Organizational Learning in Project-Based Companies: A Process Thinking Approach

Abstract

Although a traditional project model is clearly useful for laying out the patterns of relationships surrounding a project, it does not provide the temporally embedded accounts that enable us to understand how organizational learning takes place. The process thinking perspective offers a means to solving this problem. This article provides an analysis of how different processes interact dynamically in order to benefit project-based companies' organizational learning. Two findings from this study are: (1) organizational learning is a dynamic concept that emphasizes the continually changing nature of a project-based company and (2) sensemaking and negotiation of meaning are ongoing processes in project-based companies.