Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração

THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SOCIAL LEARNING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A BRAZILIAN CASE STUDY

José Alberto de Siqueira Brandão^[1] and Eduardo de Aquino Lucena

Universidade Federal de Pernambuco – UFPE

Centro de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas – CCSA

Programa de Pós-graduação em Administração – PROPAD

Av. dos Funcionários, s/n – 1º andar – sala D-10

Cidade Universitária

Zip Code: 50740-580 – Recife/PE

Brazil

Phone: [phone]

[e-mail] and [e-mail]

ABSTRACT:

The discussion on how learning happens in organizations has intensified in recent decades. Perhaps this debate is most intense in the public sector, given the transformations called for by society.  This paper aims to discuss the temporal dimension of social learning in a public educational policy in Brazil. To this end, we chose to conduct a qualitative case study related to the experience related to the “Pact for Education in Pernambuco”, known as PEP. The interpretation of the findings indicates the existence of relationships between learning at different managerial levels and the temporal dimension in PEP.

KEYWORDS: time; social learning; public sector.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The debate over the transformations promoted in the public sector due to the incorporation of management mechanisms applied to the private sector around the world is recent. Indeed, public administration has been dominated for nearly a century by the ideas arising from the tradition of bureaucracy.

According to Pollitt (2007), only in the last two decades have different perspectives been developed, giving more prominence to New Public Management. This perspective emphasizes the process of measurement and evaluation of outcomes, focusing on performance in the delivery of public services.

More recently, the perspective of New Public Governance has become evident, recognizing the plural nature of the state, as an alternative discourse to New Public Management, and the complexity of the development and implementation of public policies, influenced by contextual conditions and by inter-organizational relations (Osborne, 2006). These changes occurring in the public sector encourage studies on the adjacent organizational and social phenomena, focusing on this sector. This is a great potential area to be explored in the field of learning studies directed at government entities in their different spheres.

In this paper learning is viewed through a social perspective, which stresses the importance of the concepts of experience and reflection (inquiry). For Brandi and Elkjaer (2011, p.24), learning is viewed “as participation in social processes emphasizing both issues of knowing and issues of being and becoming”. As such, learning happens through transactional processes between the socialized individuals and their social context interpreted in a relationship between 'subject' and 'worlds'.

Considering this, a question about how learning occurs at the individual and the collective level arises. For a better understanding of this process, it is necessary to study how the passing of time affects learning. Based on this, this paper aims to discuss the temporal dimension of social learning in a public educational policy.

Towards this, learning needs to be understood as a collective endeavor. For government, the study provides an opportunity to understand the learning process of policy makers (strategists) so as to create support for the development of their knowledge.

The public policy chosen, "Pact for Education in Pernambuco", known as PEP, recently implemented in Brazil is used as a qualitative case. After several years of operation of this policy, the level of educational development rose significantly, resulting in the Pernambucan school system becoming the most attractive in the country.  The process of popular participation in the development of the initiatives by government enabled this transformation, which was awarded a United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA) in 2012, creating an increased interest in understanding this phenomenon.

1.  The Social Learning Perspective

Attempts to understand the learning phenomenon have given rise to different views. Individual learning theory was not successful to explain the transfer of knowledge in the organizational context (Brandi & Elkjaer, 2011). Thus, in this study, we decided to consider learning from a non-dualistic view in which individual and organization are mutually constructed.

Towards this, Dewey (1933) pointed out that learning begins by reflective thinking, which must be ordered and continuous, allowing a constant re-evaluation of the available data for the sequencing of ideas. This notion is based on concepts such as interaction, experience and reflection, which then became the basis for further studies on the theme of learning.

The concepts of experience and inquiry designed by Dewey and the concepts of social worlds/arenas and conditional matrix, presented by Strauss, served as the foundation for the work of Elkjaer (2004). For her, it is possible to draw up a third way, a synthesis of two metaphors of learning: acquisition and participation. The first one refers learning as individual acquisition of knowledge, whilst the second one proposes learning as participation in communities of practice.

Brandi and Elkjaer (2011) proposes the concept of social learning in a non-dualistic view, understanding the interconnection between individual and organization. This vision has enabled the understanding of learning as a product of the combination of the skills and knowledge acquired by individuals, and as a process, as a result of participation in communities of practice. Learning is accomplished in this design through transactional processes between individuals and their social context.