Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: The Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 22, Issue 7
As discussed in the last few editorials, we have noticed that the world is rapidly becoming more complex. Whilst this may provide more innovative opportunities for people and organizations, generally this is not very good news for academics. Our models and theories tend to be gross simplifications of the reality, but they must be so in order to be perceptible and applicable. However,when building these simplified pictures of the reality we also lose vital information which could be of profound importance to our understanding of causal relationships.
Hofer (1975, p. 798) analyzed the variables that had been found, at least to some degree, to explain organizational success in management studies. His listing seems impressive but becomes downright depressing when one considers the amount of possible combinations of these variables. According to Hofer, these would make 254 or 18,000,000,000,000,000 different situations to consider. Keeping all of them in mind is impossible even if each of the variables assume just two possible values. Some other researchers have eased our concerns somewhat by noting that most of these variables would have a very small effect;for example, Bourgeois (1984, p, 589) suggests that the remarkable variables that can cause success or failure are only somewhere around 70,000,000.
To ensure practitioner relevance, some more general, more modern, and more holistic theories should be developed. One recent approach is complexity theory– an attempt to reduce the world to emergent patterns which might explain significant events and preferably in advance of future actions or behaviours of systems. Whilst not representative of this physics-based field, our first paper this month, by Genevieve Armson and Alma Whiteley, tries to delve into the complex interactive learning that seems to exist at workplaces. The complexities of learning are also illustrated by Dane Lukic, Anoush Margaryan, and Allison Littlejohn account of how organizations learn from safety incidents.
The third complex learning situation examined in this issue is that of the sales of pharmaceutical products, as reported in the research paper by Carrie Patricia Hunter.
We close the issue by presenting something a bit different. In a more practically oriented piece, Mark Griffiths considers the problems caused in the workplace by the increasing presence of the internet. Directly connected to the complexity theme, we could argue that our working lives have not necessarily been simplified by being constantly present and connected.
As always, we hope you find these papers inspiring and well researched, and we are looking forward to receiving your critique and research based on these papers or those featured in earlier issues of the Journal of Workplace Learning.
Sara Cervai, Tauno Kekale
