ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly outlines an introduction to transnational learning based on Nonaka and Takeuchi’s model and theory of organizational learning (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995), which is described more in detail at the end of this chapter and by Mariussen and Virkkala in Chapter 4. In applying this model to trans-national learning, we put it into a new context. As pointed out by Giddens, societies are integrated through stocks of shared knowledge. Transnational learning, accordingly, must be seen in relation to the shared knowledge of societies which have their own states (often referred to as nation states, countries or empires). These national societies are formed and develop in a transnational context. During the formation of states in Europe, this context consisted of disintegrating empires, and battlefields soaked with blood. The societal forms which today surround nation states are most certainly made up of dynamic processes, often referred to as globalization, but they also include somewhat stabilizing structuring elements, such as transnational communities and institutions, often referred to as ‘global societies’.
