In this polemical essay, Professor Russ Vince argues that it is important to understand the contradictions that can be generated by action learning. This method is a powerful and effective approach to managers' learning that can underpin transformations of management practice. However, any...

The theme of this paper is a discussion of the relationship between action learning and organizational learning. The main argument is that action learning has been understood in terms of the impact that it can have within the organization, and that, in addition, it is important to ask—what is...

The theme of this article is the future of learning in public organizations. It outlines a way of thinking that might underpin learning, and argues that, by the year 2010, public organizations could develop a radical approach to organizational learning that would make the concept more meaningful...

This paper seeks to improve our understanding of the emotional and political dynamics that are generated (and too often avoided) in action learning. The idea at the centre of the paper is a distinction between ‘learning-in-action’ and ‘learning inaction’. The phrase...

This paper explores the emotion of disappointment in organizations and develops a new line of theorizing inspired by psychoanalytic object-relations theory. Existing literature frames disappointment as a threat to organizational effectiveness, as both a response and an anticipation of failure...

The theme of this paper is the relationship between emotion, management and organization, specifically, how emotions are transformed by rationalizations, and vice versa. It is argued that managers' tendency to rationalize emotion creates additional "emotional" dynamics, and that these provide...