PAPEREALITY AND LEARNING IN BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONS

This article argues that organizations create, maintain, and live by ' 'papereality,'' defined as a world of symbols; a particular form of re presentation that rakes precedence over the things and events represen ted. If so, what is written down as official can be an important guide to and constraint on behavior in organizations. This article explores in particular the significance that papereality may have on organizat ional learning. Its main hypothesis is that in bureaucratic organizati ons, the presumption of knowledge, the power of distrust, the heavy re liance on official records and procedures, and the predominance of rou tine all seem to cushion papereality from other forms of representatio n and thus inhibit forgetting and learning.