Conflicts under Change Laboratory Mediation: An Expansive Learning

Abstract This qualitative study analyzes, through Change Laboratory (CL) interventionist methodology, how conflicts emerge in work activity in the waste management of a teaching hospital. We discuss the theoretical assumptions of expansive learning in light of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT): the type of learning desired in a CL intervention, the conflicts that can occur from such organizational experience, understanding the conflict construct from a plural epistemological perspective. The research was conducted through documental analysis of film records of twelve CL sessions, in which twenty workers from different hierarchical positions participated. Analysis of the sessions raised eight different types of conflict manifestations that can potentially amplify the comprehension of waste management in the organization analyzed. Such conflicts, although reflected in situations of the present, were connected to historical contradictions that passed throughout the waste management at the teaching hospital. The practical result is the consideration that when conflict emerges in organizational practices, it can historically and transversally reflect activity, which signals the complexity that permeates management and organizational practices.