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This paper aims to examine whether employability activities are driven by employee learning motives and their perception of learning opportunities.

Data were collected using a closed questionnaire survey from three different profit organizations (N = 405). Hypotheses were tested through hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Hierarchical regressions showed that the learning motive “personal development” had a positive relationship with “perceived learning opportunities” and “employability activities,” as hypothesized. “Perceived learning opportunities” did not mediate the relationship between the learning motive “personal development” and “employability activities.” No relationships were found among the learning motives “social pressure,” “perceived learning opportunities” and “employability activities”.

This study is among the first to investigate the motives that employees must engage in individual learning paths. It attempts to predict their self-reported employability activities based on these motives and on the learning opportunities that employees perceive.

Employees are increasingly expected to organize their own human resource development activities. To what extent and how exactly employees in various organizational contexts manage to shape their individual learning paths however remains largely unclear. The purpose of this present study is to explore, leaning on the empirical Learning-Network Theory (LNT) research and its findings, how employees in different occupations create learning paths that are attuned to their specific work context.

The paper reviews 23 MSc theses based on 14 distinct data sets collected between 2005 and 2015, containing approximately 1,484 employees from some 45 organizations and across various professions. The teachers, nurses, postal, software, telecom, railway and logistics company employees were mostly based in the Netherlands. The analysis focuses on learning-path types and learning-path strategies found in the 23 studies.

Motives, themes, activities, social contexts and facilities were found to be instrumental in explaining differences among individual learning paths. A total of 34 original learning-path types and strategies were found to cluster under 12 higher-order labels. Some of these were based on learning motive, some on learning theme, some on core learning activities, some on social learning context and a few on a combination of these elements. Overall, the socially oriented learning-path strategy was the most prevalent, as it was found among nurses, employees of software/postal/telecom, railway and logistics company employees, as well as teachers in two schools.

The paper presents the first overview of empirical studies on employee learning path(s) (strategies). In addition, it strengthens the empirical basis of the LNT.

This paper argues that failing to grasp thoroughly the influence of power on the strategy‐making process can severely inhibit the potential of strategy making as a vehicle of organizational learning.

First the organizational learning perspective on strategic management is sketched and an attempt is made to show how it takes the social aspects of organizing more seriously than earlier perspectives on strategy. It is also noted how this iteration responds or at least has the potential to respond to some of the critiques directed at earlier thinking on strategy from critical management studies (CMS). Then CMS's critique of organizational learning theories is noted and the critiques to re‐conceptualize blockages to learning and knowledge creation are built on.

An attempt has been made to show that, as in earlier perspectives on strategy, there is still insufficient attention being paid to the role of power in strategic change. This places severe limitations on strategic learning that is possible.

Concludes by joining other writers in calling for a less managerialist research in strategy.

This is the second of two articles on the preparation and delivery of effective presentations. Assuming the presentation has been thoroughly prepared, the problem becomes one of delivery. Once again, experience and research have identified certain crucial elements that can either facilitate or hinder a presentation. The following model incorporates these elements into a strategy for making the presentation.

Most executives find it necessary to make a number of persuasive presentations during their business careers. Planners must convince management committees to adopt new approaches or procedures; subordinates must convince their superiors that the organization should set out on a new course of action; home office managers must convince a group of field managers to pay more attention to service levels or a new product — the list of examples is endless. Such presentations are regular occurrences in all organizations.

This chapter investigates whether traditional design-oriented coordination instruments or more modern management concepts have a stronger influence on the success of forward technology transfers within MNCs.

We conducted an empirical study analyzing the relative influence of (a) traditional coordination instruments (structural, technocratic, and person-oriented) and (b) modern management concepts (epistemic community and absorptive capacity) on the success of forward technology transfers within MNCs.

The study finds evidence that the traditional coordination instruments relate to specific aspects of the success of such transfers. Comparing the different types of coordination instruments, this chapter shows that not only the person-oriented, but also the structural and technocratic coordination instruments relate positively with the achievement of technology transfer goals. The study finds stronger relationships between the traditional coordination instruments and the technology transfer goals than between the modern management concepts and the technology transfer goals.

We believe that these results have important implications for the management of international technology transfers in particular and for the focus of future (international) management research in general. Future MNC research studies need to include traditional coordination instruments, since they continue to strongly influence organizational behavior and outcomes. This would help to make organizational research on MNCs more cumulative and complete.

Environmental determinants of International Business Negotiations: A Strategic Planning Model Negotiation is a skill which can be learned. Most American and Western executives do not, however, devote sufficient time or effort to learn the art of negotiation or to understand the cultural differences among nations. The accelerating interdependency among global societies and the growing role of U.S. and Western countries in international trade, especially with Third World governments, strongly necessitate learning, experience, and training in this important task. True understanding of environmental determinants, styles, and tactics of international business negotiations is a must, if one is to achieve desirable outcomes. The old attitude of bargaining overseas and the John Wayne approach will not work anymore. “Go native” and “adaptibility” will be the key words for successful international business negotiations in the future.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

How often today do you hear a woman described as “pleasingly plump”? Never, because this is the “Fitness Generation.” In the past, a woman could be heavy (or zoftig), but today overweight women are just plain fat, ugly, and unhealthy. Even the euphemism “overweight” means “unhealthy.” It comes from “over the weight for maximum life expectancy”—or over the ideal weight determined by life insurance companies—and has extremely negative connotations itself.

Understanding what children know about history or social studies has proven illusive. In this think piece, I explore two dilemmas—the representation dilemma and the testing dilemma—that surround the question, “How do we know what children know?” I conclude that teachers, researchers, and policymakers must engage in conversations that put students’ representations of their historical knowledge and understanding at the forefront.