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The purpose of this paper is to explore managers’ learning-oriented leadership, and what conditions managers face when working with the promotion of employees’ learning.

Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with managers in three manufacturing firms. Verbatim expressions of the interview participants were analysed using stepwise analytical procedures.

The managers used many kinds of activities to promote learning. Most common were activities related to learning opportunities that arose during daily work. The identified activities ranged from being planned to occurring more spontaneously. Depending on the situation or the learning activity, the managers used different behaviours to promote learning. They supported, educated and confronted employees, and they acted as role models. Factors constraining the implementation of learning-oriented leadership included limited resources, and a lack of commitment from top management, employees or the managers themselves.

Future research should study learning-oriented leadership from the employees’ perspective.

Managers’ notions about learning and development constitute an important condition for learning-oriented leadership. Therefore, managers need to be trained in how to promote their employees’ learning at work.

This study adds to the limited knowledge of how managers carry out a learning-oriented leadership in their daily work. The findings contribute knowledge regarding managerial practices of promoting employees’ workplace learning by identifying different activities and behaviours that managers could incorporate into their leadership.

This invited article explores current developments in supply chain risk management (SCRM) practices by revisiting the classical case of Ericsson (Norrman and Jansson, 2004) after 15 years, and updating its case description and analysis of its organizational structure, processes and tools for SCRM.

An exploratory case study is conducted with a longitudinal focus, aiming to understand both proactive and reactive SCRM practices using a holistic perspective of a real-life example.

The study demonstrates how Ericsson's SCRM practices have developed, indicating that improved functional capabilities are increasingly combined across silos and leveraged by formalized learning processes. Important enablers are IT capabilities, a fine-grained and cross-functional organization, and a focus on monitoring and compliance. Major developments in SCRM are often triggered by incidents, but also by requirements from external stakeholders and new corporate leaders actively focusing on SCRM and related activities.

Relevant areas for future research are proposed, thereby increasing the knowledge of how companies can develop SCRM practices and capabilities further.

Being one of few in-depth holistic case studies of SCRM, decision-makers can learn about many practices and tools. Of special interest is the detailed description of how Ericsson reactively responded to the Fukushima incident (2011), and how it proactively engaged in monitoring and assessment activities. It is also exemplified how SCRM practices could continuously be developed to make them “stick” to the organization, even in stable times.

This is one of the first case studies to delve deeper into the development of SCRM practices through taking a longitudinal approach.