Research Paradigms in Organizational Learning and Performance: Competing Modes of Inquiry

The debate over whether a dominant paradigm is appropriate for the rapidly evolving organizational learning (OL) research has resulted in significant discord among researchers in the field. This critical issue paper compares and contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of three widely used research paradigms in OL research: positivism, interpretivism, and critical science. It argues that in many cases, the taxonomy of positivistic research should be employed as the central methodological framework in investigating organizational learning and subsequent performance issues while valuing contributions made by the other two approaches to OL research.