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Organisations need to be highly adaptable and continue to improve if they want to prosper and take the lead in a fast-paced, competitive and unpredictable world. One of the major recommendations concerns ‘organisational learning’ and ‘learning organisation’. However, some people do not make a distinction between the concept of ‘organisational learning’ and the concept of ‘learning organisation’; between ‘learning organisation’ and ‘a learning organisation’. They think that these concepts are interchangeable. To clarify the fuzziness around the use of the three terms, this paper tries to distinguish these concepts from a linguistic point of view. Then, it explores the broader implications of these conceptual clarifications from three perspectives. It unfolds the major differences in the definitions of ‘organisational learning’, ‘learning organisation’ and ‘a learning organisation’. Moreover, it discovers that, among the definitions of ‘a learning organisation’, there exist three different types. It separates, generalises and classifies them.

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As a result of increasing enrolment of women in all levels of education and various fields of employment and aspects of public life in Saudi Arabia, the last 10 years witnessed a growing participation of women in senior management positions and in the decision-making process in public and private sectors. Recent developments indicate a clear strategic direction of policy makers and development plans in Saudi Arabia towards an even greater role for women in public life and into top leadership positions in public domains. In spite of the considerable role of women in Saudi society, evidence suggests that women in leadership positions are facing a different reality from their male counterparts due to organizational, personal and cultural challenges that impede their effectiveness as leaders. Through a survey of 160 women leaders, this article attempts to identify the challenges that women leaders face in government sectors in Saudi Arabia. Findings indicate that the main challenges are: structural challenges, lack of resources and lack of empowerment, while cultural and personal challenges ranked last, contrary to common perception. The study ultimately provides a set of recommendations with implications for leadership development in general, in order to address challenges that women leaders face and enhance their leadership role.

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This survey study examines the relationship between employee attitudes related to training and organizational commitment among a sample of nurses in New Zealand and the United States. The magnitude of recent restructuring to New Zealand’s public health system allows for an examination of employee attitudes towards training and organizational commitment in comparison to nurses from similar sized hospitals in the United States. Results show that perceived access to training, supervisory support for training, motivation to learn from training and perceived benefits of training were positively related to the affective and normative components of organizational commitment. Several significant differences were found on both training and organizational commitment variables between New Zealand and the United States. The findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical application to human resource development (HRD) outcomes and the management of HRD in health care settings.

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This paper looks at learning in organisations as one response to competitive pressure and accelerating environmental change. Two approaches, the learning organisation and HRD [human resource development], are examined in the light of new models of management and learning and a move towards the integration of work, learning, and strategy. The significance of employee participation is considered in relation to learning and some benefits and drawbacks discussed. The development of a learning orientation is seen as an organisation-wide responsibility but HR practitioners can play a key role in the promotion of learning by gearing the more traditional HR activities towards the achievement of organisational goals.

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Those working in organisations have choices to make associated with not only the goods and services they produce but also their wider social and economic impact. The number of employees in low-skilled/low-paid jobs and the high proportion of companies adopting business strategies based on low-specification goods and services are a concern for many developed and developing economies. Addressing this problem is not traditionally the concern of human resource development; however, [the authors] argue that through exploring the role that a wider, more balanced approach to Sustainable Talent Management and Development (S-TMD) may play within the context of the low skilled in the UK provides a crucial link to enhancing an organisation's performance and responsibility to society. At the heart of this approach lies a shift to appreciate the collective endeavour of work practices, an enhanced role for stakeholders and identification of, and participation in skills ecosystems to support sustainable development. The paper identifies the opportunity for S-TMD to move from a predominantly individualist, managerial and unitarist understanding to one grounded in the value of tacit and embedded development processes undertaken to reflect a pluralist, multi-voiced approach to understanding of a skills ecosystem.

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This study was conducted in a large Mexican organization running a virtual corporate university. It aimed to evaluate students' perceptions of three types of interaction (learner-teacher, learner-content and learner-learner) and their views on the effectiveness of online courses in terms of satisfaction, learning and behaviours. Twenty-six employees who had studied at least one online course within the organization answered an online survey. Four of them were interviewed. Results show that: (1) learners value their interaction with the content the most; (2) online learning is generally perceived as an effective method for delivering corporate training; and (3) there is no perceived relationship between online interactions and training effectiveness. The findings are limited to the specific context of the participating organization. Further research into online learning in corporate settings is needed to understand training interactions and changes in job performance.

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This article reports some findings from a broader study concerning the development of professional expertise. The aim of the part that is described in this article was to find out whether certain job-related factors situated in the domain of socio-technical systems design (STSD), that is, control capacity, job satisfaction, and learning value of the job, influence the development of professional knowledge, skills, and capabilities throughout the career. The sample consisted of 559 middle- and higher-level employees working in eight large Dutch companies. Theoretical contributions from learning theory, human resource management and work, and organisational psychology are used to conceptualise the phenomenon of professional expertise and to develop a theory of expertise development in careers. By providing insight into the relationships between several job-related factors, on the one hand, and the development of professional expertise, on the other, this research is intended to contribute to theory building in adult development and learning. Influential job characteristics that are situated in the domain of STSD seem to be of high importance in view of a further human resource development. Paying close attention to an individual’s job and its content is indispensable in order to guide growth throughout the career and to enable life-long development of professional expertise.

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This manuscript presents a theory-based, research-driven learning intervention embedded in the process of programme evaluation. Based within three theoretical frames (learning organization, communities of practice and knowledge construction), it describes conceptual processes undertaken by researchers and the resulting practical HRD [human resource development] learning intervention implemented in a real-world context. The intervention findings suggest the theoretical framework enhanced the ‘output’ of conference attendees’ mega-, macro- and micro-level learning. Attendees reported significant learning as a result of participating in the evaluation. Implications for enhancing knowledge construction in programmes and conferences are discussed.

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An important question for human resource development (HRD) concerns how its practices may have contributed to the global financial crisis. Commentators have highlighted that HRD must take some of the blame. First, we consider whether HRD's traditional role of contributor through performance-based development interventions, may have facilitated questionable practices in organizations. Second, we reflect on whether HRD was an irrelevant spectator through being benign and impotent; rather than challenging the status quo in organizations. Third, we contemplate the protagonist role and argue that HRD practitioners pursued short-term performance-based wealth maximizing objectives with scant regard for the long-term organizational or societal impact. We conclude by considering how HRD scholars can engage tomorrow's business leaders in critical reflection and how HRD practitioners can pursue a strategic decoupling position which allows for challenging the status quo without alienating their professional status in the organization and ethical standing in practice.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of women in leadership in Korea and to identify challenges and opportunities that they face in the process of balancing work and family life and developing leadership as women in the uniquely challenging Korean workplace, where they face organizational and cultural constraints. Critical to this investigation was the understanding of concepts frequently represented in the previous literature about women in leadership: work-family life balance; women's leadership development; and the cultural context. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 women leaders selected through a purposeful and snowball sampling method. A thematic analysis of the interview data generated six themes including: (a) commitment to work; (b) struggles for a balance; (c) defining success; (d) gender identity; (e) being a role model; and (f) need for support. Based on the findings, [the authors] provide implications for research and practice.

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