Editorial

Citation

Cunningham, I. (2007), "Editorial", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 21 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2007.08121daa.001

Editorial

There are three opening sections in this edition. As usual we have original authored articles and review articles. In addition, in this issue we have a special section on the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Conference, with a review of the Conference and two papers coming out of one of the sessions at the Conference.

A theme of this issue is around organizational learning in a variety facets. There are pieces that move away from a narrow view of learning as purely individually focused into wider dimensions of people development in organizations.

In keeping with our international focus, material in this issues ranges across Australia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Northern Ireland and the USA.

Authored articles

“Learning and leading: how beliefs about learning can be used to promote effective leadership” by Di Nailon, Brian Delahaye and Jo Brownlee focuses especially on developing transformational leaders.

“Lifelong learning: reflections of a junior doctor” by Michael A. Williams provides fascinating insights into learning in the medical profession and explores the context for learning for doctors.

The necessity for “Shared vision” in organizational learning is taken up by Siu Loon Hoe.

Special section

The special section on the CIPD Conference has a brief review of aspects of the Conference and then the two papers that follow pick up on a key aspect of organizational development, namely flexibility. They draw on cases from McDonald’s and Surrey County Council.

Review articles

The article on “Recruitment and retention in SMEs” points to some pertinent issues about how HRD and organizational learning practices are translated into reality via the use of a case study from Finland.

“Corporate universities in Germany” raises interesting issues about organizational learning and makes some useful comparisons with US experience.

“From cars to catheters” provides another angle on organizational learning by focusing on the application of Toyota’s lean methodology in a French hospital.

Finally “The secret of success” takes one dimension of organizational learning, namely that of leadership development.

Ian CunninghamUniversity of Sussex. E-mail: ian.cunning@ntlworld.com