This timely Handbook establishes the ‘contextualization’ of the learning organization idea as a research field.

The concept of the 'learning organization' is one of the most popular management ideas of the last few decades. Since it was conceived as an idea in its own right, it has been given various definitions and meanings, such that we are still faced with the question as to whether any unified understanding of what the learning organization really is can be established. This Handbook offers extensive reviews of both new and traditional perspectives on the concept and provides suggestions for how the learning organization can best be defined, practiced, studied, and developed in future research. With contributions from long-standing scholars in the field as well as those new to the area, this book aims to bridge the gap between traditional and more critical perspectives, and in doing so find alternative features and angles to take the idea forward. In addition to elaborating on and developing older definitions of the learning organization and suggesting updated and even new definitions, the chapters also provide focused explorations on pertinent aspects of the learning organization such as ambidexterity, gender inclusivity, and systems thinking. They also survey organizations that have made efforts towards becoming learning organizations, how the learning organization can best be measured and studied, and the universality of the idea itself. Some of the questions raised in this book are answered, or at least given tentative answers, while other questions are left open. In this way, the book has the ambition to take the learning organization an important step further, whilst having no intentions to take any final step; instead, the intention is that others will endeavour to continue where this book stops.

Over time management ideas and panaceas have been presented alternately as quick fix cures for all corporate ills and the emperor’s new clothes, beset by flaws and problems. This Handbook provides a different approach, suggesting that management ideas and panaceas should not be either adopted or rejected outright, but gives guidance in the art of assessing and applying management ideas and panaceas to various situations and contexts. The contributors discuss the ways in which researchers, organizational actors and higher educational institutions (HEIs) can more wisely test the relevance of management ideas and panaceas, and adapt these to fit organizations in various contexts. They conclude that, in order to accomplish wiser relevance-testing and adaptation, there is a need for diversity, critical examination and transparency. All students, scholars and researchers in management and organization with an interest in the adaptation and translation of management ideas and panaceas, will find this book to be of interest. Reflective practitioners will find the focus on context illuminating and helpful.

The contributors reflect the field of organizational development's rapid growth and success since its inception 50 years ago into a far more complex study than it was just a few decades ago. They show how organizational development has expanded from dealing with internal problems to the need to address more strategic issues.

In a world of organizations that are in constant change scholars have long sought to understand and explain how they change. This book introduces research methods that are specifically designed to support the development and evaluation of organizational process theories. The authors are a group of highly regarded experts who have been doing collaborative research on change and development for many years.

This book is designed to extend the field of organizational learning in several ways. The contributors from three continents bring different perspectives on processes and outcomes of knowledge creation and sharing in and between organizations in diverse contexts. They use approaches and concepts from numerous disciplines including the arts, economics, geography, organizational studies, psychology, and sociology. The contributions enrich the spatial turn in organization studies by offering fresh insights for researchers who seek to attend to the contextual dimensions of the phenomena they are studying. They provide examples of organizational places and spaces that have not yet received sufficient attention, as diverse as temporary international organizations and computer screens.

Organizational Learning in Asia: Issues and Challenges addresses important and pressing questions on organizational learning in Asia in both domestic and foreign firms—those that have been forgotten in the mainstream literature or that remain unasked and unanswered. Three sets of questions are especially salient. First, how can firms operating in, or from, Asia detect, respect, recognize, and honor different cultural stances on suggestion-giving, knowledge sharing, and standardization while also challenging accepted wisdom, avoiding risks and mistakes, and voicing disagreement? Second, how can such firms facilitate local experimentation and innovation by providing a common knowledge platform in a non-totalitarian manner? Finally, how can such forums promote 'reverse' knowledge transfer from subsidiary to headquarters and across subsidiaries in different nations by avoiding ethnocentricity, cultivating local talent, and building a group of 'communities of practice' across cultural and status boundaries? - Addresses important and pressing questions about organizational learning in Asia for both domestic and foreign firms - Explores how such firms can facilitate local experimentation and innovation - Promotes 'reverse' knowledge transfer from subsidiary, to headquarters, and across subsidiaries in different nations