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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the journal and organizational learning over the years.

The approach adopted is that of providing a viewpoint perspective to look at the concept of the learning organization.

By looking at organizational learning partly from the perspective of a publisher, this will, hopefully, provoke reflections, particularly amongst others engaged in both the delivery and the consumption of practice and study.

The paper is one of a series commissioned by the journal. Its originality stems from the subject‐matter and the authors' interpretation of organizational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to review the phenomenon of moral principles as they have been adopted over time. The paper specifically reviews the Golden Rule, and the subsequently formulated Platinum Rule. While the value of both these rules is underscored, the paper also reviews their weaknesses in light of our new millennium awareness of increased globality and ensuing interconnectedness. The paper makes a statement that even moral principles that have been around for centuries, may have to be reevaluated in light of changed circumstances, and conclusively presents “The Spiritual Rule,” a principle that eliminates the risk of excessive arbitrariness, and calls for consideration of all life on earth in every decision we make.

This paper is a conceptual paper, reflecting on two existing principles that influence the way human beings, and therefore managers as well, make their decisions in general. The author first briefly reviews both principles (or “rules”), subsequently analyzes their weaknesses in light of contemporary developments, and ultimately introduces a new principle, the spiritual rule, thereby drawing on supporting statements various researchers and authors with in‐depth consideration of modern days' developments in human interaction.

When one wants to engage in “good business” in these and future days, one can no longer merely focus on a one‐on‐one perspective, or limit ourselves to the stakes of only two parties. There are greater interests at stake and there are larger groups of people involved in our decisions. Individualism has proven its merit, but so has collectivism. The awareness that is dawning upon us these days is that no extreme is of lasting benefit to all of us. A well‐considered blend of various strategies, resulting from openness to other ways of thinking, is the enlightened behavioral paradigm in and outside of the workplace.

There are many complicated theories out there about how leaders should make their decisions. However, what works best is a simple guideline that can be used in all situations and environments and that is based on the realization that human beings are first and foremost interconnected spiritual entities. This paper addresses this need and identifies the important practical considerations that leaders will need to include in their decisions.

The paper's unique contribution is to offer a moral principle that incorporates the spiritual dimension in every area of decision‐making. The three considerations presented in this paper, reduction of selfish reflections, reduction of unjust assessments of other's wishes, and reduction of harm to the welfare of our planet, are on target with the trends toward global interconnectedness and encourage leaders to consider the value of implementing and maintaining the spiritual rule.

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 purpose of the study is to examine the influence of internal integration and external integration on three types of shared knowledge (shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers, and suppliers) and whether more leads to superior firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage.

The paper draws on results from a large‐scale survey. The empirical data used in the study comprises of 245 high technology firms in Taiwan. This study applies the confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the hypotheses and research model.

The results show that internal integration and external integration significantly influence shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers among new product development (NPD) team members. The results also indicate that team members' shared knowledge enable the firm to improve innovation capability and new product competitive advantage.

As the data used in the study was cross‐sectional, the causal relationships and the sustainability of firm and product innovative performance cannot be easily captured. Future research can examine how factors of individual traits, organizational characteristics, and external environmental factors may influence the shared knowledge and product competitive advantage.

This study emphasizes the importance of the firm's integration to utilize and share knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers effectively. Besides, the relationships among internal/external integration, shared knowledge, firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage may provide a clue regarding how firms can manage integrations and promote knowledge‐sharing culture to sustain their firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage.

As only little empirical research has been conducted on the impact of internal/external integration on the firm's innovative capability and product competitive advantage through shared knowledge, the empirical evidence reported here makes a valuable contribution in this highly important area.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to link founding team and start‐up competitive advantage in the context of the Taiwanese technology‐based ventures.

The paper analyzes 211 start‐ups of the technology‐based sector and verifies the relationship between entrepreneur resources, trust, founding team partners' commitments, and start‐up competitive advantage.

In technology‐based start‐ups, the competitive advantage of a start‐up is determined by the founding team partners' commitments and the resources an entrepreneur has.

This study is retrospective which relies on technology‐based founding team members as the primary research subjects, some respondents may observe the performance of their start‐ups today and then make attributions about the past to explain that performance.

Utilizations of personal networks are important in the early stage of technology‐based start‐ups; through networking and using trust, an entrepreneur can gain the critical resources and competitive advantage required in the development of a business.

In technology‐based start‐ups, trust, not the resources an entrepreneur has, is an effective way by which entrepreneurs can win founding team partners' commitments.

This study uses a stakeholder perspective to explain the content of mission statements, in particular the inclusion of stakeholder groups. The study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement. In line with this perspective, stakeholders in this study will be classified as either being resource providers, such as employees and customers, or non‐resource providers, such as the community and the environment. The primary aim of the study is to find evidence for the theoretical relationship between the importance of stakeholders to the company and the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the company's mission statement.

The use of a large dataset with 490 observations enables a multivariate analysis of mission statement content, focusing on country‐, industry‐, and company‐specific factors.

The study finds that stakeholder groups the company is more dependent on, are addressed in mission statements more frequently. In addition, the profile of an industry, legal origin and ownership concentration are found to be related with stakeholder inclusion in mission statements.

The database used adopts a broad definition of a mission statement, as a result of which the study may also include documents such as vision statements. Additional factors might exist that could explain the inclusion of stakeholder groups in the mission statement. For example, Hope states that both legal origin and culture are important in explaining corporate disclosure. Therefore, literature on cultural dimensions by Hofstede and Schwartz might also be used as explanatory variables in future research. Finally, additional evidence on the industry classification developed in this study is required to further substantiate these results.

The observed differences in mission statement content with respect to stakeholder management signify the fact that the mission statement is not a standardized document which can simply be ignored by managers. Therefore, managers must be aware of the environment in which the company is situated, in order to approach the stakeholders which are most important to the organization. A failure to recognize and include essential stakeholders in the mission statement may be costly in the long run, particularly when competitors are better able to address these stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing stream of literature on mission statements by introducing the dependence of the company on the stakeholder as an explanatory factor for the inclusion of stakeholders in mission statements. Consequently, the study uses stakeholder dependency theory and resource dependency theory to explain the content of mission statement, rather than signaling theory. Furthermore, this is one of few empirical studies on mission statements that uses a large dataset with 490 observations, enabling a multivariate analysis of mission statement content.