Purpose: This paper aims to draw on data from a study of professionals' experiences of work and learning framed by a complex adaptive systems approach to examine the nexus of work and learning in complex adaptive organisations. Design/methodology/approach: The study used an adapted phenomenographic approach and the complex adaptive systems…

Purpose: This study aims to reflect on "good practices" in doctoral research supervision and transfer the author's experience to other academics. The author explains the sources of his approach to doctoral research supervision drawing on traditional practice in adult learning and some reference to phenomenology as a "meeting of…

Purpose: This study uses a holistic approach to learning at work to examine the role of reflection in the formal-informal learning interaction. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the reflection on a formal training affects the subsequent informal learning activities. This study also aims to provide insights into the effects of…

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the "Journal of Workplace Learning" (JWL), focusing on articles between 1997 and 2020. Specifically, this study will examine articles in JWL, themes in JWL and the influence of JWL. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts bibliometric analysis methods, with indicators such as total articles,…

Purpose: The professional development needs of university professional staff are an under-researched area. More data were needed to understand their needs to ensure that employers invest their resources appropriately. A conceptual framework is developed for the workplace learning of career development activities using concepts of professional…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how workers experience planned and unplanned change(s), how the effects of change endure in organizations and the entanglement (Gherardi, 2015) of materiality, affect and learning. Design/methodology/approach: Research design is ethnographic in nature and draws from 30 semi-structured interviews of…

Purpose: This paper aims to introduce, explain and illustrate the concept of "sites of emergent learning" (SEL), which pinpoints particular instances of learning in everyday practice. This concept is located within contemporary practice-oriented and sociomaterial approaches to understanding workplace learning.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical study of how professionals experience work and learning in complex adaptive organisations. The study uses a complex adaptive systems approach, which forms the basis of a specifically developed conceptual framework for explaining professionals' experiences of work and learning.…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide an account of learning and change in the redesign of a primary health-care initiative in a large metropolitan city in Australia. Design/Methodology/ Approach: The paper is based on research exploring the place and role of learning in the re-making of health professional practices in a major New South Wales…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how opportunities for learning clinical skills are negotiated within bedside teaching encounters (BTEs). Bedside teaching, within the medical workplace, is considered essential for helping students develop their clinical skills. Design/methodology/approach: An audio and/or video observational study examining…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities for expansive learning during organisational change. It considers the introduction of "lean production" as a disturbance to the existing work practices. Design/methodology/approach: The paper considers two case studies of "lean production" training with…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the factors that employees perceived were important in creating a supportive learning environment in a recently merged organisation. The study provides rich qualitative data from the employees' perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This case study used a qualitative phenomenological constructivist…

Purpose: This conceptual paper aims to argue that times, spaces, bodies and things constitute four essential dimensions of workplace learning. It examines how practices relate or hang together, taking Gherardi's texture of practices or connectedness in action as the foundation for making visible essential but often overlooked dimensions of…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact that employees and board members of an organization believe the art in their workplace has on their experience at work and identify the exhibition's features salient to their experience of the art. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 affiliates of an…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate workplace learning in the context of the rail industry, specifically for the type of learning required to become a train driver. It examines the impact of changes to the traditional learning model, and explores the potential of mentoring in the learning/training model.…