Lessons From the Dark Side of Organizational Learning in Higher Education Institutions

• In Event: Fostering Learning, Data Use, and Action for Organizational Change

Abstract

While organizational learning can enhance equity and improve effectiveness, it can also reinforce the status quo and marginalize voices for change. Research on this “dark side” of organizational learning reveals how this process can strengthen managerial power and ensure that only privileged actors have the time and capacity to participate in organizational learning. Scholars who study the dark side of organizational learning tend to work with the related concept of organizational ignorance, which refers to efforts by organizational members to preserve an absence of knowledge in the organization. The purpose of this study is to understand how mid-level administrators (deans and associate deans) experience organizational learning and organizational ignorance during a period of strategic change at a public comprehensive university.

Authors

• Jay R. Dee, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• Cheryl Daly, Kittery and Marshwood School Districts

• Anne M. DeFelippo, Salem State University