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The effects of privatisation, public work force downsizing and schemes to re‐invent government have eroded the middle management capacity that is crucial to the success of many community development programmes and complex public and private partnerships for learning disability services in the US. The impact of these factors has been accelerated by reform proposals from within the learning disability field that associate government and management with the perceived ills of traditional specialised service agencies and assume that market and other approaches to providing services will be superior. In addition, the consolidation of learning disability within broader health and human services, at state and local levels, along with large losses in the number of managers in learning disability services, has added to the problems of managing community services. Managing community services is therefore an important challenge in the US, and attention needs to be paid to the unique problems in this environment, with the roles middle managers play in the large and complex organisational environment of community services crucial to their stability and success. Managers more than management frameworks are especially important in the US, as comprehensive administrative arrangements at local level are unlikely to emerge. Disappointment about traditional approaches in specialised provision should not lead to uncritical assumptions about the superiority of alternative arrangements for managing learning disability services.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between entrepreneurial behavior and success factors in a developing country context.

A case study approach was selected to analyze real‐life situations in order to gain an insight about entrepreneurial cognition and action related to success factors. Drawing from the behavioral theory of entrepreneurship, this paper presents a conceptual model which shows that entrepreneurial cognitions about success factors may lead toward entrepreneurial actions. The data were collected through face‐to‐face interviews. Three entrepreneurs were asked to outline responses to identified success factors such as start‐up planning, managing risk, learning, networking, managing human resource, and managing finances.

The results suggest that many behavioral patterns exhibited by the case study entrepreneurs were similar to entrepreneurs' behavior in more developed regions. The similarities include: preparation of business plan, ability cognition for start‐up planning, overconfidence and representativeness heuristics for managing risk, obtaining professional outsider assistance for learning, developing business relationships with suppliers for networking and favorable credit policies, and employing owner‐related and delaying‐payment methods of bootstrapping for managing finances.

For the first time in Pakistan this study explores entrepreneurial cognition and action in managing success factors. The findings of the research will potentially help practitioners and policy makers in nurturing entrepreneurial initiatives in a developing country context.

The personalities, style and job demands of top ranking police officers have never before been seriously analysed. Here, by using a management development survey, key personality characteristics and the management and interpersonal styles of top ranking officers are identified. The views of chief officers are discussed, together with an examination of the necessary qualities required. Ways in which senior officers can improve their performance through management training and development and how this can assist their professional growth and development, are emphasised.

The area of organizational learning and the learning organization is of burgeoning interest among progressive business organizations, educationalists and consultants concerned with transformational change in turbulent business environments. A key feature of this approach to learning and managing change is a focus on teamworking. Reviews the organizational literature and identifies the role of teamworking in building a learning organization. A challenge facing contemporary business organizations is to redefine and change their organizations in such as way as to be consistent with the learning organization notion, but many difficulties remain to be articulated in the design of such organizations.

This is the first in a series of three articles which evaluate the use of self‐managed learning (SML) in management development processes in health care settings. This first article, being more general, outlines SML′s philosophical origins, strategic design, and current practice. SML represents a strategic approach to individual and organizational learning, which offers a new synthesis of previous ideas and approaches. Its proven benefits relate to the way in which the process of learning is designed to mirror the process of managing. The second article focuses specifically on a regional NHS case study of the application of SML, while the third provides a complementary US case study in a health care provider organization, where SML has been adopted for a leadership development programme.

This chapter explores the nature of learning required for effective leaders. The case is made that learning is not all one process and the difference between Learning 1 and Learning 2, as proposed by Bateson, is favoured as a model. Put simply learning, for instance, lots of facts (Learning 1) does not necessarily help the leader become more courageous, more self-confidant and more driven by deep values and beliefs. A case study of a Self Managed Learning programme for school heads is used to show the importance of Learning 2 and a way to focus development at this level. There is also a case study of a company that was seen as the best in its field folding due to the emphasis on Learning 1 (particularly technical skill) and lack of attention to Learning 2 qualities.

Previous articles in this series, on the evolution of the corporate university as a dynamic future state business development platform, have described processes and methodologies for achieving both organisation and strategic learning re‐orientation for success. “Managing the corporate university learning curve”, in particular revealed the innovative nature and challenge facing corporate university executives in their quest to achieve customised structures, flexible learning processes and time durable intellectual properties in a new or amended company educational paradigm, defined as model 3. This derivative model espoused business excellence, focused business education processes and timely executive action. A key dynamic strand in the evolution of the corporate university concept in model 3 was identified as the “management of learning” strand. Takes an overview on the current state of the art in corporate learning management and the issue tensions that can arise in the preparation of a progressive and satisfying learning strategy. Relates to the main issues surrounding the energising of learning in organisations, the consequences of corporate learning policy and an outline methodology for appraising the main determinants of corporate learning strategy.

The history of Organizational Development (OD) reveals a much older tradition of organizational science than the conventional wisdom would suggest. By the 1960s and 1970s OD became self‐confident and dynamic. This period was not only highly experimental but established the principles of OD for much of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century new images of OD had occurred and much of the earlier thinking had been transformed. This review illustrates some examples under a series of themes that have had a major impact on the discipline of OD and on the wider thinking of organizational theorists and researchers.

This article defines the cultural nature and scale of change in learning consciousness that has to take place when the organisationally‐based adult learner makes the transition from formal prescriptive learning practice to self‐owned, self‐directed learning. It articulates some of the learning‐to‐learn process models that introduce, accelerate, enhance and facilitate the adult person's understanding of this evolutionary journey. It also provides practical guidelines in progressively shaping their endeavours to take effective ownership of their own managerial learning at work. It draws on experience in delivering learning‐to‐learn programmes to suggest that the management learner in particular has to be increasingly aware and more discriminating in how they spend their time and learning energy if they are to arrive where they want to be and at the same time satisfy all the stakeholders investments in these process events. It illustrates, using a portfolio of learning‐to‐learn process‐management‐practice ideas, how the individual and groups of learners can effectively and progressively begin to manage the quality of their experience in learning to learn. The author advises that, in the long term, taking responsibility for learning to learn is not something that can be absolved by the learner manager; it has to become a self‐determined series of personally‐managed events. Adult learners have to have a heightened state of alertness to the dynamics of gradualism in managing the new learning process itself – to become “savvy” about the dynamics of the learning process and the key decision areas that will make a difference between learning satisfaction and success or failure in achieving their personal objectives.