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Suggests that the end of the twentieth century may witness the end of modernity and that the post‐modern world of organizations will be driven by a new set of expectations. On the one hand certain trends are discernible as a result of globalization and on the other internal debates within Organizational Development will reshape intervention strategies through organizational learning and Human Resource Development.

This paper seeks to investigate the extent to which IiP is a useful method for managing change in local government. In order to do this considers the relative merits and limitations of IiP by examining its ability to encourage learning transfer, learning capability and strategic human resource development. By examining data from a postal survey of all 120 UK local authorities that had achieved the award by August 2001 questions the extent to which IiP can be viewed as a change management tool, as many advocates of IiP claim. Concludes with suggestions for future development.

Argues that because service organizations are faced with greater uncertainty and ambiguity than manufacturing organizations they require a focus on learning in order to control the vagaries of the marketplace, on the one hand, and the uncertainty of the service encounter, on the other. Posits that, consequently, we use the concept of learning service to suggest that when learning is planned at two levels ‐ the service encounter and market research ‐ skills are assimilated and knowledge is generated by an increased awareness of tacit and formal knowledge. States that when this is performed by self‐managed multi‐disciplinary work teams then effective normative standards can be constructed. Demonstrates the concept of a learning service to show how such a service can provide opportunities for organizational development. Begins by examining the distinctive characteristics of service organizations and identifies how these might affect and facilitate organizational learning. Attempts to demonstrate this with an in‐depth case study in a healthcare setting. Discusses how healthcare in the UK is often presented in the context of a learning organization because the introduction of an internal market (The 1990 NHS and Community Care Act) created the separation of responsibility for healthcare provision from its purchase. Implies that “organizational learning” has come to show that organizations, like organisms, adapt to a changing environment. By going beyond the limitations of this biological metaphor attempts to provide a model of a learning service which is characterized by human agency.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the aims for this journal with the new editor.

The paper gives an overview of TLO in the past and the possible future direction for the journal.

It is found that: first, the LO as a prescription for organizational change “writ large” has little relevance to contemporary practitioners, consultants, and researchers; second, that the LO concept is in effect a contradiction in terms and therefore fatally flawed to the point it should be abandoned; third, if the journal is to continue the use of the LO concept that it does so pragmatically with a refocusing on tried and tested informal work‐integrated action learning and critical analysis and adopt a distinct critical edge; fourth, that if so, it must adopt broader and more culturally sensitive perspectives that recognise the limitations and biases inherent in this Euro/American‐centric concept and its practices; and fifth, that this of all journals needs to acknowledge and respond to the irresistible tide of the democratisation of information in the digital age and the growth of informal learning both in terms of the papers published and in the way it, as a journal, operates.

The author believes that as an international journal The Learning Organization is eminently placed to engage practitioners, professionals and academics in a progressive dialogue that, though characterized by a questioning stance, recognizes the opportunities to enhance not just organizational productivity and managerial power but also the quality of work environments for all personnel.

The history of Organizational Development (OD) reveals a much older tradition of organizational science than the conventional wisdom would suggest. By the 1960s and 1970s OD became self‐confident and dynamic. This period was not only highly experimental but established the principles of OD for much of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century new images of OD had occurred and much of the earlier thinking had been transformed. This review illustrates some examples under a series of themes that have had a major impact on the discipline of OD and on the wider thinking of organizational theorists and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the idea of the learning organization should be abandoned on the grounds that it was an imaginative idea that has now run its course. The paper seeks to explore the roots of the definition and provoke debate about the wisdom of retaining the concept. The argument is a challenge to readers to explore their own views in order to open up debate.

Based on an investigation of definitions of the term “learning organization”, the paper explores the theoretical premises of the learning organization concept. The relevance of empirical examples or applied nature of the concept is defined as the principal focus.

The literature review reveals two basic premises. These are, first, that the learning organization is an ideal worth striving for and, second, that systems theory provides a sound theoretical underpinning for the concept. The concept has resulted in confusion because of the theoretical and methodological premises on which it is based. Each premise is explored and found wanting.

The implications for research and publication are significant in that, whilst the paper seeks to open up debate about taken for granted assumptions related to the concept of the learning organization, it proposes that the concept should be abandoned and research should be focused instead on more pragmatic issues related to organizational learning. The argument uses a brief case example of Siemens to explore the difficulty in applying the “learning organization” concept.

Why should local government show an interest in service quality? Attempts to answer this question by examining the history of quality improvement in local government and by illustrating the findings of a detailed survey of current practice throughout England and Wales. By focusing on the latter seeks to illustrate how the relationship between cost and quality in the 1990s has been influenced more by external political forces (such as compulsory competitive tendering, the Citizen’s Charter, Investors in People, ISO EN 9000) than by any form of customer needs analysis.