Descriptive and normative research on organizational learning: locating the contribution of Argyris and Schön

The dual purpose of this paper is to locate the contribution of Argyris and Schon to the field of organisational learning, and to discuss aspects of their work which are particularly distinctive or controversial. There are two distinct strands of research on organisational learning. The descriptive strand, with its roots in social and cognitive psychology, seeks to understand the processes by which organisations learn and adapt. The normative strand, which is sometimes referred to as research on the “learning organization”, is concerned more with how organisations can direct their learning in ways that bring them closer to an ideal. While Argyris and Schon, with their emphasis on intervention and improvement, belong to the latter normative strand, they have also contributed greatly to the descriptive strand because their normative theorising is grounded in detailed empirical study of organisational processes. The article contrasts Argyris and Schon’s account of learning as the manipulation of symbolic representations of organisational life, with the non‐symbolic, feedback‐driven account of learning offered by many descriptive researchers. It suggests how these two accounts could be integrated by recognising that differing tasks or problems require different learning processes and different types of expertise. This more differentiated approach casts doubt on the notion of a generically capable “learning organisation”. The paper concludes with a call for more researchers to bridge the divide between the descriptive and normative strands of research on organisational learning.