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Developing effective managers requires a reappraisal of the development process — for the educators, as well as the students. It is necessary to make the curricula as exciting and attractive, as well as basically useful, as possible. The method of teaching, as well as the content, must also be stimulating. The use of workshops and seminars is advocated.

Although organizational learning is often defined as the result of many individuals learning generatively in an organizational context, the argument is made that such learning is de facto coercive persuasion. Generative learning by the individual requires free choice of exit if and when cognitive redefinition becomes painful. When organizations demand such redefinition as part of culture change programs they are de facto creating a situation of coercive persuasion. We must then examine our moral position with respect to both the methods of learning and the ultimate goals of the change effort.

This chapter explores the role that coercion plays in the educational process, looking at it both from the point of view of the teacher and from the perspective of the student/learner. The primary focus will be on coercion but inevitably manipulation and seduction enter the picture as well. I have observed that when learners get really motivated, or, as I prefer to call it, animated, they seem to learn more and certainly enjoy it more. What has come to be called experiential education has become very popular as a way of animating learners, which raises the question of whether this form of learning rests on fundamentally different assumptions than traditional teaching formats. This analysis and implications applies primarily to the learning of interpersonal, group, and interorganizational relationships and the “human side of enterprise,” that is, management and leadership. The need to explore the design of alternative experiential learning settings that animate learners and/or invent new modes of learning without the intense face-to-face contact – that animation seems to be depended on – is advocated.

A scholarly collaborative partnership is a capability that develops over time. Its quality is an outcome of the collaborative context, the alignment of purpose, development of work and learning processes, development of shared language and success stories. In this chapter, the authors engage in a metalogue where their shared reflection on the formation and development of their collaborative scholarship in the field of organization development and change is itself an instance of a process of shared scholarship. By adopting the format of a metalogue, they provide the voices of their individual thinking and their reflective conversation so as to offer an expression of the process of theorizing to scholars who wish to embark upon or study shared scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature, roles and dynamics of change of management accounting systems (MAS), in processes of continuous organisational learning and transformation. By studying the interaction between the accounting (and finance) function and the implementation of a Six‐sigma initiative, as the engine for organisational change, the authors seek to uncover the potential of measurement‐based systems of management for aligning business processes with corporate strategies. Such systems sustain continuous processes of transformation by infusing organisational culture with financial and non‐financial metrics of accountability.

The research is based on a longitudinal case study in which one of the authors had the opportunity to exercise what Schein called the clinical perspective; i.e. combining the role of researcher with that of helper‐consultant. There is mutual interdependence in the relationship between the authors' theoretical framework and the authors' longitudinal case study. While, on the one hand, the case research contributed to the search for an institutional explanation of the evidence experienced and collected, on the other hand, the empirical data are illuminated by the theoretical insights gained from that framework.

After first discussing cultural change, the authors rely both on the “clinical” position of one of the authors as researcher/helper‐consultant and on the insights provided by Schein's work on organisational culture and Giddens' structuration theory to develop an institutional framework for interpreting the ways in which routinised systems of accountability bind the ongoing processes of cultural transformation across time and space.

Possible limitations are: the conceptualisation of organisational culture as a shared and institutional phenomenon does not take account of wider anthropological aspects (such as the influence of national culture); the role of helper‐consultant as well as researcher may have influenced some of the authors' interpretations; the authors' analysis does not consider macro‐economic variables; and only a small percentage of shop‐floor workers were interviewed.

The paper sheds light on the role of management accounting within organisational processes of transformation far beyond their mere visible enactment. As a result, the authors develop an institutional framework to interpret the linkages between the cognitive dynamics which characterise organisational culture (viewed as shared cognitive schemas) and the behavioural and structural modalities through which they are drawn upon and reproduced by organisational members.

Defines the different categories of client that a consultant must deal with and the levels of intervention that must be considered in relation to client types. Examines the principles of process consultation that must be observed in any client relationship. These principles show how process consultation as a form of helping differs from other kinds of consultation. Argues that every consultant needs to be able to play the process consultation role.

This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.

The essays are invited and peer‐reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.

The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.

The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), anticipating as it did considerable reclamation of ethnographic methods in organizational studies in the decades that followed it. It was also deemed of value for our times and, in particular, for readers of this journal, as an historical document, but also as one view of the unsung role of anthropology in management and organizational studies.