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This chapter comments on organizational learning research produced by scholars who studied or taught at Stanford University during the last third of the 20th century. Challenging classical learning models, Stanford scholars have demonstrated how cognitive and social processes attenuate connections between environmental action and the lessons learned from it. They have demonstrated how goals change over time as a partial function of prior performance and the importance of temporal processes in learning rates. They have shown how rules and routines encode only imperfectly lessons learned from organizational action. Their research has deepened and enriched our understanding of organizational learning.

The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

This chapter attempts to reinvigorate scholarly interest in executive scanning by outlining a model to guide future research on executive search within the context of international strategy. Executive scanning has received considerable empirical attention but only limited theoretical attention. Most of this research has studied scanning as the receipt rather than the search for information. Based on the application of learning theory, we outline a model advancing two broad categories of executive search exploitative and explorative, consisting of six specific search behaviors. We advance search as integral to managerial decisions relating to the various aspects of internationalization, notably choice of location, corporate strategy, and mode of entry. The implications for future research are presented.

Social systems theory (Luhmann, 1984, 1995) closely embraces the concept of autopoiesis which, originally, describes the recursive (self)-production of living systems (Maturana & Varela, 1980). Following this, autopoietic organization theory (Bakken & Hernes, 2003; Seidl & Becker, 2006) establishes a more specialized understanding of autopoiesis in terms of organization studies. The transition from the biological to the social realm, however, draws frequent critique. Some scholar suspiciously regard social systems theory as antihumanistic (Blühdorn, 2000; Viskovatoff, 1999), for it neglects individuals in favor of interactions, organizations, and societies. Others deconstruct autopoietic organization theory with the argument that its definition of communication is “flawed with an unavoidable mental dimension, namely the component of understanding” (Thyssen, 2003, p. 213).

The transition from school to work or to post-secondary training is a critical period for all students (Gilmore, Bose, & Hart, 2001; Zaft, Hart, & Zimbrich, 2004). Thus, a challenge for educators is to develop educational programs and services that embrace the characteristics that is prevalent in highly successful adults with and without disabilities. For years, adolescents and adults with development disabilities did not receive much attention from general or special educators. Fortunately, special educators now are reorganizing the complex needs of these older individuals and are making progress in designing interventions to meet their diverse needs. However, they alone cannot ensure the success of these students in secondary and post-secondary situations (see Hart, Mele-McCarthy, Pasternack, Zimbrich, & Parker, 2004). Legislators and policymakers must consider the special needs of this population in reforming secondary education; and general and special educators must share the responsibility of preparing them for graduation and post-secondary planning (see Bailey, Hughes, & Karp, 2004). In addition, community services must join forces with educators and employers to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with a continuum of services throughout their life span. Many students with developmental disabilities find themselves unprepared at college entry in a number of areas including inadequate knowledge of subject content, underachieving in academic skills, poor organizational skills (e.g., time management and study skills), poor test taking skills, lack of assertiveness, and low self-esteem (Dalke & Schmitt, 1987; Mull, Sitlington, & Alper, 2001; Stodden & Whelley, 2004).

Clusters of foreign manufacturing plants are traditionally explained by characteristics of the entry location such as immobile resources or agglomeration advantages, but an alternative explanation is that social or economic relations among firms in the home country facilitate interorganizational learning about entry locations. Such interorganizational learning reduces uncertainty, leading to heterogeneous diffusion of the plant location choices among organizations that are socially proximate in the home country. We examine this hypothesis through analysis of the effect of industry, lending ties, and board interlocks among Japanese firms on their entries into Europe, and find that shared industry and structural equivalence in the board interlock network are strong predictors of mimetic nation choice. The findings suggest that nation choices follow an innovation diffusion pattern, and that Japanese firms have paths of influence like those of U.S. firms.