Innovative organizational learning technologies: organizational learning’s Rosetta Stone

This contribution highlights opportunities for new insights into organizational learning processes through the use of practice-based innovative organizational learning technologies (iOLTs). The article explores the varied possibilities and application of learning technologies in terms of organizational learning perspectives.

Given this is a relatively new field of practice and research, the three organizational learning theoretical perspectives – behavioural, action and practice – form a base upon which we can conceptualise learning as mediated through iOLTs and how we can leverage these technologies, particularly for practice-based organizational learning, which focuses more on the intangibles of learning.

Due to the pervasive and ubiquitous potential of organizational learning technologies, new avenues for analysing the mediating effect of technologies on learning enable our research and practice attention to shift from formal learning to the informal; from top-down learning management to bottom-up learning creation; from cognitive and behavioural approaches to social, spontaneous and contextual learning – helping us decipher the “language” of learning in concrete ways.

The iOLTs are emerging and at an ever-increasing pace. Practice-based iOLTs can help trace and decipher the “language” of learning in concrete ways, which is a key aspect in our being able to leverage our organizational learning capacities.