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This paper aims to analyse student perspectives on the contribution that teaching anticipatory reflection can make to the development of their reflective practice. The project explores lived student experiences of anticipatory reflection and the value students attribute to these in helping them bridge the transfer gap between reflective learning and reflective practice.

An interpretivist approach is taken whereby student reflections on the students' experiences of practicing anticipatory reflection in a workshop setting were analysed using template analysis to understand the value attributed to these. Students were guided through a series of exercises including visualisation of future events and the nature of future practice as well as reflective writing.

Students identified multiple benefits of being taught and practising anticipatory reflection. Specifically, high levels of realism, personal relevance and engagement were reported, as well as increased confidence, self-efficacy and self-belief. In addition, the development of empathy and increases in self-awareness were common benefits of working through the process of anticipatory reflection.

In contrast to existing retrospective approaches, here the authors focus on the future, using anticipatory reflection to inform pedagogical approaches enabling students to experience anticipatory reflection in a classroom setting. The positive value attributed to experiencing anticipatory reflection suggests that the temporal focus in teaching reflection should evolve to incorporate prospective approaches which have a valuable role to play in bridging existing transfer gaps between reflective learning and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of theorising and practice. The question to consider is: How can FFL become a new feature of HRD? A key part of the authors’ argument is that the inclusion of FFL will enable HRD to add to the success of any organisation and make a vital contribution to the management of people at work.

This paper firstly considers some of the debates surrounding the meaning of HRD. The authors suggest that instability of the time serves to disturb any comforts that have been created in HRD and that there is a need to consider how there might be different futures for what we still call HRD in research, practice and praxis. This paper then considers how FFL might become one possibility for expanding the existing boundaries of HRD. The authors characterise futures and foresight as a learning process, which provides new but complementary features to what is already considered as HRD. This paper will show how FFL can lead to organisation's success and the way this can be achieved.

There is a wide variety of meanings of the term HRD; however, HRD is still cast as a “weakened profession” which has to play a subservient role to others in the workplace. Over the last 15 years, the expansion of the meaning of HRD has been seen as evidence of its evolving and emerging nature and development based on a co-creation with other disciplines. This creates a space for FFL, defined as an ongoing learning process to find predictable, probable, possible and/or a variety of long-term futures. FFL embraces three key processes of scanning, futuring and reconfiguring, all of which contain a high potential for participants and others to learn as they proceed, providing outcomes at each stage. FFL has been shown to enhance organisation performance and success and HRD interventions can play a key part in implementation. This represents a significant opportunity for the HRD profession to move from weakness towards strength.

For HRD researchers, while FFL is not yet on its radar, the authors would argue that the uncertainties of the future require that more attention be given to what might lie ahead. Indeed, HRD researchers need to ask the question: What is the future of HRD research? In addition, if the authors’ call for FFL to be included in the practice of HRD, such practice will itself provide new pathways for HRD research. Further research questions might include: To what extent is FFL practiced in organisations and what role do HRD practitioners play in delivery? How does FFL impact on organisation behaviour and outcomes? What new products and services emerge from FFL? What new skills are required to deliver FFL? Can FFL enhance the status of HRD practitioners in the work place and its role in decision-making? and How can the HRD profession develop as a hybrid profession with respect to machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI)?

FFL produces outcomes that have importance for strategy, HRD practitioner can learn to facilitate FFL by action learning and in leadership development programmes. FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. FFL offers those involved in HRD a significant opportunity to transfer ideas into practice that have an impact on organisation sustainability. HRD can play a significant role in the design and delivery of ML and AI projects.

This paper concludes with a call for embracing FFL as a challenging but important addition to how we talk about learning at work. The authors argue that FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. At its centre, FFL involves learning by people, groups, organisations and machines and this has to be of concern to HRD.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The HRD function has scope to play a more prominent role within an organization through involvement with futures and foresight learning (FFL). This helps transform HRD into a more hybrid function involved in the FFL processes that identify various possible futures and shape decision-making accordingly. The function also has responsibility for ensuring that Industry 4.0 technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence are utilized ethically and not to the detriment of human input.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate planning practices, strategy types, and the performance of indigenous firms in Bahrain and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Data are collected from cheif executive officers (CEOs) and top management of 95 local companies sampled from Chamber of Commerce and Industry databases in Bahrain and UAE using face‐to‐face interviews. Analysis of variance and univariate logistic regression are employed in analyzing the data.

Although most of the firms are long‐term planners, many of them do not have a planning process. Majority of the firms are Prospectors and Analyzers. Prospectors perform considerably better than all the other strategy types. Nevertheless, the firms that are included in this paper appear to be cautious and not aggressive in entering new markets or in taking the lead in introducing and marketing new products.

The paper suffers from selection bias by focusing on indigenous‐owned companies. Also, the data originate from self‐reported responses from business leaders and executives. The results do not establish causality. Finally, only broad demographic links are considered. Other individual and firm variables may influence performance in different ways than indicated here.

Managers must pay heed to the usefulness of planning and ensure that their companies have a planning process in place. Given the performance of Prospectors, managers must adopt some prospector strategies. Experience and high level of education as essential ingredients to successful planning and performance require management consideration.

The paper provides empirical support for Miles and Snow typology and corroborates the existing understanding that planning is beneficial to firms from an under‐researched part of the world.

This paper proposes a framework for understanding knowledge‐related asymmetries in strategic alliances. Their effect on alliance stability, on the realizations of the goals and purposes of the alliance, and on partners’ individual performance is examined. Information asymmetries are thought to have a negative impact on the stability of the alliance. For their part, knowledge asymmetries seem to have a positive impact while learning asymmetries have a negative impact. A mutually reinforcing link is established between the stability of the alliance, the realization of its purpose, and individual partners’ performance. Even if further research is needed, it appears as though a key to growth in an alliance is the careful management and generation of learning, knowledge and information asymmetries.

The only comprehensive list of British medical libraries hitherto available has been that in The Aslib directory 1928, and there is an extended account of those in London in Reginald Rye, The students' guide to the libraries of London (3rd ed., 1927), pp. 362–77. The new list, here put forward, is intended to bring the information from those two books of reference up to date, after nearly twenty years. British libraries are briefly listed among ‘Medical libraries outside North America’ in the Medical Library Association's A handbook of medical library practice, ed. Janet Doe, Chicago, American library association 1943, chapter 1, appendix 2, pages 41–64. The meagre information in that list, if contrasted with the detailed documentation of American and Canadian libraries in successive issues of the American medical directory, accentuates the need for us to know ourselves better. Several, perhaps many, medical librarians have had to compile lists of kindred libraries for their own convenience. A list which I had thus prepared seemed to Aslib to offer adequate basis for a Directory of British medical libraries, and in order to complete it Aslib issued a questionnaire in the autumn of 1944 to libraries known to possess medical collections and to hospitals, medical societies, and medical institutions throughout the British Isles. The information obtained from the generous response to this questionnaire is epitomized in the list which follows. I am responsible for all omissions and errors and I hope that those who detect any will supply corrections and additions so that this preliminary list may be revised and become a definitive Directory.

That there has been a flood of this type of case in recent years—a flood which shows no signs of abating —must be manifest to all. In a paper “Food Sampling: Changing Trends” presented to a Sessional Meeting of the Royal Society of Health last March, Dr. H. Amphlett Williams, public analyst, tabulated a comparison of prosecutions in England and Wales reported in this Journal for five years before the War (1936–40) with five years since (1956–60). This showed that in the first period, “foreign body” cases were non‐existent compared with 37 per cent of total cases reported in the second period. It also showed that cases concerned with adulteration were 39 per cent of the total and milks, in particular, 41 per cent compared with 12 and 16 per cent respectively for the post‐war period.