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This paper aims to examine the differences in mindfulness, meditation and flow and the conditions in which each occurs. It summarizes research that demonstrates positive benefits of these three for employee and organizational learning. While mindfulness focuses awareness on what is occurring in the moment, flow involves total immersion in an activity and loss of awareness of one’s self and the environment. This paper discusses if and how mindfulness can be incorporated into flow and how this relates to organizational learning.

A mindfulness-in-flow process, called mindflow, is described as one that includes open awareness at the “integral point”. Pilot programmes were conducted that integrated mindfulness, meditation and flow for three companies and participants that reported personal physical and psychological benefits and development of mindfulness-in-flow skills.

This paper suggests that conducting workplace programmes and environments that incorporate mindfulness, meditation and flow has considerable potential to improve culture, responsiveness and learning.

For mindflow to be a useful process to enhance individual and organizational learning, conditions need to be embedded which encourage mindfulness and flow in the organization. Further research is needed into the study of the integration of mindfulness in flow versus mindfulness, the workplace conditions necessary to support mindflow and how these translate into organizational learning.

Organizations need to provide workplace conditions, resources and systems that support mindful flow. Leaders also need to be models and coaches to guide individuals and teams to work in a mind-flow way.

The process and practice of mindflow provides greater fulfillment for workers as well as greater alignment between the organization’s products and services and the well being of society.

This paper suggests that conducting workplace programmes and providing organizational conditions that incorporate mindfulness, meditation and flow will increase organizational learning and provide an essential culture for a learning organization.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possibilities of transcending individual, organizational and social problems through the prism of presence as suggested by Senge et al. (2012).

The paper is based on the critical review of previous contributions.

The idea of a learning organization seems romantic and elusive, as well as difficult to implement, especially when the definition by Senge (1990) is considered. At the same time, organizational and social complexity is increasing and resulting in numerous difficult or wicked problems. To reach integrative and transcending solutions, a change in perception and surrender to presence is key.

Conclusions provided in the paper could benefit from further practice to corroborate the findings.

Suggestions for practitioners have been provided on how to solve personal, organizational and social problems on the basis of the paradigm shift and the shift in perception.

In this paper, the individual, organizational and social dimensions in terms of their intricacies are considered and solutions are offered that could simultaneously solve wicked problems on all three levels.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the importance of using open source technologies and common standards for interoperability when implementing eHealth systems, and to illustrate this through case studies, where possible.

Design/methodology/approach – The sources used to inform this chapter draw from the implementation and evaluation of the eHealth Program in the context of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP).

Findings – As the eHealth Team was tasked to deploy an eHealth architecture, the Millennium Villages Global-Network (MVG-Net), across all 14 of the MVP sites in sub-Saharan Africa, the team not only recognized the need for standards and uniformity but also realized that context would be an important factor. Therefore, the team decided to utilize open source solutions.

Practical implications – The MVP implementation of MVG-Net provides a model for those looking to implement informatics solutions across disciplines and countries. Furthermore, there are valuable lessons learned that the eHealth community can benefit from.

Originality/value – By sharing lessons learned and developing an accessible, open source eHealth platform, we believe that we can more efficiently and rapidly achieve the health-related and collaborative Millennium Development Goals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the role that spiritual development plays in the development of learning individuals and organizations. Spiritual development has been examined though the lens of various meditative practices (such as transcendental meditation, mindfulness and flow) and religious indoctrinations (such as Hinduism and Islam).

Possibilities of developing learning individuals and learning organizations have been examined by reviewing the benefits of meditative practices and core beliefs of several religious indoctrinations. The findings have been discussed and put into context of the desired learning organizations characteristics, especially from the perspective offered by Peter Senge.

The presented discussion points to the conclusion that spiritual development, either by practicing certain meditation practices or by implementing core values of different religious indoctrinations, can be considered as a missing and a powerful leverage when developing learning organizations. Spiritual development of individuals might be the missing link or the Holy Grail which could make the learning organizations, as defined by Senge, not only logical and desirable but also attainable.

In this paper, other religious indoctrinations and their correspondence with the learning organization philosophy, besides Hinduism and Islam, have not been considered.

Implications for practitioners, especially managers, have been identified regarding recommendations for designing working environments that would enable space and time for practicing meditative practices. Implications for raising the level of consciousness have been identified for individuals striving to enliven their state of being and hence improve their creativity and motivation, as well as the inner sense of serenity and well-being. Suggestions have been provided for practitioners in the academic environment regarding the need to introduce the benefits of raising the level of consciousness to their students.

Raising the level of consciousness and developing spirituality can have tremendous positive social implications in terms of improved health, ethical and moral conduct, social relations, creativity, productivity and general welfare.

By comparing the benefits of raising the level of consciousness by practicing meditation and reflecting on religious core values and beliefs with the desired learning organization characteristics, it becomes clear that individual spiritual development is the missing link when building learning organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a process model on how mindfully performed organisational routines can simultaneously enable organisational stability and organisational change.

Via conceptual analysis, the authors develop several propositions and a process model integrating the theory of mindfulness and performative aspects of organisational routines with organisational stability and change. To do so, the authors review the literature on organisational routines, mindfulness, stability, inertia and change.

First, the authors demonstrate that, based on levels of mindfulness employed, performative aspects of organisational routines can be categorised as mindless, mindful and collectively mindful (meta-routines). Second, in the process model, the authors position the mindless performance of routines as enabling organisational stability, mediated through inertial pressure and disabling change, mediated through constrained change capacities. Finally, the authors state that engaging routines with mindfulness at an individual (mindful routines) or collective (meta-routines) level reduces inertia and facilitates change. Such simultaneous engagement leads to either sustaining stability when required or implementing continuous organisational change.

The framework uses continuous, versus episodic, change; future research can consider the model’s workability with episodic change. Future research can also seek to empirically validate the model. The authors hope that this model informs research in organisational change and provides guidance on addressing organisational inertia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to categorise the performative aspects of organisational routine based on the extent of mindfulness employed and propose that mindfulness-based practice of routines stimulates either inertia-induced or inertia-free stability and continuous change.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature on team management and flow theory by framing shared flow in teams (SFT) as a unique construct of much interest for team performance, as well as by proposing team vibration as a metaphor and measurable property of SFT.

An inductive approach is used to identify the occurrence of SFT by means of team vibration, and scale development procedures are used to offer an instrument to measure team vibration.

The current state of knowledge does not allow researchers and team leaders to assume that flow in teams depends on team members being in full flow too. Accordingly, it is shown that SFT is an emergent phenomenon of the complex interaction of team members, thus not corresponding to the mere aggregation of flow of individual team members. Moreover, it is also shown that the emergent property of team vibration is an efficient surrogate measure for SFT because it enables better communication in measurement.

Team managers should hire professionals that contribute to high levels of vibration in teams because this is expected to leverage desirable team processes and outcomes. Such individuals possess an ideal balance of individual and group focus. However, the authors warn that managers should be careful in assuming that individuals in full state of flow are necessary for the occurrence of flow in teams.

This study frames SFT as a unique construct in the literature of flow in groups, in addition to developing a metaphor and surrogate measure (team vibration) and a measurement instrument.