Challenging the Corporation : critical perspectives on workplace learning

Claire Valentin, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Paper presented at SCUTREA, 29th Annual Conference, 5-7 July 1999, University of Warwick

Introduction

The mainstream literatures on workplace learning/training and development remain largely characterised by an uncritical acceptance of dominant paradigms of training and management, which tend to presume as unproblematic assumptions about the nature, purpose and practice of training and learning in organisations, and which fail to challenge such issues as organisational power structures. These dominant paradigms have occupied a central point in the discourse on lifelong learning, which tends to make few distinctions concerning purpose and practice between adult education, training in the workplace and training for work. Government policy concerned with lifelong learning may espouse values such as social inclusion and learning for citizenship, but the economic imperative has tended to dominate policy initiatives, and training policy and practice in both workplaces and educational institutions continue to be dominated by a narrow vocationalism.

The currency of lifelong learning, the learning society and learning organisations throws up opportunities to open up the debate about the nature and purpose of workplace learning and to work towards more expansive and creative responses. This paper discusses whether there are opportunities in the changing nature of the workplace generally for developing new perspectives on training practice, which, as well as focusing on the development of individual competence for work, allows space to challenge dominant organisational ideological assumptions and practices. Does the notion of organisational learning open up any possibility of a shift from a perception of training as the process of domesticating the flexible worker (Scied et al 1997) into the notion of education in support of human agency? The paper explores how critical perspectives can help us to construct an analysis and develop new epistemologies of practice in training and development.

Management - technical rationality and consensus

Throughout the range of management disciplines represented in the academic and popular literature on human resource management (HRM) and training and development, there remains a consensus on the meaning of management. They view management as a universal, instrumental process that comprises a number of technical functions carried out by the impartial professional. Management practices are deemed to be universal and free from the influence of time and context. Established priorities and values in organisations are assumed to be legitimate, and the politics of managerial work are marginalised. Realities of power, differences and conflicts of interest that are rooted in deeper social divisions such as gender and ethnicity and the nature of the employment contract are ignored (Alvesson and Wilmott 1996:11, Reynolds 1997, Garrick and Rhodes 1998:90).

The genre of business texts characterised by writers such as Tom Peters, which present a picture of the new ‘knowledge workers’, here been particularly influential in the context of human resource development (HRD) and training. Lankshear identifies a common ‘story line’ running through these ‘fast capitalist texts’. ‘Old capitalism’ (based on mass production, ‘Fordism’, hierarchical organisations, routinised work) is being replaced by the ‘new capitalism’ (based on design, production and marketing of high quality goods and services). In these organisations there is an emphasis on active knowledge and flexible learning, characterised by teamworking, an entrepreneurial emphasis, fast project work, collaboration, active problem solving and learning in context. Corresponding changes in organisational structures mean flatter structures and delayered management. Front line workers are transformed into committed partners, engaged in meaningful work, having greater control over their jobs, supervising themselves. The vision extends beyond the domain of management, to one of new values, new social purposes and practices. The new capitalism is leading to a more meaningful, humane and socially just - though more stressful - workplace. (Lankshear 1997:85-7).

The argument that higher skill levels and greater investment in training and education are the key to better company performance and increased national competitiveness has been well rehearsed (Ashton and Felstead 1995, Keep 1991). The facilitation of organisational learning has been embraced as the answer to the uncertainties of contemporary organisational life and to the management of change (Garrick and Rhodes 1998:174). The guiding view is that global competition requires greater labour market flexibility, of organisational learning as central to the process of economic change and the need to promote economic competitiveness. The promotion of lifelong learning since the 1970s by national governments, political parties, employers and trade unions has been largely framed within this discourse of economic competitiveness (Edwards 1997:11- 13, Butler 1997).

But behind this seeming consensus on lifelong learning lies a range of different discourses through which the terrain is constructed, contested and challenged. ‘Within the discussion of lifelong learning we have the discourses of learners, lecturers, managers, policy-makers, academics, professional bodies, employers, trade unions, awarding bodies, think tanks, journalists and commentators’ (Edwards 1997:13 ). But not all discourses are equal. The power embedded within them seeks to construct certain discourses as more valid, ‘truer’ than others. The rhetoric of ‘empowerment’, ‘self-directed learning’, ‘creative thinking’, obscures the fact that the dominant discourse on organisational learning is driven largely by a view which stresses the inevitability of the need for the flexible worker within the knowledge based economy, emphasising technical rationality to the exclusion of other ways of thinking (Edwards 1997 :21).

Critical perspectives on management and human resource development

A new disciplinary area of ‘management learning’ has begun to emerge in the academy, concerned with management education and development, HRD and training and development, and the study of informal managing and learning processes. Within this, there is a literature which seeks to take critical perspectives on management and learning in the workplace, to encourage questioning of social, organisational and political processes, challenge dominant paradigms and open up new ways of conceiving of issues such as power, knowledge and control in organisations.

Critical perspectives provide a way of examining whose interests are served by the organisation of work, how knowledge is constructed, what counts as ‘truth’, and the significance of difference, gender, culture, and processes of privilege and prejudice. They can make explicit the assumptions, values and beliefs underlying management methods and approaches. Those areas excluded from the debate can be included, and those included can be examined, assumptions overturned and the possibility of multiple interpretations opened up. The application of critical thinking ‘engages in an extensive consideration of the intellectual coherence, moral defensibility and historical sustainability of management theories and practice’ (Willmott 1997:163).

Boot and Reynolds (1997:18) argue that due to a lack of a sociological perspective, management development has become particularly prone to popularised models which are often much simplified versions of more complex ideas. Areas such as groupwork are particularly prone to the use of models of organisational processes such as team role profiles, which fail to acknowledge the complexities of organisational life. In addition, influential theoretical perspectives can predominate and serve to obscure alternative sets of ideas being considered. Experiential learning theory, for example, presents a coherent ideology which incorporates theoretical frameworks to explain the learning process, and a set of values and beliefs about how people should learn. These ideas systems accumulate a core of teachings which then become the point of reference for debating theoretical or operational differences. The fact that they present an essentially individualist perspective, and the possibilities for a more contextualised, social or political point of view are not explored (Boot and Reynolds 1997:95).

The ideas of Foucault have been used to provide new understandings of organisation processes through the analysis of power, politics, knowledge and control in organisations. HRM or personnel has traditionally approached power from a technicist perspective, presenting HRM simply as tools or instruments designed to enable the effective achievement of goals. Foucault’s conceptions of power and knowledge can reveal how mechanisms of power in organisations are simultaneously instruments for the formation and accumulation of knowledge (Townley 1994:5-9).

Using Foucault, Deetz examines how new mechanisms of control have emerged in the new ‘knowledge-based’ industries. Work groups in these organisations have high levels of autonomy and self-management, characterised by professional codes of practice rather than standardised products. This reduces the legitimacy of managerial control, reducing what Foucault called ‘sovereign’ power. As a result, in place of authority relations and direct supervision, most control is ‘normativeí’ carried out via group processes, standards, culture, shared values. Vision statements, company images and active socialisation programmes are control processes, representing ‘technologies of power’ in which employees (and managers as employees) engage in active self-surveillance and self-control. Training and development assist in this process. But whose interests are really served by this self-management? Workers ‘consent’ to arbitrary institutional arrangements as if they were natural and incontestable - the workplace may be more stressful and insecure but this is seen as inevitable and part of processes that benefit employees through more satisfying work and control over their work (Deetz 1998:152-9).

Foucault’s work on knowledge/power can provide different ways of conceptualising the development of individual skills and knowledge in organisations. Training is not simply a decontextualised process whereby individuals are facilitated to learn. Townley highlights how personnel practices actively create analytical divisions within a workforce. Individuals in organisations are constructed and known through being made an ëobjectí of knowledge and a target of power. ‘A Foucaultian analysis of the individual subject does not, therefore, assume an uncovering of a given essential identity of skills, abilities and personality traits. Rather, its focus is the processes involved in rendering the individual knowable’ (Townley 1994 :12).

A postmodern approach of deconstruction also focuses on the perspective not of behavioural action, but in the domain of interpretation, knowledge and language. Behind the rhetoric of the learning organisation lies the fact that only some types of learning in organisations will be viewed as legitimate learning. In a narrative where learning is seen to create social value through promoting organisational competitiveness, ‘good’ learning is learning that will lead either directly or indirectly to business success. In this equation, the only legitimate learning is that which results in commercial benefits. This process of legitimation masquerades in a narrative where learning is the creation of social value, but in fact uses business criteria as a way of deciding whether a particular activity is, or is not, learning (Garrick and Rhodes 1998:176-9).

The language of the ‘new capitalism’ incorporates such terms as ‘empowerment’, ‘self-direction’, ‘self-directed learning’, ‘partnership’, ‘collaboration’. These are word that carry positive connotations and name ideals to which people who embrace different - and often incompatible - aspirations, purposes, interests and investments claim allegiance (Lankshear 1997:90-91). When words such as these become embedded in a discourse of economic competitiveness rather than one of adult education their meanings become transformed. In the new business world workers are asked to think and act critically, reflectively and creatively. But this emphasis on critical thinking does not extend to criticising the goals of the organisation itself. Notions such as ‘empowerment’ illustrate a central paradox in the new capitalism. ‘What sort of ‘freedom’ and ‘empowerment’ do workers have if they cannot question the ‘vision’, values, ends and goals of the new work order itself?’ (Lankshear 1997:87-88).

Critical workplace learning - theory and practice

Theoretical perspectives which provide different ways of making sense of management and the organisation of work provide a starting point for the development of critical practice in workplace learning. The ontological and epistemological assumptions which work to privilege particular modes of thought must be examined. As Chia argues, ‘Both the management of organisations and the organisation of managerial discourse mirror each other, replicating and reinforcing the wider system of dominant values and prevalent symbolic systems characterising a particular socio-historical epoch. This reciprocal relationship has not always been readily acknowledged, nor has its consequences for management theorising and education been adequately explored’ (Chia 1997:72-73). A critical learning theory is concerned with both enhancing individual competence to act on the basis of self-reflection, whilst also maintaining the importance of interactive learning and collective action (Welton M 1995 :36).

A number of different approaches have been developed, particularly in the area of management learning. An extension of Argyris and Schons (1974) well known argument for the ‘reflective practitioner’, suggests that management education and training should focus on the cultivation of the critically reflective practitioner, which would involve managers in thinking questioningly about their roles and their responsibilities and the purposes and social consequences of the organisations that they work for. This is qualitatively different from the concept of critical thinking found in most management education, which is concerned more with making judgments and evaluating options.

The critically reflective practitioner, as well as attempting to understand his or her practice at the level of descriptive and interpretative theory, would seek to recognise the moral and ethical choices involved, and to relate practice to broader contexts - economic, political and social - in an interrogation of ‘preferred’ interpretations of practice (Burgoyne and Jackson 1997:66). This resonates with Mezirowís distinction between operational and structural critique. Operational critique involves reflecting upon how to solve a problem within a given structure, for example, an economic system; structural critique involves reflecting critically on the structure itself (Mezirow 1995:46).

Action learning has provided a starting point for a number of developments. Willmott argues that traditional action learning does not provide a theory to help understand the contradictory forces and power relations that structure the very organisation of managerial work, and that the critical study of management must go beyond simply identifying power differences or noting that these have been constructed. ‘In addition, it must address the legitimacy of these differences and explore the potential for changes that can challenge practices and ideologies through which established exploitation, oppression and subjection become institutionalised’ (Willmott 1997: 167-171). He proposes an approach of Critical Action Learning, which combines a pedagogic philosophy of action learning with critical traditions. A related concept of ‘action inquiry’ seeks to incorporate an approach of action learning to promote ‘organisational transformation’, by shifting from a problem-solving approach to one of ‘inquiring’, integrating systematic research into the organisation with personal development. Tosey and Nugent (1997) describe how such a process helped to transform the management team of a failing small manufacturing company to think creatively about strategy and change the way they related to one another to be more supportive, caring and challenging.

The voicing of alternative ways of viewing issues in organisations is often marginalised, suppressed or pathologised. For example, the concerns of individuals who are critical of newly introduced working practices may be dismissed as their inability to adapt to new ways. Deetz argues that the critical workplace educator should seek to act on, rather than simply in, present institutional arrangements, and cultivate ‘voice’ as a way of opening up discussion about issues that apparently need no discussion. “’Voice’ is the presence of active resistance to consent processes. ‘Voicing’ opens both the corporation and individuals to learning through reclaiming differences and conflicts overlooked or suppressed by dominant conceptions and arrangements” (Deetz 1998 :159-69).

However, there is a paradox with notions of introducing critical thinking into many organisational learning contexts. The notion of the critically reflective practitioner may not sit very well within the McDonalds and the Disney corporations of this world. The rhetoric of the learning organisation may mask the fact that it ‘focuses on control, the maintenance of orthodoxy and the suppression of difference’ (Garrick & Rhodes 1998 :177). For real learning to take place, learners need to engage in dialogue and contention around the grounds for the claims they are presented with. ‘Such dialogue, however, is deeply problematic in the setting of the new-capitalist business where loyalty, commitment, and critical thinking, as well as allegiance to ‘core values’, are at bottom economic strategies for the business’s benefit in a global hypercompetitive marketplace’ (Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996:103). Designing curricula and teaching which seek to cultivate real critical thinking in such a setting is bound to be fraught with contradictions.

The domain of management learning may be a space where conflicting purposes and values within an organisation can be examined and non-standard thoughts given some legitimacy. Equally, ‘deviant’ thoughts may be exposed to surveillance, monitoring and control in the way that Foucault suggests. ‘The management learning arena lives, arguably, in continual tension between being the place in which organisational revolutions of thought and practice can be formulated between people and the space in which incipient revolution can be spotted and suppressed by dominant coalitions supporting current unitarist agendas’ (Burgoyne and Jackson 1997:61)í. Additional challenges are presented in considering critical approaches with workers at lower ends of organisational hierarchies, whose work may be more highly routinised and training opportunities more prescribed. But within the rhetoric of the learning organisation lies a possibility for space to open up organisational processes to minority or low-power voices.

One can see a particular relevance for such ideas to learning within the public and voluntary sectors. The social purposes of public sector organisations, reflecting values of democracy, citizenship, justice and equity (Stewart 1992:31) provide challenges for managers of public services; they also provide a different learning context to private sector organisations which exist solely for the pursuit of profit. The context can provide legitimation for the introduction of a pedagogy incorporating ideas of dialogue, equity and critical enquiry, as well as critical perspectives being introduced to provide frameworks for managers to examine managerial practice and issues.