To this date, research on the interplay between organisational structure/managerial and organisational value/psychological elements which impact on educational quality is scarce and fragmented. As a consequence of a lack of knowledge in this area, institutions often address these elements in isolation, moving past integral approaches, which…

Within the unique and complex settings of university hospitals, it is difficult to implement policy initiatives aimed at developing careers in and improving the quality of academic medical teaching because of the competing domains of medical research and patient care. Factors that influence faculty in making use of teaching policy incentives have…

Academic career paths in Europe are heterogeneous, and the chances for early career researchers to become a permanent member of the academic profession differ from country to country. In some countries, the employment prospects are very insecure. It is asked whether contract conditions at universities influence the chance of taking over a mature…

In this paper, staff members' perceptions about the organisational culture are measured. The questions addressed are: what are their opinions about the current and preferred organisational culture? Are there differences between the current and preferred situation? Do the perceptions differ per department? The Organisational Culture Assessment…

All executives strive for better results in their organisations and they are always dependent on others to achieve these results. This article is concerned with the ways in which these better results might be achieved and the role senior management might play in this process. The traditional view is that senior executives design and control the…

The last decade identity is often and very fruitfully conceptualized as "narrative identity." Neither for individuals nor for groups is identity a given beforehand anymore. On the contrary, identity has to be constructed in an inductive way continuously. Three qualitative research methods are applied to explore in an inductive way the…

This paper reports on a case study investigating learning outcomes at the individual and organisational level of a cross-institutional innovation project based on the SOAP approach. SOAP integrates "S"chooling of teachers, "O"rganisational development of schools, "A"ction- and development-oriented research, and…

Dutch human-resources professionals (n=161) identified trends affecting the future of human-resource development. Compared to a U.S. study by the American Society for Training and Development, Dutch professionals rated the following most important: integration of learning and work, importance of organizational innovation, and measurement of…

While much of the literature on action learning focuses on managers developing their capacity to learn and transform their own organizations, this article explores how action learning has been used in inter-organisational settings. Two settings are presented: the first an EU-funded management development programme called the National Action…

Dutch university faculty and administrator participation in a complex organizational and management development system is described, and the use of management courses for administrator training is discussed with reference to three possible training program models. (MSE)

Creating competence has become a major issue in organizations. Various authors contend that competency management has the potential of integrating organizational strategy, human-resource instruments, and human-resource development; that competency development can lead to performance improvement; and that it can help Human Resource Development…

The International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) promotes the wellbeing of children growing up in difficult circumstances. ICDI works to improve policies and practices affecting these children by doing research and training. ICDI believes in the power of children and young people, supporting the realisation of their rights and addressing the…

Universities and corporate training centers are under pressure to offer increasingly flexible, as well as individually relevant, learning. Instead of trying to develop a stream of Web-based courses to run parallel to "business as usual" courses, a department can focus on gradually building a knowledge base in which key resources from…

Three articles in this special issue explore the people/school organization interrelationship in England, Canada, and the Netherlands. Two articles discuss learning organizations' change capacity. A third article examines tensions occurring when people/organization interactions clash with desired outcomes. Chaos theory and improvement programs are…

Publications in the fields of educational science, organization theory, and project management were analyzed to identify the possibilities that modularization offers to institutions of higher professional education and to obtain background information for use in developing a method for modularization in higher professional education. It was…