Feedback from companies forming a community of practice in Tasmania, Australia, is that there is a need for a framework for self-directed action learning within each organisation as well as across the action learning community. Senior management report that there is a 'falling away' after a facilitated action learning intervention concludes and,…

This paper explores the learning and experience of Western action learning facilitators engaged in developing Chinese facilitators of action learning, all of whom were also managers, as part of a qualification programme based in China. The Western facilitators interviewed for this study had been specifically asked by their hosts to deliver a…

The authors review the Organisational Development and Design (OD&D) capability building programmes they have facilitated in the UK Civil Service and consider the learning and impact which they have had at an individual and organisational level. These programmes have been delivered to over 350 professional civil servants across a broad range of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw on empirical data to interrogate the correlation between participation in leadership development programmes by individual leaders and the ability of higher education institutions to learn organisationally from such participation. Design/methodology/approach: Applying a multi-stakeholder perspective,…

Decades of research by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) around the world have concluded that the two most powerful ways to grow and mature as a leader are by way of taking on challenging assignments, and by developing powerful relationships. With India being one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, Indian CXOs have to…

This paper describes an action learning programme with China Unicom Broadband Limited (CUBO) to support its vision of transforming to become a world-leading broadband communications and information service provider. 64 Department directors and supervisors were invited to take part in the "China Unicom Broadband Online Phoenix Action Learning…

This is an account of practice. It explores the meeting point between action learning and action research, as a way of doing capacity building in organisational development (OD) in the NHS in the UK. The authors were part of a short cooperative inquiry (Heron, J. 1996. "Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition." London:…

In the UK, the Civil Service Reform Plan is being implemented with urgency. This requires Civil Service departments and agencies to reform their structures and ways of working in order to deliver effective services in a climate of economic austerity and rapid social and technological change. Historically, Human Resource (HR) professionals have…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to assess the extent to which these practitioners ' perspectives and practices match Willis's conception of a Revans "gold standard" of action learning. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a qualitative design and methodology based on interviews and the collection of cases or accounts of…

This exploration of principal learning mechanisms (PLM) to support a learning-centered school aimed to develop, field-test, and validate a PLM-measuring instrument. Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of items to examine factorial validity, the developed scale was correlated with other work-related established constructs (e.g.,…

Leadership forms a key component of the curriculum of most Master of Public Administration and other public management programmes, usually doing so on the basis of assumptions that leadership is (a) both a subject and a responsibility that all such students might expect to embrace in the course of their careers; and (b) in some respects at least,…

Based in a French context, this research investigates the link between the French cooperative education (co-op) system and students' organizational commitment. Following a quasi-experimental design with a control group, in a longitudinal approach, the study focuses on under-baccalaureate, undergraduate and graduate students. Results show that in…

How can action learning be used as part of an overall approach to changing the culture of an organisation? This article describes some of the work being done by managers in South Cambridgeshire district to build a more empowered and engaged organisation following the appointment of a new chief executive tasked with raising standards in an…

Action learning is often used as an element of leadership development programmes. The intention is to support classroom learning with an experiential thread which runs throughout the life of the programme. Action Learning Associates (ALA) has been working with an international organisation for three years to deliver the global "First Line…

Despite considerable commitment to the application of action learning as leadership and organization development by a large number of Korean organizations, few identified empirical studies of action learning practices have been reported. The purpose of this study was to conduct case studies of South Korean action learning practices to examine…