But in most studies of workplace learning, the term is employed straightforwardly
in attempts to represent an actual observed phenomenon. Something happens in work
activity, something distinct from other aspects of the ongoing flow of interactions and
labour, that is called learning. Not many writers, as this discussion will show, offer
precise definitions about what they mean by ‘learning’ when they present their
descriptions of this phenomenon. This tendency to omit explicit definitions of learning,
either because it’s too difficult or it seems unnecessary, reinforces the problematic
assumption that ‘learning’ is a single object, self-evident and mutually understood.
Further, the disparate and often conflicting purposes for promoting learning in the
workplace – from increasing a firm’s competitiveness or an individual’s labour mobility
to building economic democracy or sustainable ecologies in organizations – can become
so invisible that we sometimes forget to ask the question that should be core in any
discussion of learning: learning what, exactly? learning for what, because why?