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The purpose of this paper is to assess the desirability and attainability of schools becoming learning organizations.

The paper presents a critical analysis based on a wide-ranging review of the “schools as learning organizations” literature.

The notion of learning organization applied to schools is fundamentally flawed. Most notably, schools as learning organizations are conceptualized in so many different ways that it is possible to claim almost anything; the political aspects of shared learning are inadequately handled; and poor quality scholarship is commonplace.

There are repeated claims in the educational improvement literature that that there are significant benefits for schools that become learning organizations and, as a result, school leaders should steer schools in this direction. However, this paper critically challenges these claims, concluding instead that schools and their leaders should ignore calls to become learning organizations.

Many scholars, together with agencies such as the OECD, have suggested that, for schools, the learning organization is both a desirable goal and an achievable endpoint. The value of this paper is that, for the first time, these claims are subjected to a comprehensive critical review, revealing them to be hollow rhetoric rather than attainable reality.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the processes and relationships between school councils and school leadership teams in the local governance of 18 independent, faith-based schools in New South Wales, Australia.

A three-phase, mixed-method research design was used incorporating development of a conceptual framework for local school governance drawn from current literature, face-to face interviews with chairs of school councils and principals, and a subsequent survey of school council members and within-school leadership teams.

Noting a lack of research into the practices and processes of school council operations and their interface with school leadership, the study identified five key areas that were seen to be foundational to the effectiveness of local governance.

The study contributes an Australian perspective to an international need to better understand local governance arrangements in school leadership and management.

At a practical level, the study provides valuable insights to principals, and to those aspiring to the role, on the nature of the relationship between the school council and school leadership teams.

The study responds to a marked increase internationally in local governance arrangements for schools by way of school councils or boards.

A review of literature reveals that, somewhat surprisingly, there has been relatively little research undertaken in this key area of leading and managing schools.

This paper aims to use critical theorist Jürgen Habermas’s conceptualization of the relationship between knowledge and interests to better understand the role of common and competing interests during organizational learning.

The paper draws on critical accounts of work and learning, and on Habermas’s theoretical work on knowledge and interests, to examine the relationship between interests and organizational learning and, in particular, to consider conflict of interest’s role in organizational learning.

Transposed to organizational level, Habermas’s conceptualization of the relationship between knowledge and interests suggests that organizational learning can result from a technical interest, shaped by money and power, and from tensions and incompatibilities between the system’s technical interest and the lifeworld’s practical and emancipatory interests. There is ample evidence that the first combination does indeed account for a great deal of organizational learning but to date, very little scholarly attention has considered the possibility of organizational learning resulting from the second combination.

Despite interests and interest differences being visible in a number of studies of learning by individuals at work, the relationship between interests and learning at the organizational level is not well understood. This paper is a contribution to this area, using Habermas’s conceptualization of knowledge and interests to better understand the role of interests during organizational learning, raising the possibility that competing interests can result in organizational learning, and suggesting areas for further research.

In an effort to encourage more probing studies of organizational learning and the learning organization (OL/LO), this paper aims to highlight the value of extended periods of fieldwork and suggest priorities for future fieldwork-based research into OL/LO.

The paper draws on the author’s research and consultancies in the OL/LO field and on systematic reviews of OL/LO literature.

Evidence is presented to justify the following four priorities for future fieldwork-based studies of OL/LO: to obtain trustworthy data, to bring the role of time and place into sharp focus, to explore the relationship between organizational learning and interests and to identify strategies for improving organizational learning in particular contexts.

The paper suggests priorities for a research approach that is not often used to study organizational learning and the learning organization, namely, to undertake extended periods of fieldwork in individual organizations or parts of organizations, gathering trustworthy data and interpreting it with the help of extant OL/LO theory.

In an effort to better understand the political dimensions of organizational learning, this paper aims to examine learning processes in an organizational context – namely renegotiation of pay and performance management arrangements – where the interests of organizational members are threatened.

Data were derived from two longitudinal case studies based in Australian companies, where the pay and performance management system was undergoing change.

Learning from the past played a significant role in renegotiations at the two case study sites, with management treading a fine line between supporting learning likely to serve the organization's commercial interests, while dampening down politically charged learning, which could undermine those same commercial interests. Indeed, the data highlight the importance of “interests”, and suggest that a great deal of so‐called “organizational” learning may be more accurately described as “shared‐interest‐group” learning.

A limit of the data reported here is that they are derived from only one employee relations' context (Australia) and two companies. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that there would be value in further investigation of organizational learning in politically charged employee relations contexts.

More systematic attention to learning in politically charged employee relations situations, like the ones described here, could help organizations improve the ways they manage change (rather than approaching contentious change in an ad hoc way, and possibly repeating previous mistakes).

Despite acknowledgement over more than a decade of the political dimensions of organizational learning, the focus has largely been on political concomitants of learning associated with mainstream activities. Very few empirical studies have considered organizational learning in politically charged employee relations contexts, and none in the specific context of pay and performance management.

Looks at the concepts of “empowerment” and “learning”, and examines the difficulties in making “empowered learning” a reality. Drawing on a series of case studies in the Australian manufacturing industry, shows that empowerment and learning present challenges for both managers and employees. For managers, empowerment and learning raise the prospect of loss of control. To ensure that they do not surrender control, managers sometimes act in ways that disempower employees and undermine opportunities for learning. Like managers, employees may be wary of empowerment and learning, partly because of the potential for hostility and blame. Employees may feel that the risks of empowered learning are high while the potential benefits are low. As with managers, personal security seems to be the basic, underlying issue. Also argues that technoculture (the organization’s human and technical systems and associated assumptions) can perpetuate control‐oriented ways of operating even if management has made a genuine effort to foster empowerment and learning.

Current approaches to organizational learning are limited in the insight they provide. Greater understanding is attainable through more engagement in fieldwork and an emphasis on key priorities to increase the amount and quality of context-specific learning.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Current approaches to organizational learning are limited in the insight they provide. Greater understanding is attainable through more engagement in fieldwork and an emphasis on key priorities to increase the amount and quality of context-specific learning.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.