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In an empirical study learning opportunities were identified. Learning opportunities are enablers or disablers for the achievement of shared understanding.

Actors were interviewed about their communication process. The learning history method was used to analyze and structure the data. From the learning histories learning opportunities were derived. Finally, the learning opportunities were categorized.

Learning opportunities were found on three levels: the actor, project and company level. They were also joined in six themes. Combining these two patterns showed that learning opportunities are interrelated.

The case study done was retrospective for the actors involved. Therefore, only conclusions could be drawn on the achievement of shared understanding. To be able to say more about the creation of shared understanding, following a NPD project real time would be desirable, in future research.

This study shows the importance for managers of looking across boundaries. Only solving problems integrally within the organization will help to solve problems successfully. Knowing the learning opportunities of a NPD project finished, will help them to improve future projects. The explicit use of storytelling during a NPD project may help to create a learning organization with shared understanding between the actors.

Previous research showed, shared understanding is important, to be able to manage the integration of different knowledge domains. However, these studies do not describe learning opportunities for the achievement of shared understanding, which was done in this study.

This paper describes an approach called opportunity centred learning that has been developed by the author and applied in the field of enterprise education. The relationship between opportunity centred learning and existing theory and practice in learning and education is outlined in comparison with problem‐based learning and action learning, and the process for using it is described. An example of the type of mind‐maps adopted and a short case study illustrate the approach. The conclusions and implications for educational practice including the benefits and limitations of opportunity centred learning are outlined, together with proposed recommendations for further development in emerging areas of enterprise education.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Employees are increasingly becoming facilitators of their own professional career path and development. A highly motivated employee wanting to learn and train for their own personal development will be more aware of potential learning opportunities available to them, and will be more inclined to engage in them. For improved productivity and success, organizations need both engaged and committed employees and to offer a range of learning opportunities.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This study aims to assess “learning opportunities” provided to undergraduate students, from level three to six, in higher education (HE). A knowledge gap was identified within the current practice relating to learning opportunities for built environment (BE) students in HE. The study focussed on the themes under section two of the national student survey (NSS): how students explore ideas or concepts in-depth, bring information and ideas together from different topics and apply the learned content in a real-life context. The study aimed to provide recommendations for enhancing “learning opportunities” to the BE students within HE.

Data collection focussed on section two of NSS “learning opportunities” and documentary analysis, and a qualitative survey were adopted for this study. A documental analysis of 334 mid-module reviews was carried out. The qualitative data was collected from level three to level six students and academics from architecture, construction management, civil engineering and quantity surveying disciplines representing BE context. A sample of 40 students and 15 academics, including a Head of school, a Principal lecturer, Subject leads and lecturers, participated in interviews as part of a qualitative survey. In total, 12 drivers were developed using the data obtained through literature, documental analysis and interviews. These drivers were analysed using manual content analysis to identify their influence on the specified themes under NSS section two and circulated amongst academics to be ranked by identifying its influence to promote learning opportunities to BE students in HE.

This study highlighted 12 drivers which promote learning opportunities in HE within BE curriculum. Findings established that topics should be explained with more real-life or industry-orientated concepts such as simplification integrated into module delivery. Contrary to the literature, the use of physical materials (i.e. handouts and whiteboard) in addition to a virtual learning environment for detailed explanations were considered effective in exploring concepts. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, context-based learning needs to be promoted by integrating videos of practical implementation for better understanding. The study recognised that lab, fieldwork and tutorials were essential to apply what students have learned in BE curricula to a real-life context.

This study identified current learning approaches and provided recommendations to improve the BE students learning experience in HE. They identified 12 drivers that would significantly help academics and academic institutions to understand how learning opportunities should be facilitated in the BE curriculum to enhance student performances in HE.

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.

This study aims to identify the relation between perceived learning opportunities, behavioral intentions to voluntarily stay or leave technology organizations and employee retention within these organizations.

This is a survey of 440 employees of a technology organization.

Learning opportunities perceived by managers and technicians presented significant positive correlations with the intention to stay and significant negative correlations with the intention to leave the organization. No relation was identified between perceived learning opportunities and manager retention. Among technicians, the correlation between perceived learning opportunities and retention was near zero.

If the organization wants to guarantee the intention of professionals to stay in the organization, the “perceived learning opportunities” indicator should have a similar level of importance as other objective indicators, such as performance and achievement.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify relations between perceived learning opportunities and behavioral intention to stay and leave of professionals that work in technology organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the indirect effects of strategic leadership for learning between sales employees’ perceived learning opportunities and organizational commitment and job performance.

A total of 204 responses from sales employees in a South Korean company were analyzed using path analysis to test the hypothesized model and hypotheses.

Results of the analysis showed that strategic leadership has a significant indirect effect on the relationship between perceived learning opportunities and job performance and organizational commitment.

The results of this study challenge the belief that providing learning opportunities improves salesperson performance and organizational commitment. The results indicate that the relationship between continuous learning opportunities and performance, as well as between opportunities and organizational commitment, is statistically nonsignificant. However, the authors did find that providing continuous learning opportunities via strategic leadership because learning increases performance and organizational commitment.

Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem‐solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and extent to which, these key competencies can be acquired in real‐world learning opportunities.

The paper summarizes key competencies in sustainability, identifies criteria for real‐world learning opportunities in sustainability programs, and draws on dominant real‐world learning models including project‐ and problem‐based learning, service learning, and internships in communities, businesses, and governments. These components are integrated into a framework to design real‐world learning opportunities.

A “functional and progressive” model of real‐world learning opportunities seems most conducive to introduce students (as well as faculty and community partners) to collaborative research between academic researchers and practitioners. The stepwise process combined with additional principles allows building competencies such as problem solving, linking knowledge to action, and collaborative work, while applying concepts and methods from the field of sustainability.

The paper offers examples of real‐world learning opportunities at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, discusses general challenges of implementation and organizational learning, and draws attention to critical success factors such as collaborative design, coordination, and integration in general introductory courses for undergraduate students.

The paper contributes to sustainability education by clarifying how real‐world learning opportunities contribute to the acquisition of key competencies in sustainability. It proposes a functional and progressive model to be integrated into the (undergraduate) curriculum and suggests strategies for its implementation.

In the United States, policy discussions of teacher education in relationship to teacher quality have tended to focus more closely around debates about the nature of teacher preparation and the need for quality teachers to possess advanced degrees or certification. The field is in need of an array of indicators – a set of powerful, well-researched indicators that can be applied to large public universities as well as small regional private colleges, from university-based programs to “alternative” programs and to more “hybrid” programs. These indicators need to be relevant for teacher certification across a variety of age-ranges and developmental stages. In this chapter, we build on a growing conversation about practice in teacher education and efforts on the part of researchers to identify key features of powerful teacher education. We propose that quality teacher education is designed around a clear and shared vision of good teaching; it is coherent in that it links theory with practice and offers opportunities to learn that are aligned with the vision of good teaching; and it offers opportunities to enact teaching. While these features are supported for the most part by growing consensus in the literature (National Research Council, 2010; NCATE, 2010), there is also an emerging empirical base that provides support for the value of these features as well.

There is a growing interest in exploring the interface between international marketing and entrepreneurial opportunities. This paper contributes by defining and elucidating entrepreneurial action in early internationalising software firms and the corresponding emergent international marketing activities. Entrepreneurial action in early internationalising software firms is explored through the operationalisation of a reconceptualised entrepreneurial opportunity construct and the associated entrepreneurial learning processes.

The paper adopts an inductive approach, which traces the evolution of five early internationalising propriety software South African firms; from the new venture idea to the establishment of the international entrepreneurial opportunity.

The findings provide support for entrepreneurial action guided by: prior industry experience, entrepreneurial alertness, opportunity confidence and two levels of entrepreneurial learning; experiential and double-loop learning. Learning by doing allows for the continuous evaluation of the new venture idea leading to the international entrepreneurial opportunity. Market responsiveness and continuous product development resulting in the emergence of the firm's inward international marketing activities constitute the key outcomes of entrepreneurial action.

The study is limited to a specific technology context, which is young software firms whose inward directed internationalisation activities coalesce around the development of their proprietary software technology.

Based on an original dataset of early internationalising software firms from South Africa, this paper inductively operationalises and conceptualises entrepreneurial action as the combined interaction of four key constructs: contingent effects, attitudes to opportunities, learning by doing and entrepreneurial activities leading to the firm's inward international marketing activities and a diversified international client and end-user base.