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This paper aims to revive the old idea of the Learning Organisation by providing a fresh conceptualisation and illustration. The New Learning Organisation is conceptualised, focussing on the common good through responsible action. It is positioned as responding to the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity, Bennett and Lemoine, 2014) conditions with a VUCA approach to Learning Leadership fostering Institutional Reflexivity and High Agility Organising .

The paper presents a new organisational learning framework – the 8As – Sensuous Organisational Learning framework. It illustrates the operationalisation of this framework in PART II through the educational practices and learning culture of the Norwegian Defence University College, Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy’s (RNoAFA) approach to growing (Military) leaders.

The Sensuous Organisational Learning – 8As – framework illustrates how attentiveness, alertness, awareness, appreciation, anticipation, alignment, activation and agility form an integral part of the New Learning Organisation. Their unique contribution as aspect of a Sensuous Organisational Learning framework is that they explicate how the three principles of Institutional Reflexivity, High Agility Organising and Learning Leadership can be operationalised to serve the common good.

The paper presents a novel way of reviving the Learning Organisation beyond an ideology as a practical approach to responding to VUCA conditions. It introduces a new learning theory and injects a fresh perspective in our understanding of the role and impact of learning in the workplace.

By focussing on Learning Leadership practices that extend previous Organisational Learning frameworks, The New Learning Organisation promoted here focuses on responsible action to serve the common good through Institutional Reflexivity and High Agility Organising.

By focussing on how the common good can be better served, the New Learning Organisation becomes a mantra for social change to identify the higher purpose that social actions must serve.

The need for fresh contributions in the Organisational Learning debate is long overdue. This paper marks a new chapter in Organisational Learning research and practice by demonstrating the value of sensousness as a foundation for improving the practical judgements across professional practices.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to leadership development founded on the principle of the Leader-as-Learner: a reflective human who pursues the 4C – virtues of courage, commitment, confidence and curiosity, rather than the laurels of traditional approaches of heroic leadership.

Exploring art-based methods and fostering a new approach to leadership development: Leaders-as-Learners.

In this paper, studies and theoretical findings from the literature are discussed.

This paper includes extending life stories and modes of learning by projecting possible selves as leaders, to learn the daily practice of leadership.

Leadership involves not only the art of judgment but refines it through a learning orientation to confront volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity conditions.

Leadership is not limited to organizations and in relation to work practices. It is a central aspect in all social affairs and integral to building societies which serve, through leaders, the common good.

An approach to leadership development that supports human flourishing and locates leadership among ordinary people who do extra-ordinary things.

The purpose of this paper – PART II – is to present the lived experiences of Sensuous Organisational Learning drawn from the educational practices and learning culture of the Norwegian Defence University College, Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy’s (RNoAFA) approach to growing (Military) leaders.

The paper reflects the co-creation of actionable knowledge between military officers, academics at the RNoAFA and international scholars engaged as research collaborators. The objective is to present the benefits of “practising knowing through dialogical exchange” (MacIntosh et al., 2012) as an approach to co-creating knowledge for responsible action. In this case, the authors present the conceptualisation and illustration of the idea of the New Learning Organisation they advance.

The Sensuous Organisational Learning – 8As framework explains how Attentiveness, Alertness, Awareness, Appreciation, Anticipation, Alignment, Activation and Agility form an integral part of the educational strategy that enables the RNoAFA to respond to the wider Educational Reforms and Modernisation programme of Norwegian Defence. The RNoAFA is presented as an illustration of how the New Learning Organisation serves the common good if Institutional Reflexivity and High Agility Organising were key aspects of the Learning Leadership it fosters.

Consistent with MacIntosh et al.’s (2012) dialogical exchanges the authors present the relational and intersubjective nature of meaningful dialogue between the co-authors that provides scope for integrative stories of practice. The resulting illustrative example of the New Learning Organisation, is an account of the learning experienced. Hence, this paper is presented neither as a traditional empirical paper nor as a self-disclosing or even auto-ethnographic account. Instead, it is one of a series of research outputs from innovative research collaboration between the authors all committed to “practising knowing”.

The New Learning Organisation promoted here focuses on responsible action to serve the common good. Investing in Institutional Reflexivity becomes critical in continuing to broaden the ways of being and becoming. As individuals, communities and organisations, that comprise the institution (in this case Norwegian Defence) grow and elevate their practical judgements to serve the common good the capacity to engage in reflexive critique heightens organisational agility and leadership.

Embedding care as the essence of learning not only enables accepting mistakes and owning up to these mistakes, but reinforcing the strength of character in doing so demonstrating what it means to be resilient, flexible and ready to respond to the VUCA. This is what permits High Agility Organising to foster learning on an ongoing basis driving the commitment to continually renew operational and professional practices. By focussing on how the common good can be better served, the New Learning Organisation cares to pursue the higher purpose that social actions must serve.

Advancing leadership as a personal, relational and organisational quality supported by an orientation towards practising goes beyond single, double and triple loop learning. In doing so, the Learning Leadership that drives the New Learning Organisation energises Attentiveness, Alertness, Awareness, Appreciation, Anticipation, Alignment, Activation and Agility. This paper marks a new chapter in Organisational Learning research and practice by demonstrating the value of sensuousness as a foundation for improving the practical judgements across professional practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the premise that organizationally defined communities of practice can be a valuable strategic learning tool for management.

It is a quantitative study in a single organization. The authors analyzed data from 1,082 employees using hierarchical (multi-level) linear modeling.

Management can support learning and influence engagement and identification by defining communities of practice and establishing goals, but this is not always successful. Engagement may be a short-term phenomenon, dependent significantly on the type of practice or project in which community members are allowed or decide, to participate. Identification, on the other hand, may need practices that support longer-term individual development aims allowing and supporting the achievement of personal ambition or competence.

Future studies of organizationally defined communities of practice could use established scales to measure leadership, engagement and identification.

When implementing this type of organizationally defined community of practice, attention to the types of practices or projects to which the employees can contribute seems to be most important.

The authors show that: the dynamics within communities of practice (CoP) designed by top management teams have an impact on CoP members’ identification and engagement; organizationally defined CoP may be part of a broader landscape of professional practice (LoP); engagement, objectives and practices, and not only identification and knowledgeability, are key to the dynamics of CoP and LoP; senior management’s leadership role in setting up successful CoP is equivocal.

At the levels of both the national economy and organisations, learning is linked to competitiveness and it is frequently promoted as an all‐encompassing solution to the multiplicity of issues that organisations (and societies) face. This view, however, does not fully address how learning takes place and what the relationship may be between learning, education, training and development, which are frequently treated as isolated processes. Provides a re‐conceptualisation of these relationships by proposing a holographic perspective that can support their interaction while drawing closer the connections between individual, organisational and governmental practices. The main implications of the holographic perspective and its practical ramifications, particularly for the SME sector, are discussed at the end of the paper.

This paper provides a critical examination of how service value can be enhanced and the subsequent transformation of that knowledge into an organisation‐wide learning process. In particular, it concentrates on the role of people in creating and adding value to services by highlighting some of the contextual factors which may potentially facilitate the value‐adding dimensions that personal input can bring to service delivery. Offers a new conceptualisation of quality service by promoting the notion of “alchemy”, and addresses the crucial role performed by people. Argues that service alchemy provides an opportunity for organisations to improve, attain and maintain excellence.

At the core of how societies operate, lies social interaction. Organizations as significant social bodies rely on social interaction both to get things done in order to remain sustainable and to also impart a contribution to the wider society. Understanding the dynamics of social interactions in the way social agents and social action take place through the lens of social practice theory could yield powerful insights both about practices of socialization as well as the socialization of practices. The purpose of this paper is to fundamentally reveal the tensions that such interactions expose and the dynamics in negotiating individual and collective priorities.

The paper presents a conceptual approach on the links to be established between practice and socialization.

This paper focuses on how a practice perspective provides valuable insights about how social agents get things done in organizations.

This paper is linked with other papers in this issue where the dynamics in negotiating individual and collective priorities reveal the tensions that such interactions expose (“transaction”). This paper provides a useful foundation for examining why organization practices tend to have an institutional character. This issue reveals new possibilities for appreciating the emergent nature of socialization both as a practice and a process striving towards institutionalization.

This paper explores socialization as a practice that can provide new insights into the dynamics of social interaction.

This empirical paper aims to show how communities of practice have been used as a tractable management tool to operationalize strategy in practice. The analysis shows how CoPs can be used in business to find traction in order to achieve strategic goals.

A two‐year longitudinal case study approach was adopted employing semi‐structured interviews, participant observations and document analysis for data collection. The findings were verified with the participants in the study during feedback events organised for that purpose.

The study provides in‐depth insights into the challenges of translating strategy into practice in complex work settings. In this case, uneven outcomes were attributed to three critical contributing factors: the leadership and governance structures, the meaningful ways in which members can participate and interact with others; and their identity and sense of belonging.

Although a single case study only provides indications of potential generalisations, it does give access to issues that cannot be identified without an in‐depth analysis.

The authors encourage executives to consider concepts of identity, participation and governance as useful heuristics for the analysis of practices of communities. Potential inconsistencies in community practices could have implications for the way strategy is translated into action.

Unlike most community of practice studies, which focus on the community aspect of the concept, this study analyses the practices of communities. In doing so, it adds value to our understanding of the forces that shape social interactions embedded in the implementation of strategy in practice.