Editorial

Citation

Dymock, D. (2006), "Editorial", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl.2006.08618aaa.001

Editorial

Well here we are off to a flying start in 2006! One of the additions from this year in the Journal of Workplace Learning is a regular book reviews section, and I am grateful to Associate Professor Margaret Somerville at the University of New England, Australia, for taking on the role of Book Reviews Editor. Margaret teaches and researches in the field of adult and workplace learning and she is an accomplished writer and published author. She is particularly interested in life histories and the contributions of place and self in the learning of work and other cultural practices. Her last contribution to JWL was a jointly authored paper, “Applying the learning organisation concept in a resource squeezed service organization” (Somerville and McConnell-Imbriotis, 2004). In this current issue Sue-Ellen Kjeldal reviews a publication on psychological testing at work, a little at a tangent from workplace learning, but with clear useful for human resource managers and organizational change specialists.

Not new but still welcome are the rigour of the papers presented and the international representation of the authors. In their paper Kersti Nogeste and Derek Walker draw some very useful conclusions about a KM approach that could be more generally applied to transfer of high-intensity tacit knowledge workplace training situations. Kersti is a director of the intriguingly named “Project Expertise Pty Ltd”, and Derek is Professor of Project Management, in the Faculty of Business, at RMIT University, both in Victoria, Australia.

We then head for Greece, where Dimitrios Mihail from the University of Macedonia suggests that one way of tackling the very high youth unemployment rate in that country is through university internships. And having stretched the conception of workplace learning from knowledge management to internships, we then go to Thailand where Decha Dechawatanapaisal and Sununta Siengthai from the respected Asian Institute of Technology look at how the well-known psychological construct, “psychological dissonance”, might have an influence on work-based learning.

Finally we look at a study conducted in Wales, which is co-authored by John Fazey from Bangor, with a New Zealand-based colleague, Susan A. Geertshuis. Their research took an inventory previously used to look at approaches to learning in higher education and adapted it for the workplace. We’re an innovative lot!

This time last year, the journal’s Corporate University Editor, Richard Dealtry, edited a special issue on “Exploring the dynamics of the new generation of corporate universities and enterprise academies” in which he spoke of using the lenses of a “Managerial Hubble Telescope” to “probe the galaxy of bright new learning innovations, to get first hand insights into the expanding regime of learning processes and new strategic learning relationships that are taking place around the world” (Dealty, 2005). I have borrowed that innovative metaphor to suggest that the Journal of Workplace Learning in a similar way is a lens that focuses on the stimulating range of research that is contributing to our understanding of the theory and practice of workplace learning. Good reading!

Darryl Dymock