Argues that few directors know what their role is. Having had no training or development, directors can revert back to managing, rather than direction‐giving. Discusses the new pressures which are forcing directors to rethink their roles. Directors must act as the business brain of the...

Experience shows that there are no easy ways of transferring Western ideas of “management” into the factories of the Peoples' Republic of China, or vice versa. With the present rapid expansion of trade between China and the West this sets up some formidable problems for the managers who are...

Purpose – This essay argues that many directors are never inducted and developed into their board directoral roles. By not understanding their legal roles and tasks as a director, as distinct from a manager, they can rarely extract themselves for long enough to become skilled at thinking...

Reflects on the development of the concept of a learning organisation as a tool for business success. Argues that, unlike many management ideas, organisational learning is not a “fad” but is increasingly accepted as a vital strategy for organisational survival and development in a...

The central idea of action learning — that for any organism to survive its rate of learning must be equal to or greater than the rate of change in its environment — has stood the test of time, and is used as a reason for selecting and launching action learning processes by management. Little...