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Action learning is a term that is used with a wide range of meanings: from an equivalent term for experiential learning to a philosophy of learning. This chapter takes the latter position and focuses on action learning as a scholarly activity. The chapter has two main sections. In the first part the breadth and depth of action learning is introduced: its variations and applications are discussed. The second part explores how action learning is at the cutting edge of engaging practitioners in real change and at the development of scholar–practitioners and actionable knowledge of how organizations change, how it offers a modality of an action-oriented approach to inquiry that accords with contemporary paradigms of useful and relevant research, its contribution to organization and management theory comes through how critical action learning engages with issues of power and social relations and through its critique of management education.

Increasingly, competition is moving from inter-company rivalry to that between supply chains and networks. In the field of manufacturing, such collaboration between companies may develop into an Extended Manufacturing Enterprise (EME), a chain or network comprising all the relevant functions of the partners. EME competitiveness depends on how effective the partner companies are as innovative and knowledge creative players within dynamic, complex integrated networks. The CO-IMPROVE project explores this premise, focusing in particular, on the learning required to enhance collaborative improvement of the performance of EMEs and among researchers. The CO-IMPROVE project was undertaken in Europe through a collaborative research approach where the researchers were both managing the project and studying it at the same time. The company networks were comprised of the managers from the system integrators and their suppliers, while the researcher network was comprised of academic researchers and the system integrator managers working in outsider-insider researcher teams. This chapter identifies emergent challenges in collaboration in both settings and explores implications for such collaboration.

The chapter describes and reflects upon an EU-funded research initiative, TRADEIT, which has attempted to develop a learning network among European traditional food producers as one way of contributing to the economic sustainability of the ventures, the social sustainability of the food’s regional character and the environmental sustainability of food production through the use of traditional methods.

The chapter describes TRADEIT before moving on to an exploration of learning in organizations and networks. It outlines the action learning research methodology developed and implemented to explore the development of a learning network in TRADEIT. A single case history is presented to illustrate the engagement of a small food producer in the network.

The discussion reflects on the application of action learning in supporting sustainability evident in TRADEIT.

The chapter focuses on the application of action learning in the development of a learning network among traditional food producers across Europe.

Managers and consultants have reported that they frequently encounter situations in which individual members of an organization exude an attitude of muted hostility and non‐compliance to a change process. This obstructive behaviour can take an indirect form and be masked by a veneer of apparent co‐operation, smiles and seemingly correct behaviour. When this phenomenon is encountered it can be defined “passive‐aggressive behaviour”. In this article, we examine this type of behaviour from both the clinical and the more pragmatic/operational perspectives in order to bring more understanding and clarity to the concept. We discuss its impact in teams, organizations and in the field of organizational change. Our concluding section sets out a framework or intervention approach which the manger, consultant and trainer might find useful in dealing with this type of behaviour as well as with truculent, avoidant and hostile behaviours.

A fundamental methodological question guides this paper: How can operations managers and researchers learn from the applied activity that characterises the practice of OM? To address this question, defines and explores the legitimacy of an action‐oriented research approach in OM, and the particular logic and value of applying action research (AR) to the description and understanding of issues in OM. Begins with a review of the role of empirical research in OM and how AR features within the OM research literature. Introduces the theory and practice of AR and outlines the AR cycle and how AR is implemented. Finally, describes the skills required to engage in AR and explores issues in generating theory. Concludes with the assertion that AR is relevant and valid for the discipline of OM in its ability to address the operational realities experienced by practising managers while simultaneously contributing to knowledge.

This paper investigates developing a learning-to-learn capability as a critical success factor for sustainable lean transformation.

This research design is guided by our research question: how can suppliers learn to learn as part of a buyer-led collaborative lean transformation? The authors adopt action learning research to generate actionable knowledge from a lean supplier development initiative over a three-year period.

Drawing on emergent insights from the initiative, the authors find that developing a learning-to-learn capability is a core and critical success factor for lean transformation. The authors also find that network action learning has a significant enabling role in buyer-led collaborative lean transformations.

The authors contribute to lean theory and practice by making the distinction between learning about and implementing lean best practices and adopting a learning-to-learn perspective to build organisational capabilities, consistent with lean thinking and practice. Further, the authors contribute to methodology, adopting action learning research to explore learning-to-learn as a critical success factor for sustainable lean transformation.

Organisational levels are viewed as important analytic frameworks in organisational behaviour. In organisational behaviour and organisation development texts, they are frequently presented as static notions, providing convenient headings under which particular organisational behaviour elements can be located. How an integrative framework of four organisational levels – individual, face‐to‐face team, group/divisional and strategy/policy – which emphasises cross‐level links was used as a core construct in an executive MBA programme is described.

The purpose of this paper is to address the fundamental question “can insider action research approach trigger and enhance simultaneously executive development and company performance”. To answer this question the framework of first, second and third person practice is useful in capturing the range of experiences and challenges that the executives face as they work to lead change in their organizations. Insider action research is an approach that facilitates executive development, creates new knowledge and develops change leadership competencies.

Insider action research.

Insider action research offers a value-added approach to management development and executive education programmes. It extends the acquisition of basic business disciplinary knowledge to the development of the competency (knowledge and skills) to design, facilitate and lead change by the rigours of the action research process and through a focus on first, second and third person practice.

Action research is particular and generates actionable knowledge in localized settings. Further cases in how executives engage in insider action research as they lead change in their organizations are needed to extend this underdeveloped approach.

Yet, despite wide spread executive educational programmes and the rhetoric about the need to make executive education more relevant to organizational needs, an astonishing number of business leaders claim that executive programmes and executive degrees fail in addressing the emerging needs of business leaders. Insider action research provides a radically different executive education orientation.

Insider action research is an approach that facilitates executive development, creates new knowledge and develops change leadership capabilities.

The purpose of this article is to provide a design and implementation framework for ALAR (action learning action research) programme which aims to address collaborative improvement in the extended manufacturing enterprise.

This article demonstrates the design of a programme in which action learning and action research were used in combination (ALAR). The participants in the EME engaged in action learning on their work on collaborative improvement in the supply chain. The action learning was studied through action research cycles of action and reflection.

This implementation of the ALAR programme consolidated the design of ten meetings across three stages and adds to other design models within ALAR approach.

This is one particular research programme, from which learning may be extrapolated.

This article provides a practical design framework for ALAR programmes on collaborative improvement in the EME.

The article extends the application of an ALAR programme design into the inter‐organisational setting.

Within experiential paradigms of action research, clinical inquiry has hitherto received little attention. Clinical inquiry is the observation, eliciting and reporting of data which are available when the researcher is engaged in a helping relationship in the management of change. Its core elements are: the client wanting help and, therefore, being more likely to reveal important data; the clinical researcher being expected to intervene, allowing new data about the client system to surface; and the richness of the data allowing the clinical researcher to develop deep insights into the client system. Interlevel dynamics, as an extension of levels of analysis, are useful diagnostic and intervention constructs for the clinical researcher who is helping an organisation manage change. They can be used to point out areas of systemic dysfunction and intervention. A case example of clinical inquiry in an IT‐organisational change context illustrates the systemic nature of clinical inquiry in dealing with human, organisational and technological issues at, and between, the individual, team, interdepartmental group and organisational levels.