Cheryl Brook and Christine Abbott
This study aims to explore a self-managed action learning (SMAL) initiative undertaken by social work assessors in England, which led to insights into the practice of SMAL.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore a self-managed action learning (SMAL) initiative undertaken by social work assessors in England, which led to insights into the practice of SMAL.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws upon the experience of the authors in relation to an actual SMAL intervention in a social care context in England.
Findings
The paper suggests that, in contrast to extant literature, it is not the absence of an “expert” facilitator, which has proved to be most challenging but rather dealing with the practicalities of managing inter-organisational sets online. Specific individual and inter-organisational learning came about as a result of the SMAL initiative, including the implementation of inter-organisational networking to support isolated assessors.
Research limitations/implications
The ideas and perspectives discussed in this paper will be explored through further empirical research.
Practical implications
The paper illustrates how SMAL can be implemented and suggests how it can facilitate organisational and individual learning.
Social implications
The paper discusses an initiative with the aim of better supporting assessors of newly qualified social workers; a task of enormous importance to the future of social work practice in England.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a limited literature on the practice of SMAL. The uniqueness comes from both the multi-organisational aspect of the programme, that it is self-managed and delivered virtually.
Details
Keywords
Businesses use both classroom and facilitation forms of leadership development. In this article I describe over 20 leadership-development methods, placing them in either of two…
Abstract
Businesses use both classroom and facilitation forms of leadership development. In this article I describe over 20 leadership-development methods, placing them in either of two categories, classroom or facilitation. I then provide the results of a quick survey of leadership development companies on the Internet, over 200 in all, about which group of methods they used most commonly. Results suggest that facilitation, of both groups and individuals (in the form of coaching), is more common than might be expected and as suggested in research by others.
Sony Mathew and Hamid Seddighi
This paper provides remarkable insight into the structural components of a firm's core competence and its development via research and development (R&D) activities for innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper provides remarkable insight into the structural components of a firm's core competence and its development via research and development (R&D) activities for innovation and exporting activities.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have used a positivist design and a deductive methodology. The authors have examined the extant literature developing a theoretical framework to empirically investigate the relationships between a firm's core competence, organisational learning (OL), tacitness, dynamic capability and R&D activities. To carry out this investigation, the authors have collected stratified sample data from 330 firms operating in North East England, a peripheral region of England.
Findings
The authors have found that there are indeed significant statistical relationships between these structural components, R&D activities and a firm's core competence, and this nexus is pertinent to innovation and exporting. Furthermore, it is found that North East England is significantly constrained by the lack of finance, technological capability, experts and brain drain. Based on these findings, the authors propose a cooperative R&D framework to narrow down these constraints to assist firms in developing core competencies for innovation and exporting in peripheral regions.
Social implications
There is an urgent need to investigate the incidence of knowledge-driven activities, R&D, the extent of innovation and exporting activities of firms operating in North East England, a peripheral region of the United Kingdom (UK).
Originality/value
This study provides an original and systematic investigation of the firm's core competence and its formation via key structural components for innovation and exporting within an empirical framework.