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This paper aims to locate its appreciation of the life and work of Arie de Geus within the context of developments in approaches to management practice, education and learning since the Second World War. It emphasizes the important influence of top management-led applications of social science (Beckhard) and the impact of crises upon planning and the generation of memories of the future for effective organizational learning. The paper also describes the roles of learning from experience and of reflective practice in shaping de Geus’ contribution.

The approach traces the development of de Geus' career and thinking from Shell cost accountant, to top line manager in three continents, to Head of Shell Group Planning, to prize winning author, to global adviser to the World bank, etc., and as an inspirational speaker as champion of the learning organization.

The paper acknowledges Arie de Geus as coining the phrase “The Learning Organization” together with his role in the foundation and development of the Society for Organizational Learning (SOL) and as an international champion of young people's learning through the processes of the Finnish Team Academy model.

Arie de Geus was an exemplar of reflective practice and applied learning. As such, his contribution might be considered as that of a sage rather than as a guru.

The paper endeavours to emphasize the importance of the role of both the internal and external contexts for effective organizational learning, suggesting that the contribution of Arie de Geus to the field exemplifies this importance.

The term “transformation” is much used in the practice and literature of management and organizations. We are curious as to why there has been little challenge to or questioning of usage of the term. In this paper we identify a number of dimensions on which usage of ‘transformation’ appears to vary. This results in a tentative classification into a matrix of four types. While these clusters overlap they imply a variety of agendas, expectations and modes of working, with widely differing implications for those involved in associated change processes. The aim of the article is to stimulate debate about the idea of transformation, not to attempt to define what transformation “is”. Thus we treat this variety of usage as interesting and potentially significant, not as a problem or as an inadequacy of terminology that has to be resolved.

The purpose of this paper is to place the idea of the learning organization in a historical, multidisciplinary context with the aim of identifying obstacles and opportunities for its greater realization in practice.

Marking the 30th anniversary of publication of Peter Senge's “The Fifth Discipline”, the paper reflects on approaches to the study and analysis of organizations over the past century from German sociology, human relations, organization development, the learning organization to responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is suggested that distributed leadership is critical to the realization of organizational learning and its absence is a major inhibitor of such learning. Following Argyris, it is argued that high levels of skill (personal mastery) may, in some circumstances, provide a barrier to organizational learning in the face of contextual uncertainty and change.

While no specific areas of research are proposed, questions are raised which may only be answered in the wake of appropriate (interdisciplinary) research.

The reflective nature of the paper suggests that significant reform is required in the legislation that encourages short-term thinking on the part of institutional investors to the detriment of strategic thinking and long-term planning.

The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have provided an opportunity to redress a perceived imbalance between traditional organizational thinking and opportunities demonstrated by effective community action, for reappraisal of organizations as communities of people as well as being formalized structures, systems and processes.

This paper seeks to synthesize diverse theories of organization with the aim of stimulating further innovation in approaches to organizational learning.

Describes a process of management learning and development involving over 100 senior public sector managers in the States of Guernsey and covering a period of six years. Details the programme’s content and action learning approach which had much in common with many other management development processes. However, highlights the fact that it involved the whole spectrum of public sector activity (from policy making, service purchasing and service providing to utilities trading) and that more than 20 chief executives and their senior management teams participated in the process, which makes it somewhat unusual. Reports that, in the wake of the programme, a fundamental shift in the “doing of management” would appear to have taken place, involving a willingness to share resources, to break out of silos and to experiment across previously well‐defended boundaries; and notes that it has also generated a healthy appetite for further learning.

Outlines some of the questions raised during the course of a qualitative research inquiry into the personal consequences of organisational change for directors who are “drivers” of such change. Links these questions to more general issues and trends in the organisation of work (Handy) and for human resource management priorities (Ulrich). Questions the interpretation of these trends in relation to the role of the developer, arguing that effective development involving a third party developer is always dependent on genuine partnership working. Such a way of working is particularly challenging or even threatening to developers, frequently tempting them into hiding themselves behind fashionable theories, tools and techniques, rather than risking their own learning and development while facilitating that of others. Suggests ten keys to unlocking the development potential in oneself and others and that the application of these keys can be a painful process.

The purpose of this conceptual study is to offer an assessment and evaluation of the literature in the field of international marketing negotiations and to propose a descriptive organizing framework which could serve as a basis to integrate and evaluate the existing empirical and conceptual work. The premise of the model is that certain cultural value orientations will be reflected in the characteristics of individuals and in those of their respective companies. Cultural value orientations will, thus, indirectly affect the process of negotiation and the outcomes of the dyadic interaction.

A review in depth of Policy Studies Issue 13:1 considering the progress made to date by the Training and Enterprise Councils in the UK. It provides an informed and valuable backdrop to the varied and interesting papers which go to make up this special issue. The papers consider the TECs from a variety of perspectives and are themselves considered from the standpoint of an adviser to their Boards and senior management teams. Argues that this critical stage of the TECs is one which is given scant consideration in the publication and that TEC managers are frequently overstretched and under resourced. While this is a common characteristic of work in the 1990s, the committed and hard working managers and staff of TECs should not become political footballs, becoming overburdened by initiative overload but should be permitted to get on with their very important task within a realistic strategic framework.

This article describes the application of principles applied in the development of a Masters programme in Public Administration in the Netherlands fifteen years ago to the design of a very different programme for senior managers in a UK public bureaucracy. Both programmes placed heavy emphasis upon the role of the manager as learner and on the importance of practical application as the most significant part of the learning process. Rather than teach techniques the development team offered a variety of well established frameworks by means of which participants were encouraged to develop their understanding of themselves, their organisations, their roles within them and the pressures for change arising within the environment of their organisation. The objective was not only to develop areas of managerial competence but, perhaps more significantly, to encourage the higher levels of confidence necessary to managing in an increasingly uncertain and pressured environment. A significant contributor to the achievement of this end was a concentration on those frameworks which had worked effectively in a wide variety of situations and circumstances rather than on more novel and, perhaps, more fashionable approaches.

In a recent issue of JEIT, Andy and Valerie Stewart drew attention to the possible effect of recent or impending legislation on Selection and Promotions. In this article, the authors take the point a little further.