Search results

Globalization requires business leaders who can manage effectively in multicultural environments. Although many organizations assume leaders will enhance their multicultural skills through international assignments, it is unclear how leaders translate these international experiences into knowledge and skills that enhance their effectiveness. Based on experiential learning theory (ELT), we propose that cultural intelligence (CQ) is an essential learning capability that leaders can use to translate their international experiences into effective experiential learning in culturally diverse contexts.

In recent years, the concept of “reification” has virtually disappeared from debates in social theory, including critical social theory. The concept was at the center of the revitalization of Marxist theory in the early twentieth century generally known as Western Marxism. Georg Lukács in particular introduced the concept to express how the process described in Marx's critique of alienation and commodification could be grasped more effectively by combining it with Max Weber's theory of rationalization (see Agger, 1979; Stedman Jones et al., 1977).¹ In Lukács's use, the concept of reification captured the process by which advanced capitalist production, as opposed to earlier stages of capitalist development, assimilated processes of social, cultural, and political production and reproduction to the dynamic imperatives and logic of capitalist accumulation. It is not just interpersonal relations and forms of organization constituting the capitalist production process that are being refashioned along the lines of one specific definition of economic necessity. In addition, and more consequentially, the capitalist mode of production also assimilates to its specific requirements the ways in which human beings think the world. As a result, the continuous expansion and perfection of capitalist production and its control over the work environment impoverishes concrete social, political, and cultural forms of coexistence and cooperation, and it brings about an impoverishment of our ability to conceive of reality from a variety of social, political, and philosophical viewpoints.

Possible limitations on the successful formal modeling of human expertise can only be identified if the evolving thought processes involved in acquiring expertise are understood. This paper presents a 5‐stage description of the human skill‐acquisition process, applies it to the skill of business management, and draws conclusions about potential uses and abuses of formal modeling.

When implemented effectively and systematically across a curriculum, high impact practices (HIP) have the potential to increase student engagement and result in higher student achievement. The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a four-year military university with a large liberal education core curriculum that provides the foundation for service and officership in the United States Air or Space Forces. Building on the liberal education core, the civil engineering (CE) major’s courses begin with the cornerstone field engineering course, paired with a two-week co-curricular experience for students at an Air or Space Force installation. With its motto “construct first, design later,” the field engineering course is an HIP and quintessential experiential learning course that gives students a practical frame-of-reference for future analysis and design courses. The CE major culminates with another HIP, the capstone design course, which gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, building confidence in their ability to successfully apply those skills to the increasingly complex problems they will face after graduation. This book chapter provides a case study of the CE major at the USAFA, documenting the HIPs across the majors’ program, and highlighting the key elements and benefits of each.

The purpose of this article is briefly to describe the developing and structuring of a concrete technology course for the construction companies in Hong Kong. Statistics on student profile and course enrolment are presented to demonstrate the characteristic of the local industry and course development. Over the year, more than 269 candidates coming from 33 companies have successfully completed the course which has established its status in the industry. Over 48.7 per cent of the enrolment comes from concrete suppliers, indicating the concern for the standard of their staff and showing their commitment towards quality production of concrete.

This paper aims to study the effects of different weather conditions on typical concrete work tasks’ productivity. Weather is one important factor that has a negative impact on construction productivity. Knowledge about how weather affects construction works is therefore important for the construction industry, e.g. during planning and execution of construction projects.

A questionnaire survey method is used involving means to perform pairwise comparisons of different weather factors according to the analytical hierarchical process (AHP). The survey also contains means to enable assessment of the loss in productivity for typical work tasks exposed to different weather types. The survey targets practitioners involved in Swedish concrete construction projects, and the results are compared with previous research findings.

The survey covers responses from 232 practitioners with long experience of concrete construction. The pairwise comparisons reveal that practitioners rank precipitation as the most important followed by wind and temperature. The loss in productivity varies significantly (from 0 to 100%) depending on the type of work and the type of weather factor considered. The results partly confirm findings reported in previous research but also reveal a more complex relationship between weather and productivity indicating several underlying influencing factors such as type of work, type of weather (e.g. rain or snow) and the intensity of each weather factor.

This paper presents new data about how 232 practitioners assess the effects of weather on construction productivity involving novel means to perform objective rankings such as the AHP methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to assess the experiential learning processes of learning lean in an innovative learning environment: the lean model factories.

A literature review on learning and lean management literatures was carried out to design the methodology. Then, a case study methodology was used to test the framework.

The methodology permitted to asses learning processes and course contents of educational dynamics carried out in model factories and to theoretically ground such learning processes. The test showed that learning lean management is supported through a complete coverage of the eight phases of the learning path.

The methodology contributes to the literatures of lean management and experiential learning, proposing a methodology of assessment. Part of the framework could also be applied to other disciplines.

The methodology could be used for two purposes: to design training courses or to assess existing experiential learning courses.

Due to its intrinsic complexity, learning literature presents few practical framework or tools. Among them, none have provided practical and theoretical-based advice on how to use experiential learning precepts to teach lean management.

Failure plays a pivotal role in entrepreneurial learning. Knowledge of the learning process that enables an entrepreneur to re-emerge stronger after a failure, though considerable, is fragmented. This paper systematically collects relevant literature, assigns it to the stages of the experiential learning process (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation; Kolb, 1984), evaluates the research coverage of each stage and identifies promising avenues for future research.

This systematic literature review follows the guidelines articulated by Short (2009) and Tranfield et al. (2003), using Web of Science and EBSCO as primary data sources. Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory provides a basis for organizing the identified material into a framework of entrepreneurial learning from failure.

The literature provides insights on all stages of the process of entrepreneurial learning from failure. Particularly well elaborated are the nature of failure and its triggering effect for reflection, the factors influencing reflection, the contents of the resulting learning and their application in entrepreneurial re-emergence. Other topics remain under-researched, including alternative modes of recovery, the impact of personal attributes upon reflection, the cognitive processes underlying reflection, the transformation of failure-based observations into logically sound concepts and the application of this learning in non-entrepreneurial contexts.

This review provides the most complete overview of research into the process of entrepreneurial learning from failure. The systematic, theory-based mapping of this literature takes stock of current knowledge and proposes areas for future research.

In recent years, the concept of cultural intelligence has attracted increased interest among scholars and practitioners in global leadership research. This chapter aims to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Experiential Learning Theory on the development of cultural intelligence in global leaders. It proposes a model that addresses the relationship between four modes of experiential learning and four facets of cultural intelligence; and hypothesizes that learning styles exercise a moderating effect on the relationship between international experience and cultural intelligence. Managerial implications for global talent selection and leadership development are also proposed based on the model.

While international learning programs have received a great deal of attention and have been found to provide valuable learning experiences for participants interested in developing global leadership competencies (GLCs), they are resource-intensive and variably effective. This chapter examines the relatively unexplored use of assessment center (AC) methodology as a complementary avenue for developing students’ GLCs. Scholarly literature sources pertaining to GLCs and their development, experiential learning theory, and AC methodology are reviewed to develop a conceptual model and propositions related to participants’ learning in an AC designed to develop GLCs. An example is described of one university’s design and facilitation of an AC used to develop students’ GLCs. The role of AC methodology, along with international and other learning experiences for developing students’ GLCs, and recommendations for future research, are discussed.