Organisational contexts for lifelong learning: Individual and collective learning configurations

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to explore certain features of lifelong learning in organisational contexts. Much effort has been devoted to understanding how individuals learn, this effort often falling into the realm of psychology. There is also a considerable literature on how organisations learn, with many studies focusing on structures and processes. The discussion that follows will examine both of these issues from the perspective of their possible interrelationships, guided in general by the broader framework of social epistemology, where the unit of epistemic agency and its dynamics includes both individuals and organisations. Attention will also be given to the ways in which organisations might scaffold the conditions for individual learning and how this scaffolding is, in turn, shaped by such learning.