Perceiving the organisation through a coding scheme

Abstract

In contemporary organisations, managerial expertise is increasingly viewed as an ability to reflect on activities, processes and human relations within organisational life in order to gain a systemic understanding of the workings of the organisation. This article examines the interactional practices of a consultant-led management training where steering groups of an organisation have a task of gaining such expertise. The article investigates how managerial expertise is constructed and negotiated in training interaction as the groups categorise their managerial actions through a specific coding scheme. The analysis shows that the use of the coding scheme is contingent on being able to display access to organisational processes and activities, connecting general managerial knowledge to specific, local knowledge of the organisation and moving from ‘knowing-that’ to ‘knowing-how’ type of knowledge.