FROM TRAINING TO LEARNING - NEW TRENDS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

By Olav Eikeland, WRI, Oslo

Olav Eikeland Work Research Institute (WRI)

FROM TRAINING TO LEARNING - NEW TRENDS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES,

June 23, 19981 by Olav Eikeland, Work Research Institute (WRI), Oslo

My task is to talk about new trends and future perspectives that concern training and learning. That allows me, I believe, to be slightly "speculative" in my presentation. Since one could argue that the future is not yet here, there is actually nothing to study and explain more empirically as facts. On the other hand my conclusion is in a way already anticipated in the title of this presentation, which clearly suggests a contemporary trend or tendency going from training (in the past), to learning (at present and in the future). I think this trend is clear enough, at least as an "ideological trend", made up by the fact that very many people - including the Norwegian association of local and regional authorities (KS)2 - talk and write about this or similar transitions as either going on presently or as being absolutely necessary for both private and public organizations. I consider it my job in this speech to try to explicate and explain this trend or tendency. Let me also start out by stating the obvious point that my perspective or "point of view" is inevitably Norwegian, even though I will talk about rather general topics. But it may be even more relevant to emphasize that I am an outsider to this SCEPSTA-network, and that I have never worked inside or even with any public training agency. So I will try to tell you what your field and its surroundings look like to a Norwegian philosopher and researcher who has worked almost as much as a consultant as he has as a researcher over the last 15 years. I wish and hope, of course, and I even believe, that what I have to say is relevant to you in spite of all this, but exactly how relevant and valid it is, is really a matter for this audience itself to discuss and maybe decide after I have finished my presentation. So what will I talk about for the next 45 minutes? I will explore and maybe even try to defend a specific thesis: namely, that we, in what we might call 2

the advanced, westernized

societies, are

right

now

undergoing

fundamental change of a certain kind. I will call this a change in "knowledge management regime". In my view this change creates a wider social context for understanding also the transition from "training" to "learning". The transition from training to learning is as I see it, part of this larger transformation. A NEW KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT REGIME What then is a "knowledge management regime", and what are the important changes going on today? Many people talk about our modern or "post-modern" societies as "knowledge societies"3. Usually and very generally what this means is that an increasing percentage of the population has undergone higher education of some kind, and that knowledge and competence - both individual and collective - are becoming the most important capital and commodity on the marketplace, rather than the material "things" of old. Even though the "material things" are obviously not disappearing or becoming unimportant, neither as consumer goods nor as material and equipment for production, I believe the increasing importance of knowledge and competence is true as a description of a tendency, and I will return to some aspects of this shortly 4. But in a way all societies and cultures are permeated by knowledge and skills of some kind and at some level. Therefore, to talk about knowledge societies is a kind of truism. The questions about knowledge that make up the real differences are, as far as I can see, (a) what kinds of knowledge, (b) where, why, how and when is it produced, transmitted and applied and by whom and (c) how are the relations between all these elements organized and institutionalised. It is these more comprehensive, institutional relationships between kinds of knowledge, who produces them, how and for what purpose etc. that in my view constitute a specific "knowledge management regime". In some societies and cultures religious and moral knowledge has had the upper hand. Some of these societies 3

have been very hierarchical, while others - like shamanistic cultures - have been much less so. At other times and places the crafts have played the most important role in organizing and understanding knowledge. I will probably not provoke anybody by saying that in Europe and North America a certain kind of science and its institutionalization has dominated and formed our societies for at least a couple of hundred years. But it is exactly this dominance of a certain kind of science and its institutions, I think, which is now challenged and changing. The institutionalisation of modern science has been based on a certain division of labor between production, transmission and application of knowledge. This has partly been caused by the structure of the societies in which this kind of science emerged historically, but also by the internal structure of this kind of knowledge itself. Now the changes we are experiencing currently, and which may amount to a change in "knowledge management regime", concern the changing relationships between the institutions on the one hand that produce, transmit or diffuse the most prestigious - that is: scientific - knowledge in our societies, and those who are supposed to apply this knowledge in a practical context. This means, more concretely, that the relationships between research institutions, educational institutions and "the rest" are changing in important ways5. In 1994 a trans-disciplinary team of six researchers published a book called "The new production of knowledge - The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies". In this book they talk about the new production of knowledge as a "socially distributed knowledge production system", and one of the most important features that makes this socalled "mode 2" of knowledge production really new, is that fundamental insights are increasingly won in the contexts of application and use, not outside, before or after it. It is reasonable to wonder how this is possible, and I will proceed with an attempt at an explanation. Some of the points that follow are

discussed in the book I just mentioned by Michael Gibbons and colleagues, others they don't delve into that much, but are important just as well. I will start by mentioning some signs or indications of the relevant changes from what we might call the sociology of knowledge. These points are not really new and probably not very surprising to any of you taken one by one. But the implications of them taken together, are in my view dramatic all the same, and have hardly been given sufficient attention. (a) The first thing I would like to remind you of is what, a little while ago, I called the main feature of "knowledge societies". An increasing number of people in "our kind of societies" have undergone some kind of higher education. This means that there is an increasing distribution of higher education not only on individuals, but also on organizations, institutions and companies. People with masters degrees and PhDs no longer work only in research institutes, but in many other work places. And this in my opinion is the important fact; not only how many individuals in a population have higher education, but just as much how this competence is located and utilized within different organizations. People with higher education also work not only as leaders or at higher levels in organizations, but at every level, in direct contact with customers and users of services. This means that skills or at least knowledge about research methods, knowledge production, technical calculations, critical evaluation etc. are increasingly distributed outside the universities and research institutions and even at all levels of organizations to a much larger extent than ever before. (b) The second feature I would like to bring to your attention is the extreme ease with which knowledge and information is becoming accessible through PCs connected to the internet, mobile telephones, satellite television and all sorts of information technology. This access is for people with the right equipment, of course. But the equipment is constantly getting cheaper and 5

spreading very fast, giving access to many both from their homes and from their workplaces. They thereby get access to knowledge and information quite independently of any formal education, and equally independently of political, academic and any other kind of authorities. To give just a few figures; according to official statistics, 43% of all Norwegians had access to a personal computer at home in 1996 and about 20% had access to internet either at home or at work. More than 50% had access to satellite television at the same time 6. As we all know, we don't have to go further back than about 15-20 years to bring these and other similar figures on information technology down to almost zero. It now seems possible, purely technically speaking, to foresee a near future where "everything that can be and actually is digitalized is accessible to everybody anywhere at the same time, immediately and even live". The implications of these two points are that whereas knowledge, competence and information in earlier times were monopolized within the universities (or other guilds) by professors in relation to students and junior staff, and by the universities as institutions in relation to the rest of society, knowledge and information by now (today) has already become demonopolized and socially distributed to a very large extent. Another parallell point, but also indirectly connected with the two I have mentioned, is that what we might call "the level of reflection" in modern societies is forced upwards. Through mass media and information technology, but even more through living in increasingly multicultural societies, we are all confronted by different cultures, religions, foods, life styles, musical expressions etc. that automatically question and challenge our own traditions. "Our" traditions are no longer "natural" or "valid" just because they are old and we are accustomed to them, any more (or less) than all the other customs specific to other cultures. This "postconventional" condition forces us to tolerate a much wider spectrum of individual choices based on pure taste, but also to justify and give good 6

reasons for our choices, beliefs, lifestyles and ways of acting to a much larger extent than ever before 7. This last point is of course especially true of all collective arrangements and decision making where common rules are absolutely necessary. It actually raises the rather difficult question of whether and in what sense it is possible at all to be the kind of "transcultural" or "supra-cultural" cosmopolitan that this "choice of cultures" demands. I leave this question unanswered here, although, in my opinion, even the different "fundamentalisms", either nationalistic, religious, "motor-cyclistic" or otherwise, are understandable as reactions to this forced rise in the level of self-reflection. (c) Partly as a consequence of the former points and partly independently and as a cause, work has become more knowledge and competence intensive in all forms of production of goods and services. This is also partly a consequence of changes in the organization of work. The "tayloristic" tendency to split a total production or service task into very small and simple operations that could be performed by anyone with just arms and legs intact and functional, but preferably without a working head, has lost its glory, even to people with productivity alone on their minds. More wholistic tasks demand more working heads today. This tendency towards more knowledge and competence intensive work is not clear however, since many have argued that the massive implementation of new technology brings with it a deskilling of workers 8. It may however, be considered uncontroversial to say that skills and competencies demanded at work are changing rapidly these days, and that, at least in these parts of the world, there is less work for purely unskilled labor now than 50 years ago. In conclusion people at all levels of work organizations today are more educated than ever before, less traditional and conventional, have much easier access to all kinds of stored and digitalized knowledge and information, and work with more wholistic tasks that demand independent 7

and competent thinking, reflection and action within overarching common aims and frames. (d) These well educated and well informed, reflective and critical people are not only working however. The very same people are both customers, users of public and private services, citizens and voters and sometimes even politicians. They not only demand more meaningful work, they also demand better commodities and better services. Better commodities and services may mean better quality technically and generally. But it also means more locally and individually adjusted and suited solutions. Again new technology makes this possible even in the mass production of for example automobiles, which was highly standardised just a few decades ago. It certainly should be possible in less technical industries and services, even in the public sector, and even if the public sector cannot and shall not just serve those who pay the most or can afford to pay at all. People are different and have different wishes, needs and demands. Giving everybody an equal and just treatment therefore, doesn't necessarily mean treating everybody in exactly the same standardised way, as bureaucracies are prone to do. It could and should probably rather mean giving them what they specifically need and want in their situation, within certain limits and common aims. More generally again, all organizations today must adapt quickly to new demands, economic, technological, organizational and otherwise, from customers, users and politicians, from competitors and on the whole from a rapidly changing environment. So what does it take to accomplish this adjustment to rapid change and local conditions and needs? As many people have already realized, it takes trans-disciplinary, professional collaboration, coordinated teamwork, dialogue and "networking" across sectors or departments of public administration, between firms, and into local communities, with the user or customer in the centre, that is; with a concrete analysis of the needs and wants of the individual client or clients as a starting point. This means, 8

unquestionably and inevitably in my opinion, participatory working methods on behalf of so-called "empowered" both employees and users. It also means systematic learning, individually and collectively, within and between the organizations of work. CHANGES FROM WITHIN THE RESEARCH COMMUNITY Before I try to extract my conclusions and consequences for training and learning from the foregoing more explicitly however, I would like to point to certain developments that lend support to it from within the theory of knowledge, philosophy of science and methodology of empirical social research. I am well aware of both the difficulties and the controversial and unconcluded nature of these discussions, and I only want to mention them here. First of all there has been an increasing problematization, over the last 50 years at least, of a certain kind of knowledge associated with modern science, based on what John Dewey called "a spectator theory of knowledge"9. Whether or not even modern natural science really is or ever was of this nature, is of no concern right now. What matters here is just that many people think so, and this belief has brought increasing attention to the job of explicating other kinds of knowledge on their own premisses, not just as exterior, inferior and secondary to scientific knowledge. There are large philosophical discussions going on about "tacit knowledge" and more practical, technical and other forms of knowledge than the theoretical kind that modern, western science has promoted as the uniquely superior and enlightened form. Secondly there has been an equally increasing problematization of certain ways of doing social scientific research based on the kind of theoretical spectator-knowledge just mentioned. Many have doubted the possibility of discovering general laws in the social world at all, claiming that the social world and human beings simply are not predictable and controllable in 9

ways that stars, atoms, chemicals, plants and even animals might be. Fundamental problems in the conceptualisation and interpretation of social phenomena, the impossibility of not influencing your research objects through the very act of studying them and other problems, have raised very serious doubt about the possibility of any traditionally understood "objectivity" in social research. There is a current tendency to claim that all knowledge, scientific knowledge too, is socially situated and "paradigmatically framed". Consequently each kind, and even each and every individual, only represent one perspective among many possible ones. There exists accordingly, absolutely no neutral ground from which to observe, interpret and explain the behavior and change of your research object. The old, neutral and objective "view from nowhere", as Thomas Nagel has termed it10, seems more out of reach than ever. The other kinds of knowledge I just mentioned are currently being mobilized and examined by many as candidates for founding social research and science on completely new ground. This search from within the research community itself also makes the "socially distributed knowledge production" going on in the different contexts of application, that is; in different firms, organizations and institutions doing practical work, more interesting from a strictly internal research perspective as well. In my opinion the most interesting perspectives today come from the attempts often inspired by American pragmatic philosophers like Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, but also directly by ancient Greek philosophers and others, to show how practical skills, experience, expertise and knowledge are preconditions for all understanding and knowledge, even of the most scientific and theoretical kind11. This could be the ultimate support from the research community itself to the establishment of what I have called a "new knowledge management regime", since it would imply not only methodological revisions and expansions, but institutional changes as well, in the same directions that the tendencies mentioned before are 10

already pulling. These insights into the fundamental necessity of practical experience and competence demand, in my opinion, a break with the conception and practice of social research as something external to social practice in every field. To overcome this split, the research competence would have to be built into the different practices themselves. This means in turn that it would have to change into an advanced and systematic form of self-reflection, and that organizations would have to accommodate themselves to the needs of "reflective practitioners", to use a term borrowed from Don Schn, one of the pioneers in the field of organizational learning12. As I have already suggested, this transformation of social research would be quite in line with the changes of more sociological character that I have already presented. The institutional separation and division of labor between (a) research methods and institutions, (b) educational mediators and transmitters of the methods and results of research and finally (c) the practical appliers and users of this in all kinds of organizations and companies, could become obsolete by the internal validity standards of research itself, not just by the historical development of a new mode of knowledge production. CONSEQUENCES FOR TRAINING AND LEARNING What then are the consequences for training and learning from what I have said so far? To answer this, the first question that needs discussion would seem to be "what is training compared to learning?" According to two common dictionaries, training is either "giving teaching and practice in order to bring to a desired standard of behavior, efficiency or physical condition" or "to drill; to undergo a course of exercise and instruction, physical, mental or moral ". I think what is emphasized by training, when people talk about it giving way to learning, is "getting instruction" (the Norwegian word "opplring") which literally and almost etymologically speaking, is an act of "building" knowledge or skill as something given "into somebody", or "piling up" a certain kind of knowledge in somebody. The association goes to the traditional classroom situation where students 11

receive knowledge passively through hearing and memorizing the words spoken by the teacher, however much or little they may understand. In my opinion it is really quite unfair to portray training as one-sidedly and theoretically biased as I have just done. The real alternatives are hardly "either this kind of old-fashioned and theoretically biased training, or no training at all", but rather training; how and in what. Teaching practical skills in a systematic manner is not altogether old-fashioned and outdated, as far as I can see. For the sake of the present argument however, a onesided and caricatured account of "training" is useful. It creates a good contrast to the currently more popular concept of "learning", conveniently forgetting for the moment that even "learning" in English very often means simply the reception of teaching or instruction as a complementary act to the teaching itself. It is obviously not this kind of learning that is supposed to replace training. As for what "learning" itself really means, I don't think we need any complicated definition. A common dictionary will do for our purpose here as well as with training, simply stating that learning is " to gain knowledge of or skill in" something "by study, practice or being taught". As you all noticed, I just eliminated the last alternative of "learning by being taught" as an interesting candidate for replacing "training". The next question that raises itself, then, is "Why isn't the onesided kind of training I just described, or even more fairly described versions of it, good enough in the present situation?" Training and instruction may in my opinion actually be quite good without being good enough, simply by being necessary but not sufficient. Let me just give a brief repetition of the present situation as I see it, for the sake of clarity: People are generally more educated than before, and people with higher education work in many places outside research institutions. In these workplaces they work at all levels, and they have direct access to all kinds of knowledge and information through information technology, both at work and at home. Their education has also given them fundamental and principal doubts 12

about certain kinds of science and an interest in developing and refining practical experience as the basis of both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Within the work organizations themselves they are assigned to and empowered to do wholistic tasks, which demand both an understanding of the place of their own work within a larger totality of aims, frames and purposes, and independent, local problemsolving. Finally as customers, users, citizens, voters and politicians the same people demand top service and high quality, continuously updated, and they have the power to put those who don't adjust out of office or out of business. Why isn't training good enough in a situation like this? I will attempt to examine the different aspects of training as described, in order to find out why. Purely theoretical learning in the sense of listening and being told something is clearly not enough, as I see it. One might argue that it isn't even necessary at all, or sometimes even directly harmful by obscuring the view towards self-reflection and analysis of practices. Often however, new concepts and new perspectives can open up for new points of view and seeing new aspects, and thereby also opening for new trains of thought. But even this acquisition of new concepts and perspectives by means of words alone, demands a certain level of experience and competence in the listener on beforehand, in order to understand anything. By itself, this "teaching by talking and learning by listening alone" does not produce new skills, neither individually nor collectively. Simply receiving what you are being told (by a teacher) is similar to being informed, and there is a great surplus of information around today, increasingly accessible in ways already mentioned, independently of any living teachers anywhere. The additional trouble with all kinds of knowledge presented in words alone is, of course, how to operationalize and implement it in practical situations. The definitions of training that I presented also suggest something like a given and unambiguous standard or measure of skill or knowledge that 13

training is supposed to bring people up to. How realistic is this? I will not make the extreme claim that any and every standard of skill or knowledge is outdated or irrelevant even before it is proclaimed. But there certainly seems to be a problem here in that systematic teaching needs a lot of planning and organizing both of the knowledge to be taught and the teaching activity itself. This all takes time, and for schools and other suppliers of teaching to try to keep up with the details and the rate of change in technologies and advanced skill development going on elsewhere, is an almost impossible, endless and very expensive job. For buyers and receivers of instruction and training it also takes valuable time from work, maybe in order to get only outdated or very shortlived skills and knowledge. So it would seem wise to reserve systematic teaching and training to very general skills and count upon other forms of learning in other places to take care of what is needed in the more special cases. This is, I believe, something that many school authorities and teaching institutions have realized already. This also is one reason why learning-onthe-job and in organizations are coming more and more into focus. But there is more trouble in store for systematic teaching outside the work situation. The problem is that individual skills are usually not enough. First of all, individual skills learned outside the place where they are to be utilized, do not automatically get used when the individuals return to work. The new skills must be adjusted to the existing work organization, colleagues and technology or vice versa 13. This of course, is part of the reason why most organizations now talk about strategic development of competence, in order to ensure that any training going on really fits with what the organization as such needs, not just the needs and wishes of individuals in the organization. I believe that even so, there is almost always a job to do, in adjusting newly acquired individual skills and organization to each other.

14

This job of adjustment and accomodation is even bigger I think, when the skills acquired outside are not purely technical, but concern leadership, management, organizational cooperation, matters and communication, similar "intangible conflict things". resolution, Successful

leadership, ways of cooperating etc. in one setting or organizational culture, may fail in the next one. The reason is that these skills can hardly be considered individual at all, even though they are very personal. They must somehow become collective and common, cultural property in the organization in order to function as skills at all. This is really where a genuinely new form of learning has its place in relation to all kinds of more systematic training - good and bad - as practiced earlier. With the rapid rate of internal and external change that all organizations and individuals are confronted with, both individual and collective habits, routines and ways of cooperating, organizing and managing must also change fast. This really means that whole or parts of organizational cultures must change. Against this, no amount or sum of parallell, individual learning, neither of skills nor theories, neither by instruction and training nor otherwise, will be enough. The learning itself must be collective: A genuine organizational learning of collective competence must be cultivated among people who actually collaborate, where the local leadership, management, cooperation, communication, conflict resolution, collective and individual task solution, divisions of labor and organization must be addressed directly and critically. This kind of learning "by study and practice" or organizational learning is not simply the sum of all the learning that goes on in the organization. Neither is it the organization as a given, unchanged unit, learning in just any way or fashion. It is rather the organization itself - that is the people in it in their internal relations - changing its (their) internal ways of doing the "intangible things" mentioned, in order to improve the collective ability of the people in it, to do the right things right, and at the right time too. This means for all involved to probe into the unknown, challenging the established order of things and people, and ways of doing things, and creating insights and solutions from the local conditions and 15

practices for the same local conditions and practices. This kind of learning therefore, is actually more similar to research than it is to the ordinary reception of knowledge or skill of a given standard, and it is possible to do, not the least because of the sociological and technological changes I have mentioned earlier. How then does one do this organizational learning? I think the novelty of this kind of learning is connected to the role that many people today ascribe to the dialogue in it, where dialogue is not just any kind of conversation14. Systematic teaching, training and giving of instruction is based on didactic or deductive models for presenting knowledge in a finished, analyzed and thereby closed form. But already in ancient, Greek philosophy they cultivated a different form of learning through dialogue or dialectics and recollection. This was an open, experiential and inductive way of learning, taking its starting point in the local ways of acting and speaking among the participants of the dialogue or other well defined groups of people, sifting them for contradictions and other anomalies, and trying to clarify unspoken premisses and other kinds of tacit knowledge at work in the situation, often "behind the backs" of all the participants. The dialogue, to the Greek philosophers, was the "way up" or upwards from being totally submerged in the local culture, to the discovery and articulation of emerging insights and understandings. It was their way of making the experience acquired from local practice, explicitly into "generalities" at work in their own localities. It was the way of searching or research, while the didactic was the "way down" or downwards from the already discovered, acquired, analyzed and systematized insights. The dialogue was and is explicitly non-competitive, not having victory in argument as its aim, but mutual enlightenment and shared insights, differentiating it both from the didactic presentation of the teacher, and from the competitive speeches refined in the art of rhetoric.

16

Somehow this experiential, dialogical art and its necessary social preconditions has been largely lost to the moderns. It has been replaced by quite different "empirical methods" and external methods of study that are now under the kinds of attack I mentioned earlier. But the dialogue is really forcing its way to the fore again, both from within many research communities who are forced towards locating their search and research within social practices, and from within the new kinds of organizations that are forced to learn by new demands and rapid changes, but also made able to learn - empowered - by the new distribution of people with higher education, the new information technology, the "post-conventional" condition they are part of and other changes in the "knowledge management regime" I have touched upon. I think this convergence between research methods and organizational learning methods in the concept and practice of dialogue, is one of the most interesting and exciting things going on right at the core of the larger changes in regimes I have depicted. It contributes to the establishment of a "socially distributed knowledge production system" where fundamental insights are increasingly won in the contexts of application and use, not outside, before or after it, and challenges fundamentally the older division of labor between production, transmission and application of knowledge of the old regime. In my opinion, one of the most important tasks confronting organizations that want to learn how to learn is to make systematic room for dialogue, and learn how to perform it. By making systematic and planned use of "back stage fora" where people are allowed to speak freely (uncensored) about their experiences and "step out" of the roles they are assigned to "on stage" in their work organizations, a systematic alternation between collective action and self-reflection, now considered both as a method for organizational learning and for research, can be built into the organizations. The organization thereby provides the conditions for dialogue, and accomodates itself to the needs of reflective practitioners. In

17

this way both individual roles and "whole plays" can be improved and changed, and thereby the collective competence improved as well15. I don't think however, that this organizational learning will or should replace training altogether. The answer to the questions about training and learning is not an "either this or that". But I do think training alone is insufficient, trying to keep pace with the changes through planned instruction and teaching alone. I also think the systematic use of dialogue as the means for collective learning, is necessary both now and in the future, for organizations that want to learn in the right way. I also think they must learn to learn in these ways if they want to be around much longer, and this goes for both private and public organizations. It is true; a municipality cannot be shut down or go bankrupt. But I think there can and will be a lot of changes that will feel almost the same way for the people working there. As I said before, I think that training and teaching should be reserved for the most general skills that are relatively stable and don't get obsolete fast. One of the most general skills, if not the most general "metacompetence" of all, is the experientially and practically based dialogue and the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. I not only think it is possible to train and thereby teach this competence in systematic ways, I really think it is absolutely necessary. Not by words alone, the didactic way, but through practice, study and critical guidance in protected places and hours, although not altogether separated from the practical experience and performance; neither "on stage" nor "off stage", but "back stage"! It is time to stop. I think the greatest challenge for the public sector as a whole, confronted with the emerging learning and knowledge management regime, is how to revitalize local democracy, political participation and citizenship, and at the same time be able to integrate the new organizational learning within the work and service organizations into the formation of public opinion and political discussions going on in the mass media and official, political organs. The task for leadership is to provide the 18

conditions for conducting dialogue, and for everybody the task is to perform it. But whatever other ideas I might harbor about this, I will not share with you in this speech. My time is up quite soon, and it would take another speech at least. I ask forgiveness for not being quite sure at the end of this presentation, of whether I have spoken about the present or the future, whether I have been empirical or speculative, and whether I have spoken about the public sector or not. Somehow I believe I have done it all. I hope at least I have been able to give you some food for thought and discussion on the relationship between training and learning. Thank you all for your patience and for listening.

19

LITERATURE Beck, Ulrich; Giddens, Anthony & Lash, Scott (1994): Reflexive Modernization - Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Cambridge, Polity Press Bernal, J.D. (1954): Science in History, 4 Volumes , Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1969 Bhler, Dietrich; Nordenstam, Tore & Skirbekk, Gunner (1986): Die pragmatische Wende - Sprachspielpragmatik oder Transzendentalpragmatik? , Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. Braverman, Harry (1974): Labor and Monopoly Capital - The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Cetury , Monthly Review Press, New York & London Dewey, John (1929): The Quest for Certainty - A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action , Capricorn Books, G.P.Putnam's Sons, New York, 1960 Eikeland, Olav (1983): Hva datamaskiner ikke kan - m humaniora kunne , artikkel i fellesnummer av Studentforum nr.1 og Universitas nr.1, 1983 Eikeland, Olav (1985a): H.W.Smith og jakten p den skjulte mening. Eller: The actual meaning of triangulation , s.173-208 i sterberg, Dag & Otnes, Per (red.): Sosiologisk rbok 1985, Oslo, Institutt for sosiologi, Universitetet i Oslo Eikeland, Olav (1985b): Jobbskaping i lokalmilj - perspektiver og muligheter , artikkel i Studienytt, nr.4, 1985 Eikeland, Olav (1986): I en modellbyggers kaotiske "virkelighet", s.65-80 i Sosiologi i dag, Nr.1-1986 Eikeland, Olav (1987): Rapport til Hovedavtalens bedriftsutviklingstiltak (HABUT); Bilbransjeprosjektet , Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet, AFI-notat 31-87 Eikeland, Olav (1989): Bedriftsutvikling i bilbransjen 1984-1989; en oversikt. Rapport til HABUT , Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet Eikeland, Olav (1990): Historisk-teoretisk grunnlag for forstelsen av praksislring , Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet, ms. presentert p seminaret "Yrkesutdanning, fagopplring, arbeidsliv", Statens Yrkespedagogiske Hgskole, 21.-23.mai, 1990 Eikeland, Olav (1995): Aksjonsforskningens horisonter - Et forsk p se lenger enn til sin egen nesetipp , s.211-268 i Eikeland, Olav & Finsrud, Henrik Dons (1995): Research in Action Forskning og handling: Skelys p aksjonsforskning , Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet, Skriftserie nr. 1 Eikeland, Olav (1996a): Aksjonsforskningens felt og utfordringer , s.3-12 i Eikeland, Olav & Fossestl, Knut (red.): Kunnskap og handling - aksjonsforsiningens metodologiske og vitenskapsteoretiske status , Rapport fra en nordisk konferanse, Voksensen Hotell, Oslo, 10.-12.oktober 1995, Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet Eikeland, Olav (1996b): Kunnskapsproduksjon i endring - to bidrag , AFI-notat 8 / 96, Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet Eikeland, Olav (1997a) Erfaring, dialogikk og politikk - den antikke dialogfilosofiens betydning for rekonstruksjonen av moderne empirisk samfunnsvitenskap. Et begrepshistorisk og filosofisk bidrag (Experience, dialogics and politics - the importance of the ancient dialogical philosophy for the reconstruction of modern empirical social science. A contribution from philosophy and "the history of conceptual development") ,

20

3.Edition, Oslo, Scandinavian University Press / The Faculty of Arts - University of Oslo (Acta Humaniora Series No.11) Eikeland, Olav (1997b): Demokrati og medvirkning under et nytt kunnskapsforvaltningsregime - tre foredrag , AFI-notat 5 / 97, Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet Eikeland, Olav (1998): Faglige metamorfoser og immanente konvergenser - opptakt til et nytt kunnskapsforvaltningsregime , AFI-notat 5 / 98, Oslo, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet Eikeland, Olav & Berg, Anne Marie (1997): Medvirkningsbasert organisasjonslring og utviklingsarbeid i kommunene , Oslo, Kommuneforlaget Engelstad, Per H. (1995): Fra dialogkonferanser til utviklingsorganisasjon , s.161-210 i Eikeland, Olav & Finsrud, Henrik D. (red.): Research in Action - Forskning og handling; skelys p aksjonsforskning , Oslo, Work Research Institute, AFIs skriftserie nr.1 Gibbons, Michael et al. (1994): The new production of knowledge - The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies, London, Sage Publications Gustavsen, Bjrn (1985): Workplace Reform and Democratic Dialogue , s.461-479 i Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol.6, No.4 Kemmis, Stephen (1994): Action Research , pp. 42-48 in International Encyclopedia of Education Research and Studies, London, Pergamon Press Kolbjrnsen, P.. (1998): Statistikk om informasjonsteknologi - status, behov og utviklingsmuligheter , Rapporter 98/1, SSB, Oslo Kreiblich, Rolf (1986): Die Wissenschaftsgesellschaft - Von Galilei zur High-Tech-Revolution , Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. KS (1997): "Lring til to tusen - oppdage, handle og forandre" (Learning to two thousand To discover, act and change), KS, Oslo, 1997 Lundvall, Bengt-ke & Johnson, Bjrn (1994): The Learning Economy , pp. 23-42 in Journal of Industry Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, December 1994 Plshaugen, yvind (1988): Wie kann eine Aktionsforschungsstrategie in die Praxis umgesetzt werden. Ein Beispiel aus der norwegischen Automobilbranche , i Fricke, W. & Jager, W. (Hrsgb.): Sozialwissenschaften und Industrielle Demokratie , Bonn, Verlag Neue Gesellschaft Plshaugen, yvind (1991): Som sagt, s gjort? - Sprket som virkemiddel i organisasjonsutvikling og aksjonsforskning , Oslo, Novus Forlag Rose, Hilary & Rose, Steven (1969): Science and Society, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1977 Schn, Donald A. (1983): The Reflective Practitioner - How Professionals Think in Action , New York, Basic Books Inc. Schn, Donald A. (1987): Educating the Reflective Practitioner - Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions , San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers Senge, Peter (1990): The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization , New York, Doubleday Currency Stehr, Nico (1994): Knowledge Societies, London, Sage Publications Sklair, Leslie (1973):

21

Organized Knowledge - A Sociological View of Science and Technology , Paladin, St.Albans Skule, Sveinung (1994): From Skills to Organizational Practice - A Study of the Relations Between Vocational Education and Organizational Learning in the Food Processing Industry , Trondheim, Department of Industrial Management and Work Science (ORAL), University of Trondheim / The Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH)

22

NOTES

23

1.

Paper presented at the SCEPSTA-conference (SCEPSTA = Standing Conference of European Public Service Training Agencies) arranged by the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS), June 22nd - 26th, 1998, Leangkollen, Asker, Norway. Also distributed in limited numbers at the "Emerging Approaches to Inquiry" Conference, September 17th - 20th, 1998, Hawkwood, Stroud, England. The original title - given to me by the SCEPSTA-conference staff was "From training to learning - new trends and future perspectives in public sector development". Since I hardly discuss matters specific to the public sector, I think the shorter title is better. Notes and references in this article are highly selective, not at all intended to present a comprehensive view of existing, relevant literature. The text itself has been slightly altered, but does not differ on any major points from what was actually said at the SCEPSTAconference. 2. Cfr. the leaflet from the KS "Lring til to tusen - oppdage, handle og forandre" (Learning to two thousand - To discover, act and change), Oslo, 1997 3. See for example Stehr (1994)
4. 5.

See Lundvall & Johnson (1994)

It must be said that this change is not something that has arrived suddenly, nor is it something that has recently been discovered. It has been going on for quite a long time, at least since the "scientization" of different industries like the chemical industry and others in the last part of the 19th century. It has also been studied systematically, at least since Bernal (1954). For further reading see for example Rose & Rose (1969), Sklair (1973) and Kreiblich (1986). 6. Cfr. P..Kolbjrnsen: Statistikk om informasjonsteknologi - status, behov og utviklingsmuligheter, Rapporter 98/1, SSB, Oslo 7. See for example Beck, Giddens & Lash (1994) for this perspective. The stoic philosophers of antiquity, and from them Immanuel Kant, had an elaborate theory of "adiphora" or indifferences; differences that made no moral or political difference, and therefore didn't matter. This kind of theory should in my opinion definitely be revived in order to be able to give all moral, political and epistemological "adiphora" over to the reign of pure taste, but also in order to be able better to focus on what really does make a difference morally, politically and epistemologically. See Eikeland (1997:495-496) and generally Ch.10 of that book. 8. In the tradition from Braverman (1974).
9.

Dewey (1929) See Nagel (1986)

10. 11.

In other, Norwegian publications, I have tried to indicate the changes going on from within different disciplines. They can in my opinion be summarized as a "pragmatic turn". See Bhler et al. (1986). Many tendencies point towards forms of "action research" as solutions. Kemmis (1994) noted, already several years ago, that action research "has become something of a worldwide movement". See Eikeland (1995), (1996a), (1996b), (1997), (1998). 12. See Schn (1983) & (1987).
13. 14.

See for example Skule (1994).

See Gustavsen (1985), Senge (1990) and others. The characteristics and the necessity of dialogue have also been at the centre of my own efforts since the beginning of the 1980s. See Eikeland (1983), (1985a), (1985b), (1986), (1987), (1990a), (1990b) & (1997) and Eikeland & Berg (1997). 15. The establishment of "back stage fora" has guided the practical development and consultancy work I have done over the last 15 years, in terms of a distinction between (1) the

traditional "work organization" on the one hand which organizes the division of labor in handling the primary tasks of the organization, (2) "project organizations" which organize the solutions of temporary, one-time-only-tasks within given time-limits, and (3) a "development organization" which organizes the different kinds of "back stage foras" (or "counter-public spheres") for reflection. Cfr. Eikeland (1987) and Eikeland & Berg (1997). Others, like Plshaugen (1988) and Engelstad (1995), based in discussions around project-experiences that we share, i.e. from OD work with car-dealers and repair-workshops in Norway in 1986-87, have continuously afterwards worked with similar distinctions. For a theoretical discussion and justification of this distinction see Eikeland (forthcoming).