Sustainability Perspectives in Organizational and Workplace Learning Studies

Abstract

The association between sustainability and learning in organizations and workplaces represents a current articulated grand challenge for human resource development (HRD) and learning studies and practice, which calls for integrated inquiries. However, studies of learning in organizations and workplaces deal with sustainability in scattered and diverse ways that promote calls for more integrated understandings of the different approaches and associations. This article outlines the results from a scoping thematic review mapping out leading perspectives within the research fields of HRD, organizational learning (OL) and workplace learning (WPL). This article thus explores the perspectives that have been used in approaching sustainability in OL and WPL studies. The analysis of the identified studies shows that OL and WPL research has utilized four different perspectives in the approach to sustainability associated with learning: (1) balance perspective, (2) dimensional perspective, (3) integral perspective, and (4) outcome perspective. Findings are discussed with the purpose of producing a deeper understanding of how sustainability and OL and WPL are associated. In so doing, this scoping review clarifies and deepens existing knowledge and themes, and provides potential for future practical action and theoretical advancement for HRD and learning studies.