Editorial

Citation

Cervai, S. and Kekale, T. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 25 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl.2013.08625eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: The Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 25, Issue 5

Welcome to a new issue of Journal of Workplace Learning! In this issue we have two articles on team learning. A team is often defined as a group of people jointly working towards a commonly agreed goal. Suitable approaches for studying team learning are, for example, how the team reaches its goal and what happens upon team reflection, or the process and roles within the work of the team.

First off, “Managing team learning in a Spanish commercial bank” is an example of the latter approach. This article, by Erik Døving and Irene Martín-Rubio, studies numerous teams in their natural activity and context in an attempt to find out how the role of the team leader affects the team learning. The multiple regression analysis finds a positive relation: a considerate and initiating leader improves team learning. The second article, by Jon Ohlsson, concludes that basically the same holds in a school environment: local team organizational attempts and headmasters’ intentions to foster teamwork and collaboration increase team reflection. The collective reflections loops make a difference; elaborated shared understanding leads to increasing competence. However, states Ohlsson, “a facilitating team learning atmosphere also is significant for team learning”.

These two team learning pieces are followed by Torjörn Waaland’s statistical study on about 300 pre-school teachers and their experiences on mentoring. This study is not literally on team learning, but it does discuss the “facilitating learning atmospheres” that Jon Ohlsson has also registered. Torjörn Waaland writes on the “importance of coordination at work, in order to establish a job environment where problem solving tasks can be solved through a multidimensional mentoring system” as a good solution for a well-functioning learning workplace. According to him, task standardization leads to better achievement of learning objectives; this through “formalizing how different mentoring roles can be used in order to handle a changing workplace”. These three studies, while quite different, all suggest that it matters how the workplace is organized and managed: the good ones promote learning more than the not-so-good ones.

Finally, this issue also includes a text that is more oriented towards practitioners, with Federico Barnabè, Cristiano Busco, Pål I. Davidsen, Maurizio Lambri and GianfrancoZatta reporting on the typical results gained with a micro-firm role-play game for understanding of strategic management.

We hope that this selection again inspires you, Dear Reader, to expand your horizons and to invent new research areas within Workplace Learning.

Yours,

Sara Cervai, Tauno KekäleEditors