Mimesis

Abstract

This article proposes that human resource development (HRD) practitioners need to reconsider the potential of workers’ learning through every activities and interactions at work. It holds that the majority of learning across working lives likely occurs outside of being mentored, taught, or guided through training programs by others (e.g., teachers or experienced coworkers etc.) and their predetermined intentions for what is to be learnt. Yet, many, and perhaps most, explanatory and procedural accounts emphasize these kinds of intentional interventions by others (e.g., educational and training programs), more than workers’ actions as learners in and through their everyday work activities and interactions. Therefore, it seems important for HRD that these everyday learning processes be understood more fully. Here, an account is advanced of how workers’ learning through everyday work activities and interactions, both remote from and when engaged with others, arises through mimetic processes (i.e., observation, imitation, and action).