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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/01437739510097996. When citing the article, please cite: William D. Hitt, (1995), “The learning organization: some reflections on organizational renewal”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 16 Iss: 8, pp. 17 - 25.

Starts with a general theory of leadership and then specifies 25 leadership competences. These, taken together, define the “model leader”. The term model leader is used as an ideal type to designate the hypothetical individual who possesses all 25 competences in full measure, and who could be described as a fully functioning person. The term “effective leader” is used to designate the real‐world person who is striving to become a model leader. This latter individual is the person who is addressed in the hope that it may serve as a guide to self‐development.

The majority of manager development programmes may be described as “piecemeal”, and the purpose of this article is to present a strategy for a unified programme — in which the various components are working in harmony. The author develops a systems view of a programme, listing eight essential principles. For this programme then to be applied, the support of top management must be gained. The programme itself, in ten steps, is then described.

A learning organization has been defined as one in which the members continually acquire, share, and use new knowledge to adapt to an ever‐changing environment. By incorporating Peter Senge′s principles from The Fifth Discipline within the McKinsey 7‐S framework, presents a systems model of a learning organization. The addition of one “S” yields a model and this systems model is an assemblage of “best practices” in organizational effectiveness. The implementation of these best practices can help transform a traditional organization into a learning organization.

Many organizations now utilize action learning, and it is applied increasingly throughout the world. Action learning appears in numerous variants, but generically it is a form of learning through experience, “by doing”, where the task environment is the classroom, and the task the vehicle. Two previous reviews of the action learning literature by Alan Mumford respectively covered the field prior to 1985 and the period 1985‐1994. Both reviews included books as well as journal articles. This current review covers the period 1994‐2000 and is limited to publicly available journal articles. Part 1 of the Review was published in an earlier issue of the Journal of Workplace Learning (Vol. 15 No. 2) and included a bibliography and comments. Part 2 extends that introduction with a schema for categorizing action learning articles and with comments on representative articles from the bibliography.

Briefly reviews 20 books concerned with all aspects of management including studying for a management qualification, as in S. Cameron′s The MBA Handbook, which offers practical advice on how to study for an MBA. Applies the relevance of such books to the concerns of the library manager and indicates how such publications could help the manager to provide a better library service, improve interpersonal skills and generally overcome most of the hurdles which managers have to surmount.

Briefly reviews 20 books concerned with all aspects of management including studying for a management qualification, as in S. Cameron′s The MBA Handbook, which offers practical advice on how to study for an MBA. Applies the relevance of such books to the concerns of the library manager and indicates how such publications could help the manager to provide a better library service, improve interpersonal skills and generally overcome most of the hurdles which managers have to surmount.

FOLLOWING the talk given by Mr William C. Hitt of the Douglas Aircraft Company last June, which was reported in Aircraft Engineering for July, the S.L.A.E. organized a meeting at which the subject could be further discussed. Mr R. A. Fry was in the chair, and the first paper, by Mr William C. Hitt, was delivered by his son, Mr Lloyd Hitt.

The literature on international entrepreneurship offers two competing views on why new ventures internationalize: (a) the nature of the opportunity pulls them international or (b) the founder pushes the firm international. While these two internationalization drivers are not independent, they do represent unique causal mechanisms. Previously, the tools available to understand the entrepreneur’s disposition toward internationalization were limited. The present study uses the theoretical foundation of the international entrepreneurial orientation construct and from it develops and tests an attitudinally-based individual-level measure of disposition toward internationalization. To ensure the validity and reliability of the new measure, termed International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition, studies were conducted to: develop new scale items, examine their psychometric properties and construct validity, and demonstrate criterion validity. A strong measurement model is developed using structural equation modeling (CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07), and the measure is shown to be useful as a predictor of perceived international venture attractiveness.