Workplace Learning in Context

Alison Fuller, Anne Munro, Helen Rainbird, Alison Fuller, Anne Munro, Helen Rainbird

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415316309
• eBook ISBN: 9781134374113
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

As policy makers increasingly focus on workplace learning as a way of improving organizational performance, the debate about the learning organization has grown. Counterbalancing the often over-optimistic assumptions made about the future of work and learning, this book argues that without a contextualized analysis of the field, our understanding of the learning environment is limited. It reconsiders the true role and nature of workplace learning in context.

Grounded in original research, the book features case studies which illuminate how the workplace environment can provide both barriers to and opportunities for learning. It explores learning in different organizational contexts and different countries, sectors, types of public and private sector organization, and by different occupational groups. This multi-disciplinary approach provides a coherent perspective of the institutional, organizational and pedagogical contexts of workplace learning, and as a result, policy-makers, trainers, trade unionists and educators alike will welcome this groundbreaking text, as it gives the intellectual tools required to understand how learning in the workplace can be improved.

1 Introduction and overview

Alison Fuller, Anne Munro and Helen Rainbird

Policy-makers preoccupied with finding ways of strengthening the relationship between education systems and the economy are increasingly focusing on workplace learning as a way of improving organizational performance and, at the aggregate level, national economic success. From a human capital perspective, the skills and qualifications of the workforce are believed to be central to productivity. Investing in their (or one’s own development) is assumed to result in economic dividends. As Garrick argues, ‘The idea of investing in human beings as a form of capital has, since then [the emergence of human capital theory], fuelled a very powerful discourse of workplace learning’ (1999: 217).

From the perspective of workplace learning, there are three main problems with the assumptions associated with human capital theory. First, it is incorrect to assume that investment in human capital is the only source of competitive success. An examination of the way companies and, in particular, multinational companies, generate profit suggests that there are a range of strategies they can adopt. As the Industrial Relations Research Unit points out, ‘Competitive success based on quality and upskilling is only one of a number of strategies available to organizations. Others include seeking protected or monopoly markets; growth through take-over and joint venture; shifting operations overseas; cost-cutting and new forms of “Fordism”‘ (1997:7). Second, research evidence suggests that although workforce qualifications have been increasing in recent decades, there have not been corresponding changes in the use of these qualifications in the workplace. Indeed, the 2001 Skills Survey shows that for the UK ‘the overall supply of qualifications outstrips demand by a comfortable margin’ (Ashton et al. 2002: 63). Although increasing educational participation may contribute to the stock of skills and qualifications in the workforce, increasing employer demand and utilization of more highly skilled and qualified employees involves changes in job design and the organization of production. Strategic decisions and decisions relating to the quality of the work environment are normally arenas of management prerogative. Politically it is more difficult for governments to intervene in questions relating to product markets and work organization (though this is not the case in all countries), than it is in educational and training interventions aimed at the supply of qualifications. Third, Human Capital Theory uses qualifications as a proxy for learning and skills and, in so doing, emphasizes the significance of formal qualifications for individuals and the workforce as a whole. However, Senker suggests that a very small proportion of learning in the workplace is recognized by formal qualifications (2000: 240). Eraut et al. (1998) have argued that the learning opportunities afforded by the workplace itself are the primary factor affecting the quantity and quality of learning at work. Many of these opportunities are embedded in the structure, organization and practice of work. With this in mind, this edited collection focuses on workplace learning in a variety of forms, rather than limiting the analysis to interventions by trainers and teachers and their impact on individuals.

In the workplace, the nature and focus of strategic decisions, power relations and the employment relationship are central to understanding the opportunities and constraints on learning. Employers’ first order decisions concern product market and competitive strategy whilst their second order decisions concern work organization, job design and people management (Keep and Mayhew 1999; Bosworth et al. 2001). Such first and second order choices help explain the extent and distribution of opportunities for learning across the workforce. This reminds us that learning is not the primary purpose of the organization but is derived from the needs of fulfilling the organizational goal of providing goods and services (Rainbird 2000).

Several of the chapters in this book focus on learning as an activity embedded within the production and labour processes and the social relations between employees. Their emphasis is on the ways in which the workplace can be conceptualized as what some authors term a learning ‘environment’ and others a learning ‘space’, which provides barriers to and opportunities for learning. Some of the opportunities identified consist of participation in off-the-job courses, but most relate to opportunities to participate in activities from and through which employees learn. Participation in formal training programmes has a range of dimensions. It is an important feature of this collection that most of the chapters are research based and provide the reader with plentiful evidence of the forms of participation and types of knowledge available in various settings, as well as revealing the uneven patterns of access to them that employees experience.

The issues raised by different forms of participation, including on- and off-the-job learning and qualifications are a central interest of the book. One concern is that the contemporary emphasis on situated learning tends to assume that all knowledge is situated, and that the knowledge needed to do particular jobs is embedded within the associated tasks, processes and those who are already competent. The related pedagogy aims to enable learners to participate in all relevant workplace activities and to learn from more experienced colleagues. One advantage of this approach is that individuals are not faced with the difficulty of knowledge transfer, as their knowledge and skills have been gained in the context in which they are being applied. However, stressing the situated character of knowledge fails to recognize that there are types of knowledge, such as theoretical ideas not connected to specific contexts, which are not always accessible on-the-job. Denying individuals and groups access to underpinning knowledge is likely to reinforce workforce inequalities and impede employees’ progression to positions which benefit from sound theoretical understanding. Failing to provide effective support to facilitate the transfer of learning from one context to another can militate against the integration of theory and practice. One way of broadening employees’ access to knowledge is to expand opportunities for boundary-crossing and interaction between people from different specialisms. Research reported in this collection includes examples of networking and boundary-crossing which illustrate the effects on individual and collective learning of these sorts of activities.

The notions of learning through experience and learning by doing have a lengthy association with adult and workplace learning (Boud et al. 1993), and tend to foreground individuals and their lived realities. Whilst the accounts of individuals can shed light on how people learn at work and can help make sense of diverse situations, they can also mask the ways in which opportunities and barriers are structured and unevenly distributed across organizations and different groups. It is important to understand the extent to which the organization of work influences workplace learning because benefits in terms, for example, of career progression and self-confidence can accrue to those who have access to a variety of learning opportunities and who have the autonomy necessary for self-direction. Those employees whose knowledge and skills remain tacit are more likely to have their competence underestimated and their contribution to the organization undervalued.

The range of opportunities available to employees across countries, sectors, organizations, employment levels (e.g. manager, specialist, shop-floor operative) and types of employment (permanent, temporary, part time) is patchy, with the most vulnerable groups having access to the fewest chances. Nevertheless, there are pitfalls in adopting an overly deterministic view of the impact of structure on learning. However rich or impoverished the opportunities for learning appear, individuals themselves can make decisions about the extent to which they wish to engage. The evidence presented in this volume indicates that a host of personal, dispositional and motivational factors can influence how people interact with the environments in which they find themselves.

Learning that occurs in specialist educational institutions and which, typically, is associated with the pursuit of qualifications, is often understood in terms of the ‘learning as acquisition’ metaphor (Sfard 1998). Here, the focus is on the transmission of propositional and codifiable knowledge from expert, or expert source, to learner. It follows that tests (usually written examinations) can be used to measure what the individual has learned. Sfard contrasts ‘learning as acquisition’ with the metaphor ‘learning as participation’. Using the latter metaphor to illuminate the nature of learning at work is gaining popularity, as it enables the difficulties of measuring learning in this context to be acknowledged while drawing attention to the diverse activities and processes which characterize and distinguish workplace learning. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) insight that the community of practice (rather than the individual) should form the basis of an analysis of learning, has highlighted the social and collective nature of learning, which is missed in analyses of (individual) attainment. The research included in this volume, signals that identifying changes in the work group, the way work is organized and the way jobs are designed can shed light on how learning occurs.

The role employees can play in improving an organization’s effectiveness requires a focus on the types of knowledge and skills learned at work as well as on how they can be supplied, supported and developed. The central argument of this volume is that without a contextualized analysis, the treatment of questions of access to and control of learning opportunities, as well as what is learned and how, is likely to be limited. The chapters show that by locating workplace learning in context, clearer understandings of the factors influencing the learning environment and processes can be gained, and insights about the sorts of changes which may lead to its improvement can emerge. The book adopts a broad approach to the context of learning at work and explores the ways in which factors ranging from national and institutional systems to conditions in particular work groups impinge on the learning process. The range of settings elaborated also provides a broad overview of how learning at work is experienced in different countries, sectors, types of public and private sector organization, and by different occupational groups.

The aim of this edited collection is to contribute to the growing debate about the role and nature of workplace learning. By drawing on theoretically informed empirical research from different disciplines, it aims to explore the institutional, organizational and pedagogical contexts within which it takes place. The analyses presented go beyond the economic rationale for fostering learning at work and challenge the usefulness of traditional theories for explaining how people learn in organizations. Equally, as a research-based collection of papers, it serves as useful counterweight to some of the more optimistic assumptions concerning the future of work and learning which underpin the debate on the ‘learning society’ and the ‘learning organization’ (see Coffield 1997; Keep and Rainbird 1999 for critiques).

The book is organized into four sections. The first of these is the context of workplace learning where the institutional factors which structure workplace learning are explored. The second section focuses on the workplace as a learning environment. Here the ways of conceptualizing and theorizing learning in the workplace are examined. The third section groups together chapters examining the nature of skills and knowledge in the workplace. The final section explores how the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in understanding and improving learning at work, examined in the preceding chapters, can be translated into policy and improved practice.

The context of workplace learning

The significance for policy that workplace learning has in any given country and perceptions of its contribution to competitiveness, are dependent on the nature of the vocational education and training system, the relationship between the state, labour and capital, and the production system. To develop an analysis of the political economy of workplace learning, Ashton (Chapter 2) argues that the societal approach of Maurice et al. (1986) and the business systems approach of Whitley (2000) need to be brought together. The reason for this is that workplace learning, its recognition and certification only become significant in particular sets of circumstances. These are linked to the process of industrialization and the relative weight of capital, the social partners and the state in driving industrial and training policy.

Ashton identifies three models of workplace learning: the free market model, exemplified by the USA and the UK; the corporatist model of Germany and Denmark; and the developmental state model of South East Asian economies such as Taiwan and Singapore. He argues that in the free market model, employers and individuals are seen as having responsibility for workplace learning and there is only a limited role for the state, primarily in relation to labour market programmes and certification. Highperformance work practices based on high levels of skill and employee involvement may be implemented by multinational companies, but have restricted coverage. In contrast, in corporatist models, apprenticeship systems which are co-managed by capital and labour may ensure that intermediate level skills are widely available in the labour market. Although institutional structures may support innovation and continuing learning in the workplace, the main focus of certification is on initial rather than continuing training. The certification of the latter, even where it fosters development and innovation, may represent a threat to the status quo. In the developmental state model, there is a strong link between economic development and training, along with assistance for creating new forms of work organization. The state’s involvement in promoting workplace learning and its certification is most proactive where there are no great concentrations of capital, as in Singapore. In contrast, where large companies have emerged, as is the case with the Korean chaebol, the establishment of internal labour markets with their own rules of promotion and progression means there is little role for the state in certifying learning.

The way in which the employment relationship is regulated is central to understanding the context of workplace learning. In Chapter 3, Rainbird, Munro and Holly argue that regulation of the employment relationship is relevant on three levels. The first of these is the role the state takes in shaping the education and training system, the framework of employment law and industrial policy, as well as its role as an employer in the public sector and as a customer for goods and services. The second, is the level of the organization, where the way in which the relationship between the employer and employee is conceptualized is fundamental to an understanding of the context of workplace learning. Adopting the Industrial Relations ‘frames of reference’ approach (see Edwards 1995) they argue that consensus in the workplace has to be constructed, rather than taken as given. Although workplace learning can be the subject of consensual decision-making, this is not automatically the case as the unitarist perspectives of Human Capital Theory and Human Resource Management might suggest (Heyes 2000). The third level concerns the social and power relations of the workplace. It is at this level that issues relating to who controls access to learning, the organization of work, and employee entitlements and voice, are significant.

The authors explore the influence of this three level framework on workplace learning through the case-study analysis of: two teams of women cleaners; a group of male maintenance workers; and a group of care staff in a hospital. Although a range of forms of learning and teaching can be identified even amongst workers who are considered to have a limited range of skills, learning cannot be decontextualized from the social relations of production. To conceive learning solely as a participative activity risks trivializing power relationships and ignoring significant barriers to participation which originate in work organization, the employment relationship and in organizational structures.

The theme of the relationship between institutional systems, work organization and worker competence is developed by Meghnagi in Chapter 4. He discusses an initiative to develop workers’ competence in the Italian small firms sector which was based on the involvement of the social partners and researchers. In Italy small firms, or imprese artigiane, have a special status which relates to the involvement of the entrepreneur in the production process and which qualifies them for state aid. Despite the fact that many of the workforce have a low level of formal qualification, their level of competence is high, reflecting the way the production process is organized. In developing a framework for assessing future training needs, entrepreneurs’ and workers’ competences were addressed as well as the organizational capacity of the company. The involvement of experts and the social partners in the process of defining competences and future training brought out differences in their respective definitions of occupational profiles. This finding illustrates the contested nature of competence and knowledge in the workplace and the usefulness of employers’ organizations, trade unions and researchers working together to identify future training needs. The companies in Meghnagi’s study were classified according to whether they worked on their own account or on a sub-contract basis; their capacity to design projects; their ability to realize the finished product; their ability to sell under their own trademark and to trade beyond local markets. In assessing training needs, it was important not only to assess workers’ needs, but those of the organization as well and, in particular, its capacity to expand its design and production capacity and to sell goods beyond local markets. An important concept was that of the ‘professional credibility’ of the company in relation to banks, its customers and suppliers and the idea that training and competence development are part of the acquired rights of workers.

The need to deal with entrenched interests, in particular those of educational providers and professional bodies, affect the process of reform in relation to workplace learning in many spheres. Hoskin and Anderson-Gough explore changes in the professional work environment of the accountancy profession and the developmental needs of accountants in Chapter 5. They develop the argument that context, power and perspective interplay in ways that frame and limit attempts to develop more effective forms of attainment. They see this as being...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Workplace Learning in Context
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction and overview
• Part 1 The context of workplace learning
• Part 2 The workplace as a learning environment
• Part 3 Skills, knowledge and the workplace
• Part 4 Research and policy