Investigating the Competing Values of Digitalizing Organizational Learning: An Action Research Ethnography

Digitalizing organizational learning inherently has cultural values that may be competing. To better understand these competing values, I report an action research study of a higher learning institution’s development of a Digital Portal to their organizational learning initiative of Reflective Practice-based Learning. I use Cameron and Quinn’s (2006) questionnaire, a Competing Values assessment instrument designed to access competing values in organizational culture related to the dimensions of an internal versus external focus and flexibility versus stability. However, I adjust the instrument through ethnographic sensitivity, making it useful to the organization’s technical development of a Digital Portal. As an ethnographer and action researcher, I braid problem-solving and research experiences by adjusting and using this assessment instrument. The paper presents an ethnography of this braiding with an impressionist tale of how competing values can inform action research in digitalizing organizational learning. Finally, the contribution of using ethnographic sensitivity to question questionnaires and establish symbolic artifacts when digitalizing for individual and organizational learning is discussed and related to previous research.