The emergence of knowledge in communication: An exploratory study of the relationship between team talk-in-interaction and team learning actions in a new product development team

Learning at all levels---individual, group and organization---is a critical process for today's organizations. Collective learning at the level of the team is particularly critical for many knowledge-intensive organizations that have adapted team-based structures. This exploratory study sought to contribute to our understanding of team learning by studying in-depth the conversations of a new product development team over a number of months to see if and how collective team learning is achieved in the team's talk-in-interaction.; The focus on talk-in-interaction in the study was informed by Weick (1991), Schwandt (1995), and Giddens (1984) and by contributors associated with "the linguistic turn", e.g. Alvesson and Karreman (2000), who proposed that perhaps the learning process is not located primarily in action but rather in language. The methodology used for the study reflected the focus on the team's talk-in-interaction---conversation analysis and content analysis were used to analyse the data.; The study found that the team's learning process was heavily influenced by new information coming from outside the team and processed by the team in a manner highly consistent with Schwandt's (1995) Dynamic Model of Organizational Learning. The centrality of action/reflection in learning was strongly supported by the findings on the team learning process in terms of Schwandt's (1995) model. The study also found that certain conversation analytic features of talk-in-interaction were associated with incidences of significant team learning vis-a-vis incidences of more routine passages of team interaction. The study established that there is a structurational relationship (Giddens, 1984) between team talk-in-interaction and team learning actions, thereby opening up the possibility of improving team learning and performance through interventions in the language area that would impact the arena of action through the structurational process.; This study highlights the potential value of a discursive approach to exploring collective learning. Learning is not always easy to see and can often only be assessed retrospectively. A discursive approach offers potential for ongoing assessment of performance and learning so that enhancing adjustments can be made in a timely manner to foster the action/reflection process that the study showed to be at the heart of team learning.