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With the intention of detecting and describing a series of team learning patterns within a selection of organisations, an extensive exploratory and qualitative research project was conducted in seven phases. The study at hand aims to report on the most recent phase, namely eight case studies in the public employment service of Flanders (Belgium) and aims to expand the provisional typology of learning patterns and to explore the strategic relevance of these learning patterns in the light of a strategic human resource development (HRD) policy.

A qualitative research approach with a multiple case study design served as the methodological base. A total of 22 interviews in eight cases were conducted in the competence centres of the Flemish employment service, what brings the total to 40 cases and 150 interviews.

Hitherto, five basic learning patterns and 16 variations make up the provisional typology of learning patterns. The strategic relevance of the learning patterns varies with respect to the scope of the developed competences and the degree of orientation to future of the organisation and the career expectations of the employees.

The provisional typology of learning patterns has proven to be useful as a tool for the identification of configurations of workplace learning in teams. The exploration of the strategic relevance provides clues for the alignment of the HRD with the organisational strategy.

In this paper, the author analyses the different patterns of learning one can find in the organisations of two contrasting economic fields representing different contexts for learning. The analysis concentrates on two different occupational groups at the medium skills level: specialists in the IT sector and skilled workers in the timber and furniture (T&F) sector. One of them belongs to the “new” and another to the “old” economy. He explains some of the reasons for the emergence of different patterns of learning and consequences they might have on the development of the organisations and individual workers. Also treats workplace learning as a means to overcome the gaps between the skills and competences “required by the job” and the competence workers have. The author tries to argue that learning, competence development and identification in cases of IT specialists and skilled workers in the T&F sector with one's work is mutually closely connected, and “space of work values” determined by the identification patterns can be a factor as facilitating as well as limiting the learning and competence development in these cases.

This paper aims to investigate whether the formal and informal learning patterns of community health-care nurses changed in the wake of a reform that altered their work by introducing new patient groups, and to explore whether conditions in the new workplaces facilitated or impeded shifts in learning patterns.

Data were collected through interviews with experienced nurses in community health care to learn whether and how they changed their learning patterns and the challenges they experienced in establishing new work practices.

In established learning patterns among nurses, the most experienced nurse passes on the knowledge to novices. These knowledge boundaries were challenged and they created new contexts and tasks calling for more cross-disciplinary cooperation. The informants acknowledged the need for formal and informal learning activities to change their learning pattern in addressing new knowledge challenges. Structural and cultural factors in community health care impeded changes in individual and collective learning patterns.

This paper reports a single case study. Further study is needed on how changes in structural and contextual conditions challenge the established formal and informal learning patterns.

It is crucial that managers facilitate the development of new routines, structures and cultures to support individual initiatives and the growth of necessary changes in established practice to implement a new reform.

This study’s contribution to the literature primarily concerns how changes in structural conditions challenge formal and informal learning patterns, and the structural and cultural conditions for these learning patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a study that investigated workplace learning activities and drivers that enhanced learning as experienced by employees in Sri Lanka.

This study was conducted in the knowledge process outsourcing sector, where employees perform knowledge work in flatter team-based structures with information technology-enabled work environments. From the 17 firms that volunteered to participate in the study, 239 technical/professional employees volunteered for the survey. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the association between drivers of workplace learning and learning activities experienced by employees and whether individual demographic characteristics and the number of employees in the firm are associated with workplace learning activities experienced by employees.

This study found that organisation-related, individual-related and team-related drivers significantly influence workplace learning activities experienced by employees. In addition, employees’ age, firm-specific experience and the number of employees in the firm significantly influence the same.

This paper presents learning activities experienced by employees in the completion of work-related job tasks at hand and drivers experienced by employees in the new normal that has existed since the Covid-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to explore how an academic graduate from the cross field between the humanities and the social sciences and blue-collar workers learns to scaffold knowing in a small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME).

A case study was conducted in an SME that employed the first academic graduate among the company’s blue-collar workers. The paper applies a practice-oriented theoretical framework to study scaffolding knowing among the workers.

An academic graduate does not necessarily apply subject-specific knowledge from his or her university education in the SME practice. Rather, general academic knowing and academic work practice is applied when scaffolding knowing in the SME. Further, this depends not only on the knowing of the academic graduate but also on his/her ability to apply knowing and the willingness to change in practice.

The study is a single case study gaining in-depth insights into one particular case. This calls for more research.

The study points at the importance for managers and academic graduates in SMEs to foster learning activities and to be aware of and develop ways to integrate the general academic knowing.

The case study provides new insights into the concept of scaffolding knowing in practice theory. Further, it gains unique insights into the practical possibility of employing graduates from higher education in SMEs.

This paper argues that to talk about organisations learning is to reify and anthropomorphise organisations. Instead of thinking of an organisation as if it were a thing or a person it is closer to experience to think of an organisation as the patterning of peoples' interactions with each other. This paper explores the assumptions that are being made when we talk about organisations or groups that learn, or about individuals learning in groups or organisations. It suggests an alternative to thinking in these ways, namely, that learning is an activity of interdependent people. If one takes the view an organisation is the organising activities of interdependent people, it leads to a particular perspective on learning. Much of the communicative and power relating activities of interdependent people take the form of continually iterated patterns of repetition in which meaning and power figurations have the quality of stability which we call identity. But because of the nonlinear iterative nature of human interaction there is always the potential for small differences to be amplified into transformative shifts in identity. Learning is then understood as the emerging shifts in the patterning of human communicative interaction and power relating. Learning is the activity of interdependent people and can only be understood in terms of self‐organising communicative interaction and power relating in which identities are potentially transformed. Individuals cannot learn in isolation and organisations can never learn.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual framework to assist members of an inter-company structure in understanding the partner company's interest in interacting and advancing toward a learning organization.

The paper provides a framework outlining the differing patterns of interaction between the two separate organizations and describes how each of the differing interactions should be used to align the learning system. Without understanding the 4 Cs from the side of both companies, the interaction may misalign, and the shared vision of learning may fail.

In order to best ensure consistency in knowledge sharing across the organizations, the L&D practitioner in conjunction with the sales and marketing arm of the organization should examine the interactions and identify the patterns of interaction before developing a learning system engaging the partner organization.

Managing the patterns of interaction through an understanding of the 4 Cs allows the organizations to quickly understand why learning systems are failing and where conflicts may arise.

The paper offers a conceptual framework for senior managers to consider when they enter into an inter-company interaction. The example is set in a wholesale distributor model; however, the framework can provide the L&D professionals areas into which they can expand traditional learning environments when working across company boundaries.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.