Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
professionals occurs by way of a “conversation” between an individual
and the problem, through trial and error, which in turn leads to increas-
ingly higher-order reassessments.
59
First, the tools are questioned (lower
order learning), then, the problem is defined, and, finally, the systems
and overarching theories are analyzed (higher order). In the context
of organizations, the stimuli necessary for higher-order learning come
from threats to organizational survival and success, failures, disasters,
and other surprises.
60
A 1998 study
61
examined the mechanisms by which external stimuli
induce learning in social organizations, both formal and informal (com-
munities of practice). The feedback process that is central to learning
takes place, according to the authors, by means of interaction between
the deep competency possessed by a community of practice and the
experience it acquires by interacting with the outside world. These
“boundary processes” produce learning. Several factors can enhance
learning at the boundaries, for example, having something to interact
about, such as a specific project or a problem to solve; the ability to com-
municate in a common language; and the presence of individuals who
serve as brokers of new ideas among different communities of practice.
In policy sciences, higher-order learning is broadly understood as a
collective change in prevalent views, norms, problem definitions, rela-
tionships among groups, and the collective approaches to common prob-
lems. Like organizational and cognitive sciences, this school of thought
attributes learning to the presence of feedback loops between the exist-
ing interpretive frames and problem definitions, and new experiences.
59
D. A. Sch on,
The Reflective Practitioner, How Professionals Think in Action
(Basic
Books 1983).
60
See Argyris, supra. See also Argyris & Sch on, supra, and S. B. Sitkin Learning Through
Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses, 14
Research in Organizational Behavior
231-266
(1992). P. M. Senge, Building learning organizations, 32
Sloan Management Review
7-
23 (1990), describes group techniques that generate feedback on the accepted assump-
tions and behaviors, as the means to stimulate higher-order learning in organizations.
61
Etienne Wenger,
Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity
(Cam-
bridge University Press 1998).
