Living the dream? Understanding partnering as emergent practice

The 'practice turn' in organizational studies has recently emerged as an important set of perspectives which has implications for understanding processes of knowing and learning within and between organizations. Consisting of a range of different approaches, it emphasizes the situated nature of knowing and learning in practice and offers an alternative to understanding human action that transcends the dualism of structure and agency effects on action. The ontological and epistemological underpinnings of a practice-based approach are explored before attention is directed towards assessing the implications for understanding the knowledge, learning and change in project-based organizations associated with the emergence of partnering. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.