Research Summary
Research Summary
Overview
Description
Professor Myers studies the ways people learn from their own—and others’—experiences at work, with a particular emphasis on learning in health care organizations and emergency medical contexts. Though his interest is in individual-level learning, he focuses in particular on how this learning is influenced by interpersonal relationships and interactions in organizations. Individual learning in today’s organizations often occurs in concert with others and via interdependent work experiences—but learning is still often thought of as something that people do by themselves.
In contrast to this “lone learner” assumption, Professor Myers’s research aims to unpack the more dyadic and social mechanisms of learning. This research inherently crosses literatures and levels of analysis, examining not only interpersonal learning interactions, but also the characteristics individuals bring to these interactions (such as their specialized backgrounds and motives for learning) and the emergent structures (such as collective norms and shared practices) in which the interactions are embedded. Professor Myers utilizes a variety of methods—including field surveys and interventions, qualitative interviews and observational methods, laboratory experiments, and social network analysis—often incorporating multiple approaches to “triangulate” an understanding of the mechanisms underlying individual learning in organizations.
Keywords
Learning And Development; Learning Organizations; Learning By Doing; Health Care Industry; Innovation; Identity Construction; Medical Error; Knowledge Development; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Work; Learning; Leadership Development; Knowledge Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; United States; Singapore; Asia