Forgetting to learn and learning to forget: the call for organizational unlearning

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a foundation for human resource development (HRD) scholars in attempts to devise mechanisms for establishing and facilitating actionable pathways through which unlearning can be acknowledged and serve as a contributing agent for HRD interventions. This paper concludes with a call to action for our HRD colleagues to join us in further examination of unlearning interventions within the organizational context.Design/methodology/approachThis paper narratively details the literature associated with the myriad social science domains that have investigated the unlearning process. Additionally, a cross-disciplinary literature review provides the basis for an operational definition of unlearning provided herein.FindingsThe field of HRD is devoted to creating learning organizations as well as utilizing change initiatives to develop organizations. However, unlearning has been largely ignored within the field of HRD.Originality/valueThe first contribution is by answering the call of scholars across varied disciplines to further investigate unlearning within the organizational context (Bettis and Prahalad, 1995; Hedberg, 1981; Nystrom and Starbuck, 1984). Additionally, this paper seeks to specifically address the role that unlearning holds within the field of HRD as it builds upon the definition provided by Wang et al. (2017) and offers its own operational definition. Finally, this paper provides the only known review of cross-disciplinary research pertaining to unlearning.