Purpose: The concept of a mental model has been described by theorists from diverse disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to offer a robust definition of an individual mental model for use in organisational management. Design/methodology/approach: The approach adopted involves an interdisciplinary literature review of disciplines, including…

Purpose: This article aims to present a unique systematic and validated method for creating a linkage between past experiences and management of future occurrences in an organization. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on actual data accumulated in a series of projects performed in a major medical center. Qualitative and quantitative…

Multiple contexts shape team activities and how they learn, and group learning is a dynamic construct that reflects a repertoire of potential behaviour. The purpose of this developmental paper is to examine how better learning behaviours in semi-autonomous teams improves the level of team adaptability and performance. The discussion suggests that…

Purpose: In an effort to better understand the political dimensions of organizational learning, this paper aims to examine learning processes in an organizational context--namely renegotiation of pay and performance management arrangements--where the interests of organizational members are threatened. Design/methodology/approach: Data were derived…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated model of action learning based on an examination of four reviewed action learning models, definitions, and espoused outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: A clear articulation of the strengths and limitations of each model was essential to developing an integrated model, which could be…

Purpose: This paper seeks to review current approaches to learning from health and safety incidents in the workplace. The aim of the paper is to identify the diversity of approaches and analyse them in terms of learning aspects. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review was conducted searching for terms incident/accident/near…

This paper reviews knowledge management in the context of a franchise business operation, with a focus on tacit knowledge barriers. In a franchise organization, the transfer of knowledge occurs on multiple levels and has an added level of complexity because of the number of partners and relationships. Tacit knowledge transfer should occur…

This research examined the link between learning processes and knowledge formation through an integrated literature review from both academic and practical viewpoints. Individuals' learning processes and organizational knowledge creation were reviewed by means of theoretical and integrative analysis based on a lack of empirical research on the…

This paper explores the relationship between organizational learning practices and the learning organization based on a literature review. A conceptual framework is provided to analyze the relationship. When organizational learning processes are fulfilled, the organization has more opportunities to approach becoming a learning organization. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a retrospective reflection over unconscious, emergent learning among employees of an organization and to suggest how to capture these moments of experiential learning for future organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: Action research in organizations is undertaken in interaction with…

This article explores issues raised in knowledge transformation processes through three separate, but related lenses. It starts with a discussion of the relationship between knowledge transformation and research outputs. In so doing, it encompasses both direct research outputs, that is research reports and papers in journals, and indirect outputs,…

The 5 year KP-Lab project funded under the FP6 of the European Commission's Programme for Research and Technological Development is about developing theories, tools, practical models, and research methods that deliberately advance the ways in which knowledge is created and which help to transform knowledge practices in education and in the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is partly to complete Earl's framework, but more importantly to seek out the limits of what can be known and what cannot be known by each of the schools in his taxonomy, by addressing the absent epistemological foundation of what is being managed in his seven schools of knowledge management.…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study the influence of five critical factors on service quality in the insurance sector. Having studied the influence of these critical factors, an attempt has been made to obtain a generic solution to enhance the quality of service by proposing a holistic framework of learning organization. As…

This article proposes that a major problem limiting an organization's ability to develop organizational learning capacity is of organizational amnesia. To understand organizational amnesia, it is necessary to look at the various ways that organizational learning is defined. Organizational learning is not merely the process of acquiring knowledge.…