The Search for Network Learning: Some Practical and Theoretical Challenges in Process Research

Business and public sector leaders and managers are increasingly concerned with how networks of organizations function and can be influenced; organization theory and management research need therefore to extend into the domain of inter-organisational networks. Building on our experiences of investigating network learning (NL) - learning by a group of organizations as a group (Knight, 2002, Knight and Pye, 2005) - our aim in this present chapter is to elaborate some techniques for capturing and analysing network process data and to evaluate them in the light of others' insights into the process of process research and into (learning) process theorising. Our focus is on the practical aspects of process research but, in reflecting on these, we also attend to more conceptual issues.

Whilst NL outcomes were comparatively easy to distinguish, learning process was much more difficult; we found constructs from prior research did not provide sufficient descriptive or explanatory power. Having identified 'sub-plots' within 'episodes' of network learning, however, we were able then to undertake a comparative analysis of learning process and learning outcomes. From this, we developed a network-centred model of network learning, viewing learning as a social, political and non-linear process. It is a perspective which is distinct from many conceptualisations of learning in organizational and inter-organisational settings that tend to be derived from theories of individual learning. We propose that future theoretical development of learning process would benefit from researchers being more explicit about whether they regard learning as isomorphic across individual, group/collective, organizational and network levels, or whether they are adopting a more data-driven conceptualisation of learning. We expect that many of the issues discussed here in the context of network learning are also highly relevant to other network processes, such as changing and innovating.