This article identifies and addresses the need for a stronger engagement of power-sensitive organisational learning research with societal power relations and related issues of persisting dominance. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, I lay a theoretical foundation to explain the reproduction of dominance structures in micro-level learning processes. Departing from this foundation, I define a conceptual triad as necessary elements to identify and dismantle the subtle workings of group dominance in organisational learning processes. Each of the triad’s elements – being critical, being reflexive and being political – expands currently underexposed issues in organisational learning research regarding understandings of context, reflexivity and practice-oriented responsibility.
AntonacopoulouEChivaR (2007) The social complexity of organizational learning: The dynamics of learning and organizing. Management Learning38(3): 277–295.
4.
AntonacopoulouEP (2006) The relationship between individual and organizational learning: New evidence from managerial learning practices. Management Learning37(4): 455–473.
5.
ArgoteLMiron-SpektorE (2011) Organizational learning: From experience to knowledge. Organization Science22(5): 1123–1137.
6.
AtewologunD (2014) Sites of intersectional identity salience. Gender in Management29(5): 277–290.
7.
AtewologunDSealyRVinnicombeS (2015) Special issue: Revealing intersectional dynamics in organizations: Introducing ‘intersectional identity work’. Gender, Work and Organization23(3): 1–25.
8.
BourdieuP (1977a) Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In: KarabelJHalseyAJ (eds) Power and Ideology in Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 487–511.
9.
BourdieuP (1977b) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
BourdieuP (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
BourdieuP (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
12.
BourdieuP (1992) The practice of reflexive sociology (The Paris workshop). In: BourdieuPWacquantLJD (eds) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 217–260.
13.
BourdieuP (1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (ed JohnsonR). New York: Columbia University Press.
BourdieuP (2004) Structures and the habitus. In: BuchliV (ed.) Material Culture: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge, 116–177.
16.
BourdieuP (2011) The forms of capital. In: SzemanIKaposyT (eds) Cultural Theory: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 81–93.
17.
BourdieuPWacquantLJD (1992a) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
18.
BourdieuPWacquantLJD (1992b) The purpose of reflexive sociology (The Chicago workshop). In: BourdieuPWacquantLJD (eds) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 61–216.
19.
ButlerJ (2004) Undoing Gender. London: Routledge.
20.
Castro VarelaM (2010) Un-Sinn: Postkoloniale Theorie und Diversity [Sense/less: Postcolonial theory and diversity]. In: KesslFPlößerM (eds), Differenzierung, Normalisierung, Andersheit: Soziale Arbeit als Arbeit mit dem Anderen [Differentiation, Normalization, Difference: Social Work as Working with the Other], Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 249–262.
21.
ChivaRAlegreJ (2005) Organizational learning and organizational knowledge: Towards the integration of two approaches. Management Learning36(1): 49–68.
ContuAWillmottH (2003) Re-embedding situatedness: The importance of power relations in learning theory. Organization Science14(3): 283–296.
24.
CroninC (1996) Bourdieu and Foucault on power and modernity. Philosophy & Social Criticism22(6): 55–85.
25.
CrossanMMLaneHWWhiteRE (1999) An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review24(3): 522–537.
26.
CrossleyN (2005) Key Concepts in Critical Social Theory. London: SAGE.
27.
CunliffeAL (2008) Orientations to social constructionism: Relationally responsive social constructionism and its implications for knowledge and learning. Management Learning39(2): 123–139.
28.
EmirbayerMJonsonV (2008) Bourdieu and organizational analysis. Theory and Society37(1): 1–44.
29.
FenwickT (2008) Understanding relations of individual–collective learning in work: A review of research. Management Learning39(3): 227–243.
30.
FerdinandJ (2004) Power, politics and state intervention in organizational learning. Management Learning35(4): 435–450.
31.
FoleyDE (2002) Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education15(4): 469–490.
32.
GherardiS (1999) Learning as problem-driven or learning in the face of mystery?Organization Studies20(1): 101–123.
33.
GherardiS (2015) Organizational learning: The sociology of practice. In: Easterby-SmithMLylesMA (eds) Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 43–65.
34.
GrayBKish-GephartJ (2013) Encountering social class differences at work: How ‘class work’ perpetuates inequality. Academy of Management Review38(4): 670–699.
35.
HaKN (2009) Macht(t)raum(a) Berlin – Deutschland als Kolonialgesellschaft [Berlin as space of power and trauma: Germany as colonial power]. In: EggersMMKilombaGPieschePet al. (eds) Mythen, Masken Und Subjekte. Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland [Myths, Masks, and Subjects: Critical Whiteness Studies in Germany]. Münster: Unrast Verlag, 105–117.
36.
HallS (1992) The west and the rest: Discourse and power. In: HallSGiebenB (eds) Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 275–320.
37.
HeinemannAMB (2014) Teilnahme an Weiterbildung in Der Migrationsgesellschaft: Perspektiven Deutscher Frauen Mit ‘Migrationshintergrund’ [Participation in Advanced Training in the Migration Society: Perspectives of German Women with So-called Migration Backgrounds]. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
38.
HongJFFionaKH (2009) Conflicting identities and power between communities of practice: The case of IT outsourcing. Management Learning40(3): 311–326.
39.
IbrahimA (2011) Will they ever speak with authority? Race, post-coloniality and the symbolic violence of language. Educational Philosophy and Theory43(6): 619–635.
40.
KenwayJMcLeodJ (2004) Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology and ‘spaces of points of view’: Whose reflexivity, which perspective?British Journal of Sociology of Education25(4): 525–544.
41.
LawrenceTBMauwsMKDyckBet al. (2005) The politics of organizational learning: Integrating power into the 4I framework. Academy of Management Review30(1): 180–191.
LöschBThimmelA (2010) Einleitung [Introduction]. In: LöschBThimmelA (eds) Kritische Politische Bildung: Ein Handbuch [Critical Civic Education: A Handbook]. Schwalbach am Taunus: Wochenschau Verlag, 7–10.
44.
McNayL (1999) Gender, habitus and the field Pierre Bourdieu and the limits of reflexivity. Theory, Culture & Society16(1): 95–117.
45.
MatonK (2003) Reflexivity, relationism, & research: Pierre Bourdieu and the epistemic conditions of social scientific knowledge. Space and Culture6(1): 52–65.
46.
NicoliniDGherardiSYanowD (2003) Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-Based Approach. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
47.
NicoliniDSherMChilderstoneSet al. (2004) In search of the ‘structure that reflects’: Promoting organizational reflection in a UK health authority. In: VinceRReynoldsM (eds) Organizing Reflection. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 81–104.
48.
PrasadA (ed.) (2003) Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
49.
PriolaVLasioDDe SimoneSet al. (2014) The sound of silence: Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender discrimination in ‘inclusive organizations’. British Journal of Management25(3): 488–502.
50.
RamseyC (2014) Management learning: A scholarship of practice centred on attention?Management Learning45(1): 6–20.
51.
ReynoldsMVinceR (2004a) Critical management education and action-based learning: Synergies and contradictions. Academy of Management Learning & Education3(4): 442–456.
SchiratoTWebbJ (2003) Bourdieu’s concept of reflexivity as metaliteracy. Cultural Studies17(3–4): 539–553.
54.
SchwarzT (2017) Leben auf Probe? Zur Logik des Ausweisens in Deutschland [Living on probation? German deportation logics]. In: NetzwerkMiRA (ed.) Kritische Migrationsforschung [Critical Migration Studies]. Berlin: Humboldt University of Berlin, 241–264. Available at: http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/miscellanies/netzwerkmira-38541/all/PDF/mira.pdf
55.
SiebenB (2007) Themed article: Doing research on emotion and virtual work: A compass to assist orientation. Human Relations60(4): 561–580.
56.
SimpsonRLewisP (2005) An investigation of silence and a scrutiny of transparency: Re-examining gender in organization literature through the concepts of voice and visibility. Human Relations58(10): 1253–1275.
57.
SnellRChakAM-K (1998) The learning organization: Learning and empowerment for whom?Management Learning29(3): 337–364.
58.
SpivakGC (1988) Can the subaltern speak? In: NelsonCGrossbergL (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 66–111.
SteadV (2013) Learning to deploy (in)visibility: An examination of women leaders’ lived experiences. Management Learning44(1): 63–79.
61.
VinceR (2001) Power and emotion in organizational learning. Human Relations54(10): 1325–1351.
62.
VinceR (2004) Action learning and organizational learning: Power, politics and emotion in organizations. Action Learning: Research and Practice1(1): 63–78.
63.
VinceRSaleemT (2004) The impact of caution and blame on organizational learning. Management Learning35(2): 133–154.
64.
Von HoldtK (2013) The violence of order, orders of violence: Between Fanon and Bourdieu. Current Sociology61(2): 112–131.
65.
WacquantLJD (1992) Toward a social praxeology: The structure and logic of Bourdieu’s sociology. In: BourdieuPWacquantLJD (eds) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1–60.
66.
WeiningerE (2005) Foundations of Pierre Bourdieu’s class analysis. In: WrightEO (ed) Approaches to Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 82–118.
67.
WillmottH (1997) Critical management learning. In: BurgoyneJReynoldsM (eds) Management Learning: Integrating Perspectives in Theory and Practice. London: SAGE, 161–176.
