This paper presents research with small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners who have participated in a leadership development programme. The primary focus of this paper is on learning transfer and factors affecting it, arguing that entrepreneurs must engage in 'action' in order to 'learn'...

This paper explores the role of ‘action’ in entrepreneurial learning and illustrates how programs designed to support action learning can enhance management development in entrepreneurial businesses. The paper begins by exploring action learning and the way ‘action’ is conceived in...

The growing imperative for social sciences to apply more directly to the communities they study raises issues about how researchers develop their capabilities to interact with people in such communities throughout their career. A traditional model sees researcher education focus on challenges...

The authors focus on the way in which owner-managers in smaller firms improve their businesses through the creation of ‘strategic space’. The term ‘strategic space’ refers to the process by which owner-managers are able to access resources, motivation and capability to review existing...

One view of the manager is as a ‘practical’ scientist. In contrast to this image, many managers do not see themselves in this light and are uncomfortable with the notion that to be successful they should act in purely a mechanistic ‘scientific’ way. Alternative to this view is to see the...

In light of current changes in the German industrial relations' landscape and the wider and deeper integration of German multinationals into the world economy, this study investigates the relative importance of the country-of-origin effect in employee relations of German affiliates in an...

In recent years, there has been an unprecedented movement in many industries towards establishing explicit, transparent accounts of the performance and assets of institutions. The many industry monitors and league tables (e.g. Fortune 500) that are the most evident embodiments of this trend...

This paper considers the work of the Russian social philosopher and cultural theorist, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin as a source of understanding for those involved in action learning. Drawing upon data gathered over two years during the evaluation of 20 action learning sets in the north of...