Invited symposia

 

Shadow Organizing: Interaction, Learning and Professional Development

Chair(s): Silvia Gherardi (University of Trento, Italy)

Discussant(s): Asa Makitalo (University of Gothenburg)

Time: 12/Sep/2018: 2:00pm-4:00pm · Location: MR160

Organizations are the outcomes of organizing, rather than vice versa, and organizing is linked to the so called ‘practice turn’ in organizational studies that considers practices as the sites of working, learning, and organizing. In a radical process approach, organizational phenomena are involved in processes of ‘becoming’ through which their identities are materially negotiated and (re)confirmed, and where discursive practices are actively implied in the process. The focus on ‘becoming’ is where ‘organizational phenomena are not treated as entities, as accomplished events, but as enactments—unfolding processes involving actors making choices interactively, in inescapably local conditions, by drawing on broader rules and resources’ (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002: 577). For example, professional practices are enacted in the situated encounter among practitioners and an equipped environment.

Whilst the term ‘organizing’ has proven to have had a tremendous effect, today we contend that it has operated an incomplete revolution, since its potentiality of being re-interpreted within the so called post-epistemologies has not yet been fully explored. The expression ‘post-epistemologies’ embraces the debate on the blurring of the distinction between ontology and epistemology, nature and culture, and materiality and discursivity, because relations pre-exist elements. This transition from elements in interaction to intra-acting relations that form elements is a challenge both for theory and methodology. To face this challenge, metaphorical thinking proves useful since it enhances scholars’ imaginations and emotional participation, which are essential to creative processes in doing research.

To explore organizing as the effect of entangled intra-relating elements, we may resort to metaphorical thinking and writing through the metaphor of “shadow organizing.” The main reason for qualifying organizing in the light of “shadow” is to refresh the concept and look at it with new eyes. Moreover, shadow is a powerful symbol, and its polysemy is a helpful vehicle for thinking in terms of intra-actions using the images of the intertwining of light and dark, of grey tone as the entanglement of white and black, or in social imaginary the entanglement of transparency and secrecy. Shadow organizing focuses on how situated elements (e.g. people, technologies, knowledge, infrastructures, and society) intra-relate and acquire agency. Whilst ‘organizing’ as the effect of intentional coordination, planning, and strategizing represents a well-established theorization, ‘shadow organizing’ sheds light on what happen in the interstices of intentional and structured processes. The dimensions of shadow organizing are performativity, liminality, and secrecy.

The shadow is the symbol of what is “betwixt and between” (i.e. in intra-actions) and, therefore, learning in practice and situated professional development may be explored as processes going on in the interstices of the visible/invisible and the sayable/unsayable. With a processual approach to shadow organizing we can explore how professional practices, including change to these practices, are variously sociomaterial and discursive.

The present collection of papers proposes to explore ‘shadow organizing’ as an indeterminate process taking place in the interstices of intra-acting elements and in the intra-activity of multiple elements (human and more-than-human) that are understood not to have clear or distinct boundaries.

 

The sequential organization of instructions in and for the professions

Chair(s): Oskar Lindwall (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

Discussant(s): Silvia Gherardi (Università di Trento)

Time: 13/Sep/2018: 8:30am-10:30am · Location: MR160

This symposium aims to empirically explore and conceptually discuss the relation between instructions, interaction and expertise. Through close analyses of video recorded interaction, the four presentations demonstrate some ways in which professional actions and objects are made accessible and intelligible to novices: a) Lymer and Lindwall examine how dentists demonstrate techniques and anatomical structures to students; b) Mondada shows how professional tasters are instructed in tasting and describing cheese; c) Tuncer analyses how researchers with experience of a specific experiment instruct peers who are doing the experiment for the first time; d) and Nishizaka demonstrates some patterns in the instructional interaction between a master of calligraphy and professionals who are entitled to teach calligraphy but who do not share the master's expertise. Although the investigated settings vary substantially between the four presentations, there are strong ties between them, including how video recordings are analyzed, how theoretical traditions are drawn upon, and the phenomena that are analyzed and discussed.

The focus of the symposium is the sequential organization of instructions in and for the professions; in other words, how instructions are shaped by prior actions and events, and how, in turn, the instructions shape what comes next. The sequential organization of talk-in-interaction is one of the main contributions and topics of conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 2007). Building on concepts and findings from conversation analysis and related fields, and particularly prior work that have investigated visual, material and embodied practices in professional domains (e.g., Goodwin, 2017), the four presentations demonstrate the organization of instructions in and for the professions and the multifaceted ways in which instructions are produced and responded to.

The term instruction has two different meanings that both are relevant here. On the one hand, the term is used for activities that involve some sort of teaching or training. In such activities, there typically is an instructor (a teacher, a trainer, a demonstrator) and the main purpose of going there is to be instructed in various things. On the other hand, the term can be used synonymously with certain types of actions, such as orders or directives, which do not necessarily have any educational import. While the first use of the term has been the topic of educational research, instruction as a social action has mainly been studied by sociologists, sociolinguists, and discourse analysts. In this symposium, the two meanings are interrelated. The analyses take their starting point in particular social actions and their sequential environments, but also in settings where experts teach novices how to see, act or taste in professionally relevant ways. In this way, the presentations are able to shed light on the complex relations between instruction, interaction and expertise: how instructions are produced and understood in sequences of interaction, and how expertise thereby becomes accessible and intelligible to novices.

 

Interactions et potentiel d’apprentissage des situations professionnelles

Chair(s): Paul Olry (Agrosup Dijon, France), Patrick Mayen (Agrosup Dijon, France)

Discussant(s): Marianne Cerf (INRA)

Time: 13/Sep/2018: 1:30pm-3:30pm · Location: MR170

Ce symposium adopte une perspective de didactique professionnelle (Pastré et al, 2006 ; Mayen, Olry, Pastré, 2017) pour examiner le potentiel d’apprentissage des interactions dans des situations de formation par le travail, au travail et en formation.

En effet, la place des interactions comme moteur du développement professionnel connaît un regain d’intérêt (Van Belleghem, 2016 ) dans la suite d’une tradition bien établie (Trognon, 2000 ; Mayen 2001 ; Filliettaz, 2007 ; Vinatier, 2007).

Ces interactions portent sur le travail, la manière de l’effectuer et sur les coordinations entre partenaires. Elles ont aussi une visée de formation et d’apprentissage les conditions pour les réaliser, dont les positions respectives des acteurs en présence (Chrétien, 2014).

Elles se réalisent soit : 1/ dans le cours de situations quotidiennes de travail, avec un aménagement didactique très variable (Kunegel, 2006 ; Fillietaz, 2009) ; 2/ dans le cadre d’organisations de travail qui intègrent des dispositifs de formation en situation de travail plus ou moins cadrés je ne crois pas que ce soit un plan didactique(espace test, FEST, stage, apprentissage) et adoptant des modalités de formation variées (échange entre pairs, tutorat, formation sur le poste de travail, formation formelle en salle, mise au travail, etc.)... ; 3/ dans des organisations de formation qui intègrent des structures dans lesquelles se s’effectue un travail de production ou de service aménagé dans une perspective d’apprentissage (ateliers, restaurant, exploitation agricole... des lycées professionnels).

Les interactions entre humains au travail participent des facteurs d’apprentissage ou de formation en situations de travail. Les activités d’interactions entre acteurs, interactions verbales ou interactions de coordination et de coopération, sont porteuses, a priori, d’un potentiel élevé d’apprentissage et de formation. Toutefois, elles ne sont pas indépendantes des conditions dans et par lesquelles elles peuvent s’engager et se dérouler : dispositifs de participation, positions respectives des acteurs, ressources disponibles, conditions de temps et possibilités d’aménagement de l’environnement à des fins formatives, etc.

Le potentiel d’apprentissage des interactions dans des situations de formation par le travail, au travail et en formation peut être mis à l’étude selon les conditions :

• de déploiement d’une interaction à visée d’apprentissage dans les situations professionnelles (positions respectives, conditions de participation, engagement des personnes, etc.);
• d’aménagement et/ou d’affordances du milieu favorisant ou non la possibilité d’une interaction à visée d’apprentissage (espaces hybrides, etc.);
• d’aménagement de curriculum d’apprentissage du travail par le travail, au travail et en formation.

L’enjeu du symposium est de mettre en évidence ces conditions par lesquelles des interactions effectivement apprenantes s’engagent et se développent dans et par les situations de travail, réelles, aménagées, transposées, simulées : conditions de déroulement des interactions, contenus des échanges, conditions liées au contexte interactionnel.

Ce symposium s’appuiera sur trois contributions qui s’attachent à documenter ces thématiques et les questions afférentes sur la base de recherches empiriques et/ou de réflexions théoriques :

Une discutante, Marianne Cerf, engagera les débats par une mise en perspective de l’ensemble des communications avec différents travaux de recherche concernant la place des interactions comme moteur du développement professionnel.