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Aims to identify the reasons for the development of work based learning (WBL) in Higher Education, its relationship to government policy, and its impact on and perception by university managers, lecturers and academic‐related staff. Discussion of government policy and the factors influencing WBL development in Higher Education (HE) is contextualised by a case study of Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). In seeking to ascertain if governmental policy is reflected in policy and practice at GCU, strategic managers’ perceptions of the influences on them in developing WBL and the role of supra‐institutional agencies in supporting WBL development were identified. The quality of institutional and supra‐institutional support in this area of curriculum development, as perceived by academic staff, was also explored. The paper concludes that congruence between government policy impetus, supra‐agency approaches, HEI strategies and institutional practice is questionable, and that there is a need for further research into the relationships between these.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of learning from participation in a group of work‐based learners.

This study relies on qualitative data obtained from a survey of perspectives of students on two work‐based learning programmes. A group of 16 undergraduate and seven postgraduate students participated in a focus group and a number of one‐to‐one interviews.

It was found that work‐based learners learn effectively from both their community of practice in the workplace and their learning group of work‐based learners within the university. The study suggests that a learning group experience is valued highly by work‐based students and that dialogue with other students in the learning group appears to make a significant contribution to enhancing their knowledge.

The findings have implications for the design of work‐based learning programmes. The approach which integrates learning from the students' workplace community of practice and learning from the learning group at the university appears to be most effective.

The paper discusses the relationship between the nature of work‐based learning and the structure and pedagogy underlying such learning. Whilst the paper recognises that there are benefits to the individualised approach to work‐based learning, it nevertheless argues for more focus on the social aspect of learning, and emphasises the role of interaction with other learners in the learning group.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce a systemic approach to organizational learning “triple loop learning” (TLL) that addresses processes of power. Three equally important foci in our TLL are processes of design, processes of debate and processes of power. The focus on power aims to shift “power over” (power as domination) to “power to” enact empowering designs, “power to” co-develop responsible decision-making and “power to” transform our relations with each other and with life on Earth.

The organizational learning literature is reviewed in the context of power dynamics and its shortcomings are highlighted. The authors introduce their understanding of TLL, and how it engages with power dynamics in organizations.

Peter Senge’s conceptualization of systems thinking is unable to recognize processes of power in organizations and offers limited support to transformative learning. Conceptualizations of TLL aim to enhance learning in organizations but none satisfactorily address the processes of power. The learning organization literature as a whole does not satisfactorily address processes of power or reflect our way of envisaging “looping between loops of learning” in TLL to better design, better debate and better develop relationality in the social fabric of organizations.

The authors introduce an original approach to TLL that directly addresses the processes of power in organizations. It offers researchers, learning facilitators and practitioners of the learning organization a way to engage with the processes of power without neglecting other important organizational and environmental issues.

Through the use of critical hermeneutics, the chapter provides a deep analysis and offers clues as to how management, through the power of communication, can contribute to producing and reproducing embedded gender-based assumptions and values through organizational culture, which can both enable and constrain organizational members. It examines gender discrimination as it relates to employment equity in a well-known airline. We show how an organizational culture, supported by society and communicated through language, can impede progress within an organization through the power of language, and highlight a number of clues as to the processes of gender discrimination at work.

This article explores the symbolic aspects of change agency on a learning platform designed to facilitate system-wide transformation in cancer care. A sensemaking–sensegiving perspective is adopted to analyze the construction of meaning in interaction between the leader of a regional cancer center, senior physicians, and an action research team in relation to patient-centered care. The analysis suggests that the physicians, as change agents, made sense of the vision from three quite distinct discourses in relation to the development effort. We argue that although meanings reconstructed in development initiatives may well be far from shared, this by no means implies that they are dysfunctional.

This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment used in Wren’s (and later Wren and Bedeian’s) 50-year encyclical on the history of management thought, namely, The Evolution of Management Thought (EMT).

The authors propose that management histories operate as powerful narratives that shape our understanding of management thought and, consequently, our disciplinary futures. This paper explores the textual narrative of EMT. Additional data are drawn from other scholars’ observations of this text. This paper is positioned in the debates of management history.

While acknowledging the wealth of historical facts in EMT, the authors argue that the umbrella narrative orders events of the past in such a manner that the historical knowledge follows a form of Darwinian evolutionism. Thus, the narrative leads to problematic representations suffering from progressivism, presentism and universalism.

Disciplinary scholars in management and organization studies need to carefully reflect on how we construct our representations of the past and histories. This will allow us to better craft transparent and reflexive histories.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a remedy, albeit a partial remedy, which we believe is needed to avoid adverse epistemological consequences associated with the use of problematic narratives in management and organizational histories.