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Networks and learning matter to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Networks and learning are also further elaborations on the exploration–exploitation (EE) dilemma. Ambidexterity, that is, managing this apparent dilemma, can be difficult as a result of many constraints. One of these constraints is that of mutually exclusive network structures. Consequently, ambidexterity is the ability to change networks, depending on need using mixed data on four small companies formed as part of an undergraduate management class, I hypothesize how specific network properties of the advice-seeking relationship, including density, cohesion, centralization, and embeddedness, affect two outcomes. Specifically, early exploratory learning is proposed to be positively affected by less-dense networks that maintain cohesion without centralization and do not have relations embedded in other relations. In contrast, later exploitative learning should be associated with denser networks that also have higher cohesion, higher centralization, and greater embeddedness. The results provide some support for these hypotheses and suggest further research in two areas that will benefit SMEs. One, how do early networks affect learning mode? Two, how does the ability to rewire networks provide the relational infrastructure to shift from exploration to exploitation – that is, to be ambidextrous in the face of the exploration–exploitation tradeoff?

Reflecting on 25 years of collaborating in action learning research initiatives in interorganizational settings, the authors have framed three key theoretical contributions: (1) a formula for action learning in networks, (2) the notion of action learning research, and (3) the application of action learning research in networks. This chapter reviews how each of these three key theoretical contributions emerged as insights and were developed over time through three large-scale funded interorganizational action learning projects. The chapter provides insights into the process of theorizing as the authors show how these frameworks emerged through inquiry into experience and were consolidated through collaborative action as practice-based research, research as practice, and practice as research toward designed-in impact.

Professional inquiry networks are becoming essential features of effective, innovative, and responsive school systems. In this chapter, the authors draw from their work with a team of British Columbia district leaders who use inquiry as a primary means for shifting practice and supporting innovation and change that benefit all learners. The authors argue that networking enables ways for districts to share emerging practices, engage in collective dialogue, draw from exemplary research, and deeply reflect on impacts. In doing so, leaders build strong relational ties and professional capital that accelerates innovation between and among district leaders. Two specific cases develop a deeper understanding of how change is taken up and accelerated at the local level, providing examples of how inquiry networks operate across multiple sites and simultaneously seed and nurture innovative thinking.

The chapter describes and reflects upon an EU-funded research initiative, TRADEIT, which has attempted to develop a learning network among European traditional food producers as one way of contributing to the economic sustainability of the ventures, the social sustainability of the food’s regional character and the environmental sustainability of food production through the use of traditional methods.

The chapter describes TRADEIT before moving on to an exploration of learning in organizations and networks. It outlines the action learning research methodology developed and implemented to explore the development of a learning network in TRADEIT. A single case history is presented to illustrate the engagement of a small food producer in the network.

The discussion reflects on the application of action learning in supporting sustainability evident in TRADEIT.

The chapter focuses on the application of action learning in the development of a learning network among traditional food producers across Europe.

This chapter focuses on learning networks. The authors describe the six facets of knowledge networks for learning contexts. The importance of three facets is called out, including geography, topology, and nodes. The authors provide four networks, including pedagogy networks – that is, teachers, certification and professional learning networks, school networks, and informal and collaborative learning networks.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

Social networking platforms such as Facebook have infiltrated the lives of many students, and as such it is natural to consider how they can be effectively used to enhance learning. This chapter provides a comprehensive review of social networking in education from a design perspective. Social networking is defined based on Boyd & Ellison’s seminal definition of connected profiles, and is distinguished from social media for the purposes of investigation. Facebook, Edmodo, and other social networking platforms are briefly described, before summarizing the wide variety of social networking usage reported in the research literature. The various benefits of social networking in education are distilled from the literature, including their capacity to facilitate community building, collaboration, reflection, and expedient access to learning. Issues surrounding the educational use of social networking are also organized into themes, for instance privacy concerns, distraction, cyber-safety, and technical constraints. The implications of findings from the social networking literature are synthesized into learning design and implementation recommendations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of open questions and areas for further investigation.

For a new technology-based firm, the ability to learn is crucial to their growth process. However, firms constantly face the challenge of maintaining the ambidexterity of two different learning activities, namely learning by exploiting existing competencies and learning through exploring new ones. The purpose of this study is to examine how small technology-based firms at incubators perform both activities. Using the index of network openness, we argue that firms perform ambidexterity by maintaining a balance between a high and low level of network openness. Our first hypothesis was constructed as firms pursuing explorative learning will develop a high level of network openness while those pursuing exploitative learning will develop a low level of network openness. In the second hypothesis, we argue that firms need to balance network openness. Developing too low level of network openness will not add more benefits as the cost for maintaining relationship increases. Similarly, developing too high level of openness may potentially hinder firms’ progress as firms face distractions and difficulties in maintaining a wide variety of relationships. Using the empirical data from new technology-based firms located at the Daresbury SIC, we confirm the hypotheses. The result also found a trend of a curvilinear relationship between network openness and the firms’ performance which confirm the second hypothesis. The overall findings have illustrated how a network has a positive impact on helping small and new technology-based firms perform learning ambidexterity.

This chapter synthesizes findings from the reviews of education using Web 2.0, social networking, mobile learning, and virtual worlds, in light of the earlier chapters on context, technology, pedagogy, content, and design. Benefits and issues associated technology-enhanced learning are generalized, with an important finding being the quite different ways that different technologies contribute to each. Twenty technology-enhanced learning design principles are derived from abstracting the Web 2.0, social networking, mobile learning, and virtual worlds literature. The benefits, issues, and technology-enhanced learning design principles are then related to one another by virtue of 13 clusters of concerns, namely pedagogy, access, communication, content representation, collaboration, motivation and engagement, vicarious learning and reflection, digital learning capabilities, assessment and feedback, student-centered learning, learning communities, protecting students, and teacher support. The analysis enables the general learning technology literature to be linked to concrete examples and evidential sources, so that educators and researchers can construct a deep and connected understanding of technology-enhanced learning design.

Today, education shows an urgent need for transformation to better respond to the complex and interdependent nature of current learning and social challenges we are facing. This chapter is based on the evidence of schools and district initiatives that claim for systemic change with a strong focus on wider interconnection and collaboration between learners, professionals and organizations.

Networks for Change is a programme launched in 2017 by the Barcelona Education Consortium that intends to create professional networks of schools in the city. The programme seeks a deep change in the whole system: to influence how teachers learn from one another to lead a collective transformation of schools, moving towards inclusive, significant and profound learning of all students. To achieve this, the programme articulates 25 territorial networks of schools, spread over the 10 districts in the city of Barcelona, grouping a total of 283 schools (ages 3–18), 1,700 leadership teams and 10,000 teachers. The network sessions are facilitated by one district leader, existing a team of 13 facilitators in the programme. Each school assigns an internal and volunteering leadership team that is responsible to assist to the network meetings, so as to empower internal change processes in schools.

The present study evaluates the impact of the programme on the development of territorial networks, as well as on the changes emerged in school communities. The instruments used combine a quantitative and qualitative approach including a questionnaire for teams of leaders involved in the programme, a questionnaire for teachers from schools and a focus group with programme facilitators of the 25 networks.

The main results show that the Networks for Change programme is already becoming a response to the widely contrasted need to weave sustainable relationships between teachers from different schools in the system at the same time that it is strengthening the collaborative capacities of educational actors in the city’s neighbourhoods and territories. Likewise, and to take a step further in the development of the programme, it is suggested emphasizing the increase of transversality in the networks as cross-sector collaboration, distributing the leadership of the programme through its actors and establishing direct ways for the impact to schools and their transformation. Right now, the network mainly fulfils a function of generating learning among its participants, although the desired horizon is to extend this learning to the entire ecosystem and at the same time generate systemic change in the neighbourhoods in order to enhance and document real impact on learners.