Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to one's understanding of how beginning principals in Hong Kong exercise leadership by exploring the concurrent influence of their inner worlds and the external contexts on their leadership within a reforming environment. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a study of the work lives of beginning principals…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the interaction between organisational affordances for the development of individuals' capability, and the engagement of workers at various levels with those opportunities. Design/methodology/approach: A case study of a large New Zealand wine company, using in-depth interviews. Interviews were…

Purpose: The paper seeks to investigate design engineers' and product developers' learning through their work. The aim was to approach designers' work practice and their learning in the course of it as perceived by the designers themselves. The aim is also to examine their learning through the various individual and social processes, which take…

Epistemological beliefs are fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning. Research in university contexts has shown that they affect the ways and results of student learning. This article transfers the concept of epistemological beliefs on workplace learning. The basic assumption is that employees epistemological beliefs…

Building on the conceptual foundations suggested in the previous two papers in this issue, this article describes the application of a workplace learning cycle theory to the construction of a curriculum for a graduate-level course of study in workplace education. As a way to prepare chief learning officers and heads of corporate universities, the…

This case study explores the politics and ethics surrounding a likely breach of school policy and possible breach of law. Students will be asked to identify key legal, ethical, and political issues in a unique scenario involving complex community issues, a split board, and unknown levels of support from superiors. At stake are employment status of…

A long-standing challenge for management educators concerns developing pedagogies that confront the complexities associated with the process of managing. Faculty need to simultaneously acknowledge the practicality of content as well as the salience of students' experience. This article proposes action research to raise pedagogy above methodology…

In an increasingly competitive business environment, organisations have sought to increase productivity and reduce costs. The consequences of this for many employees include increased workloads, longer working hours and greater time pressures which, the evidence suggests, are linked to stress, high rates of absence and turnover. At the same time…

Corporate culture is a complex phenomenon in foreign companies located in the People's Republic of China. For the management team of an international enterprise, it is a challenging task to manage cultural differences. Education and training provided to local managers might be one of the important solutions. Therefore, this study explores the…

Background: There are no studies that have compared outcomes for staff in different types of supported accommodation for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour. This study looked at stress, morale and intended job turnover in staff in two types of community-based residential supports: non-congregate settings where the…

Middle level teachers and administrators working in small or rural schools often face unique obstacles in implementing recommended middle level practices. From sharing staff and schedules with other school sites, to inappropriate instructional techniques, to a general lack of understanding of the middle level philosophy, these obstacles can be a…

This paper compares the findings of two studies, conducted in 1998 and 2004, of academic staff in British universities. It examines the stability over time of working hours, specific work stressors and levels of psychological distress. Comparisons are also made between the levels of psychological distress currently reported by academic staff and…

While there are many benefits of group diversity, research has indicated that negative effects are also present. Drawing from the social psychology literature, the purpose of this paper is to outline strategies aimed at transforming the negative effects of group diversity: mutual intergroup differentiation, decategorization, and recategorization.…

Public services librarians perform an increasingly diverse set of duties, and this study explores which job components are most important to librarians. The researchers surveyed public services librarians at ARL libraries to gather data on both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence how public services librarians spend their time. The…

This sixth article in the Performance Technologist's Toolbox series focuses on the critical incident method of data collection. Critical incidents are narrative descriptions of important events that occur on the job and how employees behave in those situations. Critical incidents document the work context, the specific situation that arose, the…