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This paper aims to examine the effect of shared leadership on student project team processes and outcomes. The authors focused on shared leadership and its association with team processes (coordination, goal commitment and knowledge sharing) and team performance.

To examine the shared leadership, team processes and performance model, the authors conducted two separate surveys of 158 graduate and undergraduate students working in project teams at a large southwestern university.

Results showed that shared leadership positively affected coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing, which in turn positively affect team performance. Each team process factor had a mediation effect, although shared leadership had no direct effect on team performance.

This research adds to the knowledge of important team process factors through which shared leadership indirectly affects team performance.

Based on the findings, the authors provided implications for students and instructors that shared leadership can facilitate team performance by enabling team members to coordinate activities, commit to goals and share knowledge effectively.

This study presents an initial understanding of the shared leadership-team performance relationship by introducing influential variables, such as coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing in a team.

The purpose of this paper is to propose research‐based principles of conflict management that are grounded in practical experience.

The paper presents a review of literature on topics related to each of four proposed conflict management principles as well as practical advice on implementing the principles.

The principles are as follows: take action early in the conflict cycle; use ground rules to encourage productive discussion of disagreements; discuss substantive conflict issues openly with the entire group; and discuss interpersonal conflict issues with the entire group only if doing so is concurrent with the purpose, time availability, and skill set of the group.

The principles should be useful to anyone who works with or on teams.

This paper provides a useful review of literature and proposes four conflict management principles that are based on research and grounded in practice.

The purpose of this study was to examine the facilitator competencies viewed as important by experienced small group facilitators. Participants were provided with a literature‐generated list of facilitator competencies and asked to rate each competency on frequency of use and importance and to add other competencies believed important. Results and implications are discussed.

It is quite common today for teams to use facilitators to expedite group process and help the teams reach desired goals. As the use of facilitators becomes widespread, however, people called in as facilitators may find themselves also being expected to serve as leaders, mediators, and/or instructors' to name only a few of the combined roles that exist. Some of this confusion over the duties of the facilitator arises because people use the term “facilitate” rather loosely to cover a variety of activities. In this paper the authors discusses the definition of facilitation, the differing goals of basic and developmental facilitation, interventions techniques and tools that might be used, facilitator skills needed, and desired outcomes. I also raise questions related to each of these areas that might improve the chances of having a desirable outcome for all involved in the facilitation.

Workplace learning and HRD are considered legitimate topics for study and investigation alongside organisational strategies and practices. Considers key themes in the workplace earning literature in addition to its relationship with HRD. Identifies a paradigm shift from formalised, intermittent and discontinuous learning to increasingly informal, experiential, asynchronous and real‐time situated learning. Highlights three contemporary themes in both the workplace learning and HRD literatures, namely: knowledge, expertise, competence and capability; organisational learning; and employability and career issues.

Summarizes the findings and observations from managerial and professional development workshops with managers, physicians, educators, and social workers where a theory of experiential learning was applied in workshop design and content, along with the Learning Styles Inventory. In a follow‐up study of some of the workshops, participants reported an increase in self‐understanding and appreciation of their own and their colleagues′ learning styles and a valuing of the differences and integration of all four learning styles. Some reported an improvement in their working relationships between peers, supervisees, managers, and clients.

The purpose of this paper is to describe students’ self-reported learning from engaging in an experiential learning task designed to develop their understanding of sustainable food systems and dietary practices.

In all, 143 first-year students enrolled in an entry level food and nutrition subject undertook a three-week eco-friendly food challenge (1. Reduce food (and food-related) waste; 2. localise food purchases; 3. eat seasonally and sustainably; or 4. reduce meat consumption). They blogged about their experience and respond to an action-orientated reflective question each week. Content analysis of the blogs was undertaken using NVivo 10. Content was systematically coded and categorised according to action/activity, learning and response to reflective question.

Students reported undertaking a range of self-selected practical activities throughout the challenge. Self-reported learning suggested students gained self-awareness and knowledge and demonstrated problem-solving abilities. The importance of planning and preparation was the most common theme in students’ blogs when responding to the action-orientated reflective question in Week 1. In Week 2, students identified socially mediated barriers and the time and energy required to undertake their challenge as the most likely barriers preventing others engaging in the challenge. They provided advice and solutions to overcome these barriers. In Week 3, a range of community, government and multi-sector initiatives to support consumer food-related behaviour change were identified.

This approach presents a possible means for engaging nutrition undergraduates with environmental sustainability.

The Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory and the Learning Styles Questionnaire were used as part of a wider investigation, reported in an earlier paper, to explore the influence of personality, discipline and organisational structure on the information behaviour of biochemists, entomologists and statisticians working at an agricultural research station (n = 67). Results from the psychometric tests were assessed in terms of the groups obtained from a cluster analysis. Groups identified by the KAI as Innovators and by the LSQ as Activists sought information more widely, more enthusiastically and from more diverse sources than other groups. Groups identified as Adaptors by the KAI and Reflectors by the LSQ, were more controlled, methodical and systematic in their information behaviour.

Despite the breadth of knowledge on self and identity formation across the study of organizations, the field of organizational development and change has limited research on the construction of professional identity. Much has been written to describe the “self-concepts” of those practicing and researching in the field, but there have been no investigations that have explored how these “self-concepts” form. In addition, although women have contributed to defining the “self” in the field, men have held the dominant perspective on the subject. Thus, in this chapter, we address a disparity in the research by exploring the construction of professional identity in the field of organizational development and change, and we give voice to the renowned women who helped to build the field. Using the profiles of 17 American women included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, we perform a narrative analysis based upon the concepts and models prevalent in the literature on identity formation. By disentangling professional identity formation of the notable women in the field, we can begin to see the nuance and particularities involved in its construction and gain deeper understandings about effective ways to prepare individuals to work in and advance the field.