This paper addresses three challenges facing action learning -- the implications of its historical roots for the present; the encounter of action learning within different cultures and a tension within action learning itself. It concludes that deeper understanding of all three is necessary for action learning's continuing development.

This account explores the experience of an action inquiry approach to develop a coaching culture within a public service organisation. We position action inquiry as a fresh interpretation of action learning that draws on a variety of roots and traditions and focuses on the nurturing of the collective capacity to lead through everyday interactions.…

This paper provides a thematic analysis of research papers published in Action Learning: Research and Practice over the past 20 years. The analysis concentrates on the different contexts in which action learning has taken place and on the variations of action learning that have been presented in different papers. Contexts discussed in this paper…

In 2015, the United Nations' (UN's) Sustainable Development Summit adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to transform the world by 2030 through solving urgent social issues, including: poverty, hunger, health and well-being, gender equality, and climate action. We used the UN's SDGs as an analytical framework to review the literature on…

This paper provides a review of the use of action learning in healthcare organisations, or by healthcare professionals, in the past decade, as evidenced in peer-reviewed journals. Action learning has a long history in healthcare and is perhaps particularly suited to an environment where wicked problems abound, where professional development is…

This paper focuses on a two-year program with a Norwegian public sector project-based construction company, where action learning groups and critical incident technique were combined to enhance organizational learning. Project-based organizations typically face difficulties of 'project amnesia', as they fail to integrate learning from experience…

Police forces in England and Wales have faced ongoing difficulties of engagement with minority communities leading to a loss of confidence and trust in policing. The paper reports on the results of a project to improve relations with communities with Humberside Police, UK by implementing key ideas relating to procedural justice that consider how…

This study applies an action learning research (ALR) methodology to develop and implement an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) for learning and assessment in clinical placements of undergraduate nursing students for the first time in Morocco. Alpha, beta, and gamma systems of ALR were adopted. Twenty-two action learning groups (ALG) was…

The educational benefits of challenge- or problem-based approaches to learning are now well established. Action Research (AR) and Action Learning (AL) together provide educators with an ethic, a research methodology and a pedagogical strategy for harnessing and developing the motive power of purposeful activity for reflective enquiry in teaching…

To contribute to current debate concerning approaches to teaching and learning for researching complex work-based problems, we focus on the Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) programme. We examine the development of an integrated action learning approach as part of a part-time DBA offered by a university in the UK. In adopting the lens of…

This article explores how P (programmed learning) in Revans' formula L=P + Q accumulates from one action learning research initiative to another. Drawing on three inter-organizational action learning research initiatives, it shows how the L (learning) from conducting action learning in an initiative in one network built new P on network action…