Purpose: This study aims to describe and evaluate the impact of a participatory age-management intervention on the knowledge, awareness and engagement of line managers and their HR partners from six health-care organizations in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach: The learning workshops consisted of lectures, discussions, feedback and exchange of…

Purpose: This study focuses on a transformation effort in a social welfare department of a Swedish municipality where continuous improvement, which is a Lean principle, was introduced in employees' everyday work via a workplace development programme (WPDP). The aim of this paper is to explore the conditions (internal and external) that enabled or…

Purpose: The study aims to investigate whether participation to massive open online courses (MOOCs) may lead to labor market returns and through which mechanisms such relative advantage may take place. Indeed, despite high figures of registered users, empirical studies on occupational returns are limited and MOOCs may represent a viable,…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and informal workplace learning. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a sample of 381 employees working as heads of the department of branches in private commercial banks of Bangladesh. Hypotheses were tested by using structural…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the impact of organizational learning culture and learning facilitators in group learning. Design/methodology/approach: This study was conducted using a survey method applied to a statistically representative sample of employees from Rioja wine companies in Spain. A model was tested using a structural equation…

Purpose: This paper seeks to consider employees' perceptions of engagement from their lived experiences of UK employees following the global credit crisis, post 2008. It draws from the prior studies of Hassard et al. (2009), which researched work practices in the period preceding the study. Design/methodology/approach: The research utilised focus…

Purpose: Disparities in learning opportunities endure. This paper aims to investigate whether the learning representative schemes in the UK and New Zealand (NZ) may redress disparate opportunities for learning. Design/methodology/approach: An interview study of UK trade unions' educational officers and an interview study of representatives of…

Purpose: The notion of communities of practice (CoP) has received great attention in educational and organisational practice and research. Although the concept originally refers to collaborative practices that emerge naturally, educational and HRD practitioners are increasingly searching for ways to create these practices intentionally in order to…

Purpose: Within the context of policies on developing the workforce of the government health sector in England, this paper aims to investigate participation in work-related continuing education and training (WRCET), its pedagogy and effectiveness. Individual and organizational characteristics associated with effective WRCET are examined.…

Purpose: This study is intended to investigate the current status of corporate universities in China. It aims to explore the processes and practices of corporate universities in China, and discover the issues and challenges involved in building and running a corporate university in China. Design/methodology/approach: The heads of 11 well-known…

Purpose: This paper seeks to examine workplace learning strategies, learning facilitators and learning barriers of public accountants in Canada across three professional levels--trainees, managers, and partners. Design/methodology/approach: Volunteer participants from public accounting firms in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick completed a demographic…

Purpose: To redefine contemporary HRD through a discussion of its conceptual development from "training and development" to a holistic "orchestra". Design/methodology/approach: HRD is often defined as being merely the training and development aspect of human resource management and this form of definition is commonly associated…

A participant-observation study in a South African mining company that used self directed work team training identified organizational constraints that hindered training effectiveness: lack of materials, machinery breakdown, decentralized budget, and imposed standards. Miners more often used improvisation and initiative to solve daily problems,…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore approaches to learning in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: Computer based questionnaires are used with a sample of over 300 employees. Findings: Using a version of the Revised Approaches to Study Inventory (RASI) adapted to workforce development, the factor structure of deep, surface and…

This comparative study explored differences in perceptions between Canadian and US post secondary faculty in the fields of adult education (AdEd) and human resource development (HRD) on program development issues in the emerging field of "workplace learning." In fall of 2001, The Adult Education and Human Resource Development Faculty…