The Effects of Liminality on Individual and Organizational Learning

Abstract

This article uses an examination of the changing nature of organization in the UK television industry to reflect on the impact of liminality on learning. We take as our starting point Garsten’s (1999) use of the term ‘liminality’ (being situated ‘betwixt and between’) to examine individual and organizational learning in the context of organizational recomposition, where learning increasingly occurs at the limits of organizations within networks and teams that cross organizational divides. Garsten argues that the contractualization of work can be seen to challenge the old boundaries of organization and that it suggests new ways of organizing and experiencing work. By extending liminality to the concept of learning, we suggest that as more industries adopt temporary project teams as a way of organizing work, this not only challenges the concept of organization as an enduring social artefact, but also raises issues about how learning and knowledge development takes place. We examine the effects of liminal episodes on learning, both for organizations and individuals, in a context where the old limits of organization are being redefined while new ways of organizing are throwing up their own learning challenges. We suggest that it is crucial to explore how, in a more transient organizational context arising from the greater use of temporary teams, individualized careers, fashioned out of liminality, impact upon organizational learning.