The discussion here draws from a review of workplace learning articles published
in journals across fields of HRD, organization/management studies, and adult education.
This review illustrates the messy object(s) and purposes that are called learning among
these publications. The first section of the article outlines the diverse maps of learning
that emerged in the study, showing how researchers in diverse fields were
conceptualizing and representing various workplace phenomena that they all referred to
as learning. The second section discusses the distinctions among these phenomena,
arguing that these represent fundamental differences that are not merely definitional, but
also ontological: that they actually delineate different objects of study.