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Supply chain (SC) professionals and their competence play a key role in creating value and competitive advantage for companies. A considerable amount of this competence is developed at work, but little is known about how this takes place. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the authors investigate how SC professionals develop their competence at work.

The study takes off from a theoretical framework of workplace learning mechanisms, followed by a series of in-depth interviews with an expertise panel of profoundly competent and experienced SC professionals.

The results provide detailed insights into the learning process of SC professionals. The key findings show that SC professionals use a wide range of learning mechanisms throughout their careers, and that the contribution and complexity of these mechanisms differ and change dynamically with seniority. The findings also show that learning mechanisms should not be viewed as isolated phenomena, but closely related to every-day SCM work as well as learning attitude.

By conceptualizing learning as a process, and congregating the fragmented literature into a framework of workplace learning mechanisms, this research provides a theoretical reference point for future studies. The empirical findings bring a new level of detailed knowledge on how SC professionals learn at work.

The results can assist SC professionals, HR managers and academic program leaders in their quest to develop competence in the field of SCM.

This paper makes a unique contribution to the human aspects of SCM literature by presenting the first study that investigates in depth the crucial but complex process of how workplace learning takes place for SC professionals in practice.

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe how students experience academic coaching in higher education in Norway.

The study employed a descriptive and exploratory qualitative design where semi-structured interviews formed the basis for data collection. Thematic analysis was used as an analytic strategy to identify, organise and find patterns or themes that emerged from the data.

The findings showed that academic coaching positively influenced the respondents' ability to identify the necessary and efficient cognitive processes and metacognitive skills needed to cope with everyday scholastic challenges. Academic coaching affected the respondents' metacognitive skills and cognitive processes in terms of evolving their self-efficacy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, stress identification, goal identification, goal setting and development of new strategies.

The findings in this study reflect the respondents' subjective opinions and further research is needed to validate these findings.

This article addresses a gap in the field of research by offering a descriptive pilot study and thematic analysis of students' experiences with academic coaching in Norway.

Competence development is a prerequisite for successfully meeting existing and future challenges in the retail sector. However, current human resource development practices are often limited in their scope and offerings. This study sets out to investigate and bring to light informal learning among retail professionals.

This research consists of two exploratory studies focused on store managers and procurement officers, respectively. Based on a typology of learning mechanisms, the authors conducted eleven in-depth interviews, generating a rich body of empirical data centred on how informal learning takes place at work.

The research points out key learning mechanisms for each occupation and offers detailed narratives of how they are embedded in everyday learning. In addition, the findings provide a synthesis of the complex nature of learning mechanisms and their variations in form and orientation.

By generating tangible and explicit knowledge on the topic of informal learning, the results contribute to both professionals, who may actively engage in useful learning mechanisms, and managers, who may develop processes and structures based on key learning mechanisms.

This paper helps to demystify the tacit and often unnoticed learning that takes place at work. In doing so, it broadens the perspective on competence development and facilitates future discussions of human resource development practices in the retail industry and the research community.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the scholarly impact agenda in the context of work-based and workplace research, and to propose new directions for research and practice.

This paper combines a contemporary literature review with case vignettes and reflections from practice to develop more nuanced understandings, and highlights future directions for making sense of impact in the context of work-based learning research approaches.

This paper argues that three dimensions to making sense of impact need to be more nuanced in relation to workplace research: interactional elements of workplace research processes have the potential for discursive pathways to impact, presence (and perhaps non-action) can act as a pathway to impact, and the narrative nature of time means that there is instability in making sense of impact over time.

The paper proposes a number of implications for practitioner-researchers, universities/research organisations, and focusses on three key areas: the amplification of research ethics in workplace research, the need for axiological shifts towards sustainability and the need to explicate axiological orientation in research.

This paper offers a contemporary review of the international impact debate in the specific context of work-based and workplace research approaches.

Policy makers are applying market-inspired competition and financial incentives to drive efficiency in healthcare. However, a lack of knowledge exists about the process whereby incentives are filtered through organizations to influence staff motivation, and the key role of managers is often overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategies managers use as intermediaries between financial incentives and the individual motivation of staff. The authors use empirical data from a local case in Swedish specialized care.

The authors conducted an exploratory qualitative case study of a patient-choice reform, including financial incentives, in specialized orthopedics in Sweden. In total, 17 interviews were conducted with professionals in managerial positions, representing six healthcare providers. A hypo-deductive, thematic approach was used to analyze the data.

The results show that managers applied alignment strategies to make the incentive model motivating for staff. The managers’ strategies are characterized by attempts to align external rewards with professional values based on their contextual and practical knowledge. Managers occasionally overruled the financial logic of the model to safeguard patient needs and expressed an interest in having a closer dialogue with policy makers about improvements.

Externally imposed incentives do not automatically motivate healthcare staff. Managers in healthcare play key roles as intermediaries by aligning external rewards with professional values. Managers’ multiple perspectives on healthcare practices and professional culture can also be utilized to improve policy and as a source of knowledge in partnership with policy makers.

This paper's twofold purpose is, first, to present ZELPH ['sɛlf], a self-assessment instrument that enables those developing the pedagogy of work-integrating study programmes in higher education (HE) systematically to surface the intended and unintended outcomes of their programme's approach to integrating professional practice into an academic course. Secondly, the paper reports on a small pilot study with programme staff from five different HE institutions in various countries who tested ZELPH.

ZELPH operationalises aspects of key theories on work-integrating learning pedagogy, and thereby enables a simplified depiction of the reality of combining classroom-based and worksite-based learning. Programme staff from Germany, the United Kingdom, France, South Africa and Taiwan applied the instrument to their respective work-integrating study programmes and evaluated its perceived value and feasibility.

The findings suggest that ZELPH offers value as a practical instrument, in particular to those less familiar with developing work-integrating learning pedagogy as well as to those keen to compare programmes across national, cultural and institutional contexts.

ZELPH contributes to addressing the lack of practically applicable instruments to support the design and international benchmarking of work-integrating learning pedagogy in HE.

The purpose is explore an approach to acquire, analyze and report data concerning an organizational change initiative that combines knowledge generation and knowledge use, and contrast that with a method where knowledge generation and use is separated. More specifically, the authors contrast a participatory group workshop with individual interviews analyzed with thematic analysis, focusing on information about the change process and its perceived practical relevance and usefulness.

Participants were managers responsible for implementing a broad organizational change aiming to improve service quality (e.g. access and equity) and reduce costs in a mental health service organization in Sweden. Individual interviews were conducted at two points, six months apart (i1: n = 15; i2: n = 18). Between the interviews, a 3.5-h participatory group workshop was conducted, during which participants (n = 15) both generated and analyzed data through a structured process that mixed individual-, small- and whole-group activities.

Both approaches elicited substantive information about the content, purpose and process of change. While the content and purpose findings were similar across the two data sources, the interviews described how to lead a change process, whereas the workshop yielded concrete information about what to do. Benefits of interviews included personal insights about leading change while the workshop provided an opportunity for collective sense-making.

When organizational stakeholders work through the change process through a participatory workshop, they may get on the same page, but require additional support to take action.

Social sustainability is of increasing importance in societal development, which will affect the implementation of construction projects. The social responsibilities for both construction clients and suppliers will be an increasingly relevant part of their business processes. The objective of this study is to evaluate how the procurement process functions today with respect to social considerations.

The empirical data is based on interviews with procurement officials for each studied contract, together with official guidelines concerning social considerations and tender documents for each studied contract. Furthermore, the interviews addressed the level of knowledge that exists with procurement officials concerning social considerations in the procurement of road and railroad projects.

The results showed that there was a positive attitude towards social considerations in the procurement process and that there is a need in the construction sector to consider social issues to a higher degree.

This study is based on six road and five railroad contracts within the Swedish Transport Administration as the client organization.

It was evident that the level of knowledge with individual procurement officials concerning social issues is relatively low and needs to be increased. There is a perception that the management social considerations in construction procurement need to be clarified.

Further research is needed to develop procedures, guidelines, routines and strategies for social considerations in procurement. Another important issue for further research is the development of routines to follow up social terms of contract during the implementation of the project.