Abstract :
In an effort to clarify alternative approaches to organizational analysis, this paper is
concerned to stimulate the debate on how an inquiry into organizational phenomena,
in general, and organizational learning, in particular, can be accomplished. Encouraging
attention to different aspects of various paradigmatic approaches, the paper focuses
on critical theory, postmodernism and social constructionism and how these paradigms
have contributed and can contribute to the research in the subject domain of organizational
learning.To this end, a paradigmatic review of the literature on organizational
learning is offered in this paper. Organizational learning, as the study of learning
processes of, and within, organizations, has attracted significant attention in academe
since the early 1980s. There is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, which
offer rich material for a paradigmatic review. This study highlights the need for further
development of the field from alternative paradigmatic perspectives, with a view to
generating more insights into the multifaceted, complex and changing nature of learning
in contemporary organizations.
