Search results

This paper presents some preliminary findings of a study in the field of work‐related learning and management development from a managerial perspective. The interaction between individual and organisational characteristics builds the frame of reference to establish a management learning model, which offers insight in the dependence between the learning context and learning behaviour. Relationships between learning behaviour and learning opportunities are investigated. The results show that obstacles tend to increase the level of instruction oriented learning, and transitions seem to affect the level of meaning oriented learning in a positive way. From this explorative study is suggested that further research should test these findings in relation to job performance and career success.

The central challenge of management development is to control and manage the learning process of managers, focused on individual development and career success and/or reaching organisational goals. This article examines the two seemingly opposed assumptions that either management development comes with experience, job‐rotation and learning on the job or as a result of coaching, mentoring and tacit development programmes that tend to attract younger recruits. It concludes that each assumption includes a part of the truth. Thus, the job, the work environment, and the individual employee characteristics play a role. The article seeks to improve the understanding of the influence of these factors. It focuses on the interaction between developmental characteristics of the job, the learning behaviour of individuals, and the consequences of this interaction for career success of managers.

This opening chapter sets a frame for the chapters of this volume, dealing with how the dynamic dialectic interplay between forceful global societal forces and context shape humanity’s education response in various parts of the world. “Context” as a perennial threshold concept in Comparative and International Education is explicated. It will then be explained how, during its long historical evolution, scholars in the field each time had to contend new contexts, or reconceived the notion of “context” in a new way. Subsequently the problems of an overly fixation on the historical and the present, to the detriment of the future, and inertia are extant in the field, will be explained. The unprecedented, seismic changes currently impacting on the societal context worldwide, will then be enumerated. These changes can be subsumed under the collective name of globalization. The concept globalization is then clarified, and the take of the scholarly community on the impact of globalization on education is then mapped and interrogated. The authors’ stance on this is stated, namely that a dynamic interplay between global focus and contextual realities shape education in various parts of the world. It is in this theoretical frame that the remainder of the chapters of the volume is presented, combing out the main features of education development in each part of the world, as a dialectic between global forces and contextual imperatives.

In this socio‐economic climate there may still be budget for talent development, but it might not be as much as we have grown accustomed to. There is a growing need for effective, sustainable and prudent programs: the question is “how?” This paper aims to address this issue.

Through the author's work with clients in industry, services and government, five key talent development principles are distilled, tested and evaluated.

There are various, sometimes conflicting, ways to determine who is of value within an organisation. HR departments are unlikely to address talent management as an integrated process. The form and purpose of talent development efforts are frequently mismatched. Preferred learning styles and the design of talent programs are often at odds. Talents have the potential to be much more engaged in and meaningful to their organisation.

Clarify what “talent” means in your organisation by formulating a crystal clear policy. Perceive talent management as an integrated process and start organising it as a coherent effort, involving all human resource departments. Fulfil a clear and present organisational need with your talent development efforts. Offer mentoring by true role models and thus enhance the talent's organisational “know‐how” and business insight and accelerate their development. Harness the power of the talent pool, because talents working in teams could offer your company a huge and largely untapped cognitive surplus.

The five key principles of talent development and the 25 decisions will aid human resource professionals in assessing or designing their own talent, leadership and career development trajectories.

It is clear that when one considers learning and innovation in organizations, the work environment is a highly important influence in terms of facilitators or inhibitors of learning, and creative behavior on the job. The climate for learning and innovation of the department, business unit or organization is important.