Investigating the relationship between power and strategic organizational learning

Strategic organizational learning is an emerging perspective that recasts the process of strategizing as organizational learning. The objective of this paper was to elaborate some of the implications of the practice perspective on organizational learning for the strategizing process, in particular, by highlighting the key role played by systemic power in shaping strategic organizational learning. The practice perspective on organizational learning focuses on the process of organizational knowing and how it evolves. The label "knowing" highlights the situated and ongoing nature of the phenomenon, which is in contrast to "knowledge," which evokes more static and objectivist imagery, or to "learning," which implies a more cognitive and asocial process. Knowing is embedded in situated activities through which work gets accomplished. The author suggests that strategic organizational learning can be elaborated by applying the practice perspective on organizational learning to it. One implication of this perspective is the importance of moving away from attempts to manage knowing directly and attending more to design of work arrangements that facilitate the channeling of knowing toward the meeting of organizational objectives. This highlights the importance of power---particularly systemic power---for strategic organizational learning. Systemic power refers to the aspects of power that are tied less obviously to the influence of organizational actors and more closely to the role of disciplinary systems that work to control organizational members. The present study was designed to examine how a medium-size educational institution managed a building project, which was a part of its strategic change process. The author studied the process of planning and implementing the project as a means of exploring research questions relating to the role of power in shaping strategic organizational learning.