E-learning as competitive strategy : Critically reconstructing the organizational knowledge in workplace learning

Professionals such as knowledge managers and management teachers could assume the role that French philosopher Michel Foucault calls 'specific-intellectuals' by using ethical critique to promote self-reflection. It is the lack of this skill in the social sciences and the lack of a perceived need for acquiring it that leads Foucault to assert, in 'What is Enlightenment?' (1984), that there is still something 'premature' in the comprehension of oneself and the social. In this paper we argue that there are unquestioned values and hence under-developed or incomplete knowledge in E-learning discourses in organizations. Managers and champions of e-Learning solutions sometimes overwhelm their stakeholders about corporate turnaround panacea for troubled organizations and allow e-channels to uncritically shape the subjects - managers and learners alike. Little reflexivity is tolerated and so-called 'double-loop' learning is often simply incorporated into management-speak. Unquestioned assumptions and values implied in e-learning discourses govern the production of truth statements within them, in effect subjugating the social agents. Our argument is that by interrogating the ways organizational knowledge is produced (and consumed) - from the perspective of the different discourses and localised practices - ethical questions related to e-learning practices, workplace learning and knowledge construction can then be better understood. © 2011 IADIS.