This mechanism relies on the appearance of a dynamical instability that initiates an exploration of novel interactions, eventually leading to higher performance for the community as a whole. The Narrative Basis of Cognition. William Passmore and Richard Woodman. JAI Press, pp. Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions.
Organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice.
By reassessing the apparently conflicting triad of work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the synergistic connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three. In D. S. Middleton and D. Edwards, eds.