Pragmatism, Practice Theory, and Their Relevance for Organizational Learning

Bente Elkjær and my shared interest in pragmatism and various practice theories let us to discuss the commonalities and differences between them, and in a co-authored conference paper we started exploring whether and in what sense pragmatism can (and should) be seen as part of the ‘turn to practice’ in social theory. Bente and I easily agreed that pragmatism should indeed be considered as a major resource for ‘the turn to practice’. In the conference paper we argued that Dewey’s ideas about learning, experience and inquiry would provide valuable conceptual sources of inspiration for theorizing organizing and the social domain. We suggested that pragmatism should be included in the theoretical and methodological ‘tool-kit’ of practice-based studies of organizations.
Since our common discussion of the similarities and differences between practice theory and pragmatism each of us have explored the matter further on our own in different publications. I take the invitation to contribute to Bente’s Festschrift as an opportunity to continue our conversation and exploration of the role of pragmatism and practice theories in organizational learning.