Management of Extreme Situations

24Knowledge Transfer and Learning in Extreme Situations: The Psychologist’s Vision

24.1. Introduction

As Lièvre (2016, p. 80) points out, in an economy “that has taken the form of a knowledge-based innovation economy since the 1990s”, […] “managing an organization appears increasingly to be part of a logic of implementing an innovative, knowledge-intensive project in an evolving, uncertain and risky context”. It can, therefore, be considered that analyzing the processes of knowledge transfer and learning at the heart of these situations – often referred to as “extremes” – is crucial, particularly in the implementation of a form of organizational ambidextrous environment in which exploration plays an important role. However, in management sciences, the concepts of transfer and learning remain frequently used in the common sense and, at best, addressed with reference to information processing theories. However, as we will attempt to demonstrate by adopting a perspective rooted in developmental psychology, an approach based on activity theories can provide an alternative interpretation of the processes at play when dealing with “an evolving, uncertain and risky context”.

We will discuss the use of the notions of knowledge in order, first of all, to highlight the interest of not treating them as synonyms and to underline, moreover, the consubstantial link between knowledge and action. Then, secondly, from the point of view of developmental and learning psychology, we will discuss ...