unmask]

Please submit papers by September 1st, 2008 at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/linq/

Many of those who write about organizational learning emphasize that  
it is still a question of individual learning--learning is a pure  
individual phenomenon.  Others claim that organizational learning only  
makes sense as a metaphor, and should therefore not be understood  
literally. Yet others still ask for proofs for in which ways  
individuals and organizations are similar.   These perspectives deny  
the collective or organic nature of the organization and  
organizational learning.

The more traditional perspective of organizational learning has  
elements that can be interpreted as organizational learning, such as  
the storing of what the individuals have learnt into the  
organizational memory/mind. The newer and more social perspectives on  
organizational learning leave space for regarding the organization,  
not the individuals, as the learning unit.

The goal of this special issue is to explore the often taken for  
granted assumption, that the only learning entity is the individual.  
We want papers to challenge this mainstream perspective and to explore  
the wide possibility of the literatures and research that addresses  
organizational learning qua organizations. We invite argumentative  
papers arguing in favour of that organizations as such are capable of  
learning.  Papers on related topics, such as those that interrogate  
the questions surrounding levels of analysis (individual or  
organizational) are also welcomed.

The papers may be based on empirical evidence or may be viewpoints or  
conceptual papers, as long as they are based on strong arguments. The  
following topics shall be seen as some suggestions that the papers  
could be focused on (but they should not be seen as restrictions):

•	convincing descriptions of how organizations as such learn, from any  
specific perspectives (or a few perspectives);
•	examinations of previous work on organizational learning and how  
this could be interpreted in terms of the organization per se learns;
•	case studies that shows that organizations can learn;
•	discussions regarding when the organizational level of learning is  
appropriate and when the individual level is appropriate;
•	should "organizational learning" be taken as a literal utterance, or  
"merely" as a metaphor.

Papers that refute the notion that organizations as such are capable  
of learning, and that the individual is the only possible entity that  
is capable of learning, are welcome. In order to publish such a paper,  
though, it must contain a convincing argumentation in support of the  
individual as the only learning unit as well as against those who  
argue that organizations as such can learn.

Please put “orglearning” in the title of the submission.

Please submit papers by September 1st, 2008 at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/linq/

Style guide and further journal information at: http://www.springer.com/11519

If you have any questions about content or direction of your paper,  
please contact the Special Issue Editor: Anders Örtenblad, Halmstad  
University, Sweden [log in to unmask]

jeremy hunsinger
Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research,  
School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu 
)

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