Despite the growing interest of business executives, there is limited academic research on the contributions of virtual worlds to learning in organizations. We address this limitation by using a recently developed typology of virtual world capabilities to investigate the potential contributions of virtual worlds to learning in organizations.…

This integrative literature review synthesizes the concepts and process of organizational knowledge creation with theories of individual learning. The knowledge conversion concept (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, Toyama, & Byosiere, 2001) is used as the basis of the organizational knowledge creation process, while major learning theories relevant…

When organizations employ professionals it is critical to comprehend the nature of professional identity as it relates to learning in the workplace. These findings indicate ways that professional identity influences workplace learning behavior in doctors of veterinary medicine. Using grounded theory, ethnographic investigation and analysis…

Purpose: Establishes a connection between the concepts of "learning organisation" and "human resources development". Design/methodology/approach: A brief and broad overview of the current state of human research development research. Findings: One conclusion to be reached is that the subject is healthy. Another conclusion is that human resource…

Purpose: This paper seeks to present organizational learning processes of knowledge accumulation, articulation, codification and subsequent routine development in a marketing services organization where judgment and rules of thumb were more the norm than codified knowledge and explicit routines. The case illustrates how organizational learning…

Postmodern organizations are driven by a new set of expectations. Organizational development increasingly involves interventions based on human resource development and learning organizations. Line managers are expected to be change agents who are aware of the external environment and know how to realign internal characteristics to adjust to…

With knowledge management as the strategic intent and learning to learn as the strategic weapon, the current management focus is on how to leverage knowledge faster and better than competitors. Research demonstrates that it is the cultural mindset of the people in the organisation that primarily defines success in knowledge intensive…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore if reflective inquiry and action learning have an influence on job and organizational effectiveness. A reflective-action learning framework will be used as a prior theory to illustrate its link to organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: The case organization is a Singapore higher learning…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on integrating learning and performance in human resource development (HRD). "Action Imperatives that Impact Knowledge Performance and Financial Performance in the Learning Organization: An Exploratory Model" (Gary L. Selden, Karen E. Watkins, Thomas Valentine, Victoria J. Marsick)…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of learning in a project-driven organization and demonstrate analytically how the learning, which takes place during the execution of successive projects, and the forgetting that takes place during the dormant time between the project executions, can impact performance and productivity in…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on assessing the learning organization. "Measuring Organizational Learning: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of an Organization Survey" (Jamie Callahan Fabian, Ralph O. Mueller, Dail L. Fields) compares two models for measuring four constructs inherent to Schwandt's model of…

Purpose: The environment provided by an organisation to facilitate learning and create knowledge has been defined as the shared organisational context. The value to an organisation of knowledge created by the shared organisational context is called intellectual capital, of which one key component is relational capital. The purpose of this paper is…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on organization development and change. "The Effectiveness of Total Quality Management: A Response to the Critics" (Douglas H. Smith, Ralph G. Lewis) identifies four effectiveness principles: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, speaking with facts, and respect for people. "Fast Cycle…

The book describes what must happen within an organization, both to its framework and its operations and to its instructional-learning process, if the organization and its employees are going to learn and adapt to their work tasks and roles. The major finding was that productive results occur primarily when training and learning are integrated…

Three presentations are provided from Symposium 17, Transformative Learning, of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD) 2000 Conference Proceedings. "Leadership Development as Transformative Pedagogy" (Olga V. Kritskaya, John M. Dirkx) examines the nature of transformative instructional environments, focusing specifically on the…