Contextual influences on thinking in organizations: learner and tutor orientations to organizational learning
Article Abstract:
This paper examines the orientations, or frames of reference, of participants in five bank training programmes run by three banks in the United Kingdom. Adopting a symbolic interactionist approach and ethnographic methods of investigation, the paper attempts to elucidate the ways in which both learners and tutors thought about their roles in the learning events and the goals and strategies they adopted in order to cope with their situation. It is suggested that in order to understand the participants' behaviour it is necessary to take into account the contexts in which their actions were constructed. In particular it is proposed that the organizational context of the training programmes, which exposed the participants to the gaze of 'hidden audiences' of organizational superiors, inhibited the potential of the programmes as vehicles for learning. It is also argued that interactionist approaches using ethnographic methods, which enable organizational actors to be studied in situ, have an important contribution to make to the wider study of organizational cognition. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Management Studies
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0022-2380
Year: 1997
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The Cognitive Style Index: a measure of intuition-analysis for organizational research
Article Abstract:
Almost 1000 adults participated in the development of the Cognitive Style Index (CSI), a new measure designed specifically for use with managerial and professional groups. The objectives of the study were, first, to produce a psychometrically sound instrument suitable for application in large-scale organizational studies, and second, through its development, to confirm empirically the generic intuition - analysis dimension of cognitive style. Findings suggest that each object was largely fulfilled. At a time when there is a burgeoning interest in intuition as a basis for decision making and problem solving in organizations, the CSI would appear to be a notable addition to the small collection of measures appropriate for survey research. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Management Studies
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0022-2380
Year: 1996
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