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The purpose of this paper is to address the imbalance between inductive and deductive research in management and organizational studies and to suggest changes in the journal review and publishing process that would help correct the imbalance by encouraging more inductive research.

The authors briefly review the ongoing debate about the “developmental” vs “as-is/light-touch” journal review modes, trace the roots of the prevailing developmental review to the hypothetico-deductive research approach, and contrast publishing deductive and inductive research from the perspectives of authors, editors, and reviewers.

Application of the same developmental evaluation and review mode to both deductive and inductive research, despite their fundamental differences, discourages inductive research. The authors argue that a light-touch review is more appropriate for inductive research, given its different logic.

Specific criteria for the light-touch evaluation and review of and some concrete suggestions for facilitating inductive research.

Advancing knowledge requires a better balance of inductive and deductive research, which can be facilitated by light-touch evaluation and review of inductive research.

Building on the debate on journal publishing, the authors differentiate the evaluation and review of inductive and deductive research based on their philosophical underpinnings and draw implications of pursuing inductive research for authors, editors, and reviewers.

Since the late 1980s, the concepts of organizational learning (OL) and learning organization (LO) has prospered and been advocated as an effective strategy for organizational excellence. However, there was a lack of systematic documentation or cases reported proving the sustaining effect of OL. The purpose of this paper is to present a successful 15-year OL case in China, with which to prove PAL is a sustainable vehicle for OL.

This study documents a 15-year successful journey of a project-based action learning (PAL) driven OL setting in a multinational high-tech manufacturing company in China. The case study has been focusing on the progress of the four pillars in the PAL framework (i.e. policy and strategy; learning facilitation; resources and technology; and performance management) throughout the 15-year journey. Besides secondary data collection, on-site interviews with participants and the management of the company were carried out.

From this longitudinal case study, it can be seen that the four pillars form a very robust infrastructure supporting PAL for driving OL within the company. Each pillar is indispensable and evolves according to the needs of the others. Both management and learning team members perceived that PAL is an effective tool to drive OL within the case company.

This paper presents a unique15-year longitudinal examination of a successful OL story in a high-tech company in China, through the adoption of the PAL driven framework and the evolutionary road of the associated parts. While successful, this paper is considered as a “stage” summary of the long range road of OL adoption, with PAL proven to be a sustainable OL vehicle.