Abstract
This paper describes the differences between situated learning theory (SLT) and traditional cognitive theory (TCT). SLT is distinctive because it perceives learning to be a socially relational rather than a mentalist process. SLT places research attention upon knowledge productionin situ and in the course of work practices rather than upon learning transmission in the classroom. This paper argues that SLT's emphasis on the social context of learning is problematic and ambiguous. SLT sees context as pregiven, which is consistent with modernist thought, but also sees it as emergent, which is more consistent with postmodern thought. The implications of this are discussed and the SLT-TCT debate is used to shed light on management education from the perspective of management learning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baudrillard, J. (1983).Simulations, Semiotext(e), Columbia University, New York.
Baudrillard, J. (1995). The virtual illusion: Or the automatic writing of the world.Theory Cult. Soc. 12(4), 97–107.
Berger, P., and Luckmann, T. (1966).The Social Construction of Reality, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Blumer, H. (1969).Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Boot, R., and Reynolds, M. (1983).The Learning and Experience in Formal Education, Manchester Monographs, Manchester.
Bougon, M. G. (1992). Congregate cognitive maps: A unified dynamic theory of organization and strategy.J. Manage. Stud. 29(3), 367–389.
Brewis, J. (1996). The “making” of the “competent” manager: Competency development, personal effectiveness and Foucault.Manage. Learn. 27(1), 65–86.
Burgoyne, J. G. (1981). Moving forward from self-development.Manage. Educ. Dev. 12(2), 67–80.
Burgoyne, J. G., and Cooper, C. I. (1976). Research on teaching methods in management education: Bibliographical examination of the state of the art.Manage. Int. Rev. 16(4), 95–102.
Burgoyne, J. G., and Hodgson, V. E. (1983). Natural learning and managerial action: A phenomenological study in the field setting.J. Manage. Stud. 20(3), 387–399.
Burgoyne, J. G., and Hodgson, V. (1984). An experimental approach to understanding managerial action. In Hunt, J. G., Hosking, D. M., Schriesheim, C. A., and Stewart, R. (eds.),Leaders and Managers: International Perspectives on Managerial Behaviour and Leadership, Pergamon Press, New York.
Burgoyne, J. G., and Stuart, R. (1977). Implicit learning theories as determinants of the effect of management development programmes.Personnel Rev. 6(2), 5–14.
Chaiklin, S., and Lave, J. (eds.).Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Chia, R., and Morgan, S. (1996). Educating the philosopher-manager: De-signing the times.Manage. Learn. 27(1), 37–64.
Cooper, R., and Fox, S. (1989). Two modes of organization. In Mansfield, R. (ed.),Frontiers of Management: Research and Practice, Routledge, London.
Cooper, R., and Fox, S. (1990). The texture of organizing.J. Manage. Stud. 27(6), 575–582.
Daft, R. L., and Weick, K. E. (1984). Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems.Acad. Manage. Rev. 9(2), 284–295.
Davies, J., and Easterby-Smith, M. (1984). Learning and developing from managerial work experiences.J. Manage. Stud. 21(2), 169–183.
Farber, P. (1982).The Emergence of Ornithology as a Scientific Discipline: 1760–1850, D. Reidel, Dortrecht.
Foucault, M. (1970).The Order of Things, Routledge, London.
Fox, S. (1989a). The panopticon: From Bentham's obsession to the revolution in management learning.Hum. Relat. 42(8), 717–739.
Fox, S. (1989b). The production and distribution of knowledge through open and distance learning.Educ. Train. Technol. Int. 26(3), 269–280.
Fox, S. (1990). The ethnography of humour and the problem of social reality.Sociology 24(3), 431–446.
Fox, S. (1992). What are we? The constitution of management in higher education and human resource management.Int. Stud. Manage. Organiz. 22(3), 71–93.
Fox, S. (1994a). Debating management learning: I.Manage. Learn. 25(1), 83–93.
Fox, S. (1994b). Debating management learning: II.Manage. Learn. 25(4), 579–597.
Fox, S. (1996). Viral writing: Deconstruction, disorganization and ethnomethodology.Scand. J. Manage. 12(1), 89–108.
Freire, P. (1968).Pedagory of the Oppressed, Seabury Press, New York.
Garfinkel, H. (1967).Studies in Ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Giroux, H. (1983).Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, Heinemann, London.
Gray, C. (1994). Career as project of the self and labour process discipline.Sociology 28(2), 479–497.
Habermas, J. (1986).The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Vol. I, Polity Press, Cambridge, MA.
Hambrick, D. C., and Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers.Acad. Manage. Rev. 9(2), 193–206.
hooks, b. (1994).Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge, New York.
Jeffcutt, P. (1994). The interpretation of organization: A contemporary analysis and critique.J. Manage. Stud. 31(2), 225–250.
Langfield-Smith, K. (1992). Exploring the need for a shared cognitive map.J. Manage. Stud. 29(3), 349–368.
Latour, B. (1987).Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Latour, B. (1988).The Pasteurization of France, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Latour, B., and Woolgar, S. (1979).Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage, London.
Lave, J. (1988).Cognition in Practice: Mind Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lave, J. (1993). The practice of learning. In Chaiklin, S., and Lave, J. (eds.),Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991).Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy and heterogeneity.Syst. Pract. 5, 379–393.
Lee, J. R. E. (1987). Prologue: Talking organisation. In Button, G., and Lee, J. R. E. (eds.),Talk and Social Interaction, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, Avon.
Lyles, M. A., and Schwenk, C. R. (1992). Top management, strategy and organizational knowledge structures.J. Manage. Stud. 29(2), 155–174.
Lynch, M., and Bogen, D. (1994). Harvey Sack's primitive natural science.Theory Cult. Soc. 11, 65–104.
Lynch, M., and Woolgar, S. (1990). Introduction: Sociological orientations to representational practice in science. In Lynch, M., and Woolgar, S. (eds.),Representation in Scientific Practice, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984).The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester University Press, Manchester.
McHoul, A. (1994). Towards a critical ethnomethodology.Theory Cult. Soc. 11, 105–126.
Miller, J. H. (1992).Illustration, Reaktion Books, London.
Nicholson, L., and Seidman, S. (eds.) (1995).Social Postmodernism: Beyond Identity Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Orr, J. (1990). Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: Community memory in a service culture. In Middleton, D. S., and Edwards, D. (eds.),Collective Remembering: Memory in Society, Sage, Beverley Hills, CA.
Outwaite, W. (1994).Habermas: A Critical Introduction, Polity Press, Cambridge, MA.
Poster, M. (1990).The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context, Polity Press, Cambridge, MA.
Prigogine, I. (1989). The philosophy of instability.Futures Aug., 396–400.
Rudwick, M. (1985).The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge Among Gentelmanly Specialists, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Schwenk, C. R. (1986). Information, cognitive biases, and commitment to a course of action.Acad. Manage. Rev. 11(2), 298–310.
Schwenk, C. R. (1988). The cognitive perspective on strategic decision making.J. Manage. Stud. 25(1), 41–55.
Schwenk, C. R. (1989). Linking cognitive, organizational and political factors in explaining strategic change.J. Manage. Stud. 26(2), 177–187.
Shapin, S., and Schaffer, S. (1985).Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Star, S. L., and Griesemer, J. (1989). “Translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39.Soc. Stud. Sci. 19, 387–420.
Staw, B. M. (1981). The escalation of commitment to a course of action.Acad. Manage. Rev. 6, 577–587.
Suchman, L. (1987).Plans and Situated Actions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tanton, M., and Fox, S. (1987). The evaluation of management education and development: Participant satisfaction and ethnographic methodology.Personnel Rev. 16(4), 33–40.
Watson, T. J. (1994).In Search of Management: Culture, Chaos and Control in Managerial Work, Routledge, London.
Wertsch, J. (ed.) (1985).Culture, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotsyian Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Wertsch, J. (1991). A sociocultural approach to socially shared cognitive. In Resnick, L. B., Levine, J. M., and Teasley, S. D. (eds.),Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fox, S. Situated learning theory versus traditional cognitive learning theory: Why management education should not ignore management learning. Systems Practice 10, 727–747 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02557922
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02557922