Organizational Knowledge

Silvia Gherardi is Professor of Organization and Management at the University of Trento, Italy.

• Introduction. Chapter 1 From Organizational Learning to Knowing in Practice.1.1 Conventional Wisdom.1.2 The Institutionalization of the Field: The Birth of the Learning Organization.1.3 Organizational Learning and Learning Organization as a Disciplinary Discourse.1.4 The Reification of Knowledge in Knowledge Management Literature.1.5 Knowing in Practice: Neither in the Head Nor as a Commodity.1.6 The Philosophical Roots of the Concept of Practice.1.7 The Sociological Roots of the Concept of Practice.1.8 What is a Practice?.1.9 To Sum Up: Two Narratives of Learning and Knowing.Chapter 2 The Texture of Knowing in Practice.2.1 Texture as Connectedness in Action.2.2 A Methodological Framework: The Spiral Case-Study.2.3 The Power of Associations.2.4 To Sum Up: Weaving the Texture of Situated Practices.Chapter 3.On Becoming a Practitioner.3.1 Being 'On Site'.3.2 Safety and Silence of the Organization: The Culture of Practice.3.3 The Knowledge Pointers.3.4 Knowing as Aesthetic Understanding.3.5 Conversation in Practice and Conversation on Practice.3.6 Knowledge Mediated By Social Relations, Artifacts, and Norms.3.7 How 'You Learn Nothing at School!'3.8 To Sum Up: Becoming a Practitioner.Chapter 4.Knowing in a Community of Practitioners.4.1 Community of Practice or the Practices of a Community?4.2 The Notion of Situated Curriculum.4.3 Gaining Access to a Situated Curriculum.4.4 How Power Relations Shape Opportunities to Learn.4.5 Practicing, Teaching and Talking of It.4.6 To Sum Up: The Incorporated 'Known' and the Enacted 'Knowing'.Chapter 5 Knowing across Communities.5.1 Practices of Accountability.5.2. Mirror Games.5.3 Positioning: The Discursive Production of Subjectivity.5.4 Doing Things with Words.5.5 To Sum Up: Practices Which Perform Communities.Chapter 6 Knowing Within an Organization While Mending the Texture of Practices.6.1. Breakdowns in a Texture.6.2 Darning: The Art of Invisible Mending.6.3 Patching: The Art of Remedial Mending.6.4 Quilting: The Art of Signalling.6.5 Mending the Texture and Translating Knowledge.6.6 To Sum Up: Between the Visible and the Invisible.Chapter 7 Knowing Within a Field of Practices.7.1 Networks as Distributed and Fragmented Knowledge.7.2 La Sicurezza Come Sorveglianza E Punizione.7.3 La Sicurezza Come Tecnologie E Artefatti Sicuri.7.4 La Sicurezza Come Formazione E Consulenza.7.5 To Sum Up: The Woofs and Warps of a Seamless Web.Chapter 8 The Mutual Constitution of Practice and Practicing, Knowledge and Knowing.8.1 Material–Discursive Practices.8.2 Knowing in Practice.8.3 A Theoretical and Methodological Framework.References.Index.

"This is not only an insightful but also a necessary book. It draws together the practice-based school of thought within research on organizational and workplace learning. And, furthermore, the book takes us in an exemplary way through a case study in which the novel term "texture of practice" is used to illustrate how practice is weaved together with the workplace and its members. I will not hesitate to recommend this book to any of my students - and even my friends!"Bente Elkjaer, The Danish University of Education