The ethnomethodology as a theoretical-methodological way for research in organizational learning from the perspective of practice based studies

Abstract

Thinking of organizations as symbolic fields where people live in constant interaction mediated by language, thus constructing meaning and sense for their daily activities, makes them a space for learning and knowledge generation that involves negotiation and continuous exchange. The demands on organizations for innovation and change because of the competitive environment in which they live suggest new ways of thinking about what learning and knowledge are. This goes beyond what is available through formal ways of learning, to include the tacit knowledge and collective learning results of everyday social interactions. From this perspective, this paper aims to present and analyze the possibility of investigation into organizational learning from the concept of practice and in the light of ethnomethodology by examining how they articulate these ideas and to what extent they bring new ways of seeing and understanding this phenomenon. Under the lens of garfinkelian ethnomethodology, the article brings a different view to understanding organizational learning based on the concept of practice (Gherardi, 2006). The main reflections of this essay point out that organizational learning under the assumptions of ethnomethodology implies the need to think about this phenomenon through the daily practices of organizations and also discusses the demand for better systematization of ethnomethodology as a possibility for empirical research in management studies.

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