The current context of organizational change aims at dealing with the complexity of external and internal organizational environments. Both organizational learning and knowledge management deal with the challenges of the knowledge economy of the information age. The need to question our own assumptions through double-loop learning processes, as well as the need to perform reflective practices, are commonly understood as isolated individual 'inner' activities which occur in someone's mind. The Semiotic Learning Framework develops an alternative perspective to current cognitivist oriented standings which stresses the fundamental social and practical nature of all learning processes. Social semiotics and Bakhtin's social theory of discourse and of social subjectivity enable innovative approaches to organizational learning design. The full potential of Continuing Professional Education and of Vocational Education and Training need solid epistemic foundations which cannot be reduced to mere subject-object, cause-effect, linear conceptual approaches. The critical tension between formal and informal learning processes must be explored in a way that widens the horizons of opportunities of both perspectives.

The Semiotic Learning Framework consists of an organizational learning tool which introduces key theoretical approaches through an action-based and action-driven agenda and learning design. Organizational learning cannot be independent of social change, and of a change in mind-sets and common mentalities. Instead of conceptualizing organizations as interacting individuals, the focus on interdependent practices enables a breakthrough conceptualization of learning which informs and directs new and innovative practices. Innovation is a central issue in competitive global markets. Promoting innovation and facilitating learning are crucial elements of the organizational development process. Instead of focusing on the limiting notion that "knowledge is in people's heads" and in efforts to turn implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge, the Semiotic Learning Framework interprets innovation as the fundamental human drive to create and to explore, and promotes the conditions-of-possibility for learning and innovation to occur. This framework thus represents a foundational conceptual alternative able to support, sustain, direct and inform innovative forms of learning design. Organizational learning and Continuing Vocational Training may be understood as two sides of the same coin and both need, within each context-specific setting, common collective assumptions and shared meanings which may enable an integration of efforts towards a common range of goals and of compromises.

By using social theories which integrate the inner and outer world of individuals, as well as the internal and external reality of organizations, the Semiotic Learning Framework is a powerful tool for the promotion and integration of vocational as well as organizational learning processes. Innovation itself critically depends on this fit between professional and personal development, and organizational development.