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This study, which consists of two parts, investigates the influence of structure on the learning of individuals in organizational settings. This second paper (Part II) builds on the conceptual paper (Part I) and explores the relationships between three structural dimensions of individual work – formalization, specialization and standardization – on employee learning behavior.

Multiple regression analysis was used to test the proposed relationships. Data were gathered in a large multinational corporation; 90 employees from 12 units participated in the research.

The results offer support for some of the proposed hypotheses, showing that employee learning behavior varies depending on how activities are structured. Employees perceiving their work to be less structured, with lower formalization, standardization and specialization, rely on external sources of knowledge and experience double-loop learning, whereas employees with a more structured work are inclined to an individual learning style. Structure thus determines learning.

Because this exploratory study used a single-company research setting, the use of multiple companies from different industries and additional measures of learning behavior are proposed to increase generalizability. A quasi-experimental research design would add to causality claims.

Implications for broader organization design practice to stimulate learning are proposed. Managers should be aware of the distinct impacts different structures have on learning behavior.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the relationship between structure and the learning of individuals at work.

The recent economic crisis has significantly slowed Slovenia’s recent social and economic progress and exposed some important long-term problems such as a reliance on low value added industries and lagging labor productivity. The Slovenian government has taken steps to create research partnerships between public science and the private sector and among multiple private sector companies. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a social network analysis (SNA) of the research partnerships and examine whether public funding has created the desired partnerships.

The authors employed a SNA in two stages. In the first stage, the authors treated the founding partners of government-funded 32 research centers as a single two-mode network and investigated how each of the members was bound to the network. In the second stage of the analysis the authors used project data from ten of the centers to characterize a project network based on collaborations on specific projects. Thus, the second stage overlaps the center network with the project network. The authors used information from interviews with network members to assist in interpreting the results.

Networking policies are stimulating collaborations among different types of centers and partners, but to differing degrees. While the formal collaborative network showed strong participation from the private sector, public research organizations, and higher education institutions, some of the centers are not well connected to the rest of the network. Partnership in the development of a proposal in response to a tender does not always translate into project collaboration, and the networks have evolved as project workplans and staffing plans are developed. The innovation network is evolving into an international network within and across scientific areas. Networks are path dependent and require policy stability; experienced bridging institutions can fill gaps where partners lack experience.

The definition of a network member is the company, faculty, or department. In reality, individuals within these organizations are acting on their own connections and experiences, and these may or may not encourage other individuals in the same organization to engage in partnerships. Thus, the authors may be overstating the extent to which one connection among organizations generates experience that will lead to future connection. Another important limitation of the data is that for the second stage of the analysis the authors received project information from only ten of the 32 formal center programs examined in the first stage.

Partnership is a learned behavior and the development of trust among partners takes time. The Slovenian government should provide policy stability and allow niches of technical excellence to emerge through consortium proposals. They should monitor the project partnerships and adjust funding so that it is reaching applicants that are actually partnering on projects rather than working alone or within their own institutional types. Other nations should also monitor the impact of partnership programs to ensure that as they evolve the funding is continuing to support and demonstrate the benefits partnership behavior.

Due to the path dependent nature of innovation partnerships, the authors expect participation in innovation networks to generate a change in the culture of research and development (R & D) partnerships in Slovenia. However, this transition will occur faster as organizations partner face-to-face on actual projects. Centrality in a network fosters common understanding and shared principles of collaboration.

Like many nations struggling to emerge from the recession, Slovenia has to examine its long-term strategy for upgrading its industries and improving productivity. This paper demonstrates how policies to enhance the innovation agenda might be more effective by examining how the networking resources are actually being used, whether participants are participating in networks that cross institutional types, whether policies are encouraging the exchange of information across stages of the innovation process, and therefore whether the policy will move the culture toward greater collaboration and R & D effectiveness. The results can assist Slovenia’s policymakers in redesigning innovation network policy.

The appearance of the Internet brings changes into social context and into the cultural and moral experience of people. This applies especially to teenagers, who are attracted to the Internet much more intensively than other sections of the population. Cyber Cafes are their favourite places of meeting and at the same time gives the opportunity to study their behaviour. Since this is important for getting to know a significant part of the users of our activities as a bibliographic utility, we organized free access to the Internet in our institute. This article presents the results of the inquiry conducted among the visitors over a longer period of time. We compared our findings with similar researches in the world. “The Net is my culture, my tribe if you would. In many ways it is the only place where I feel at home”. H. Hardy /LISTSERV@gnom.georgetown.edu/ A long time ago, in 1938, H. G. Wells predicted the “establishment of a world brain”: “This World Encyclopaedia would be the mental background of every intelligent man in the world. It would be alive and growing and changing continually under revision, extension and replacement from the original thinkers in the world everywhere. Every university and research institution should be feeding it. Every fresh mind should be brought into contact with its standing editorial organisation…. It would do just what our scattered and disoriented intellectual organisations of today fall short of doing. It would hold the world together mentally. ” Of course the Internet is not such a consistent unity but rather a “chaotic mishmash ”, which nevertheless gives the impression of an all‐embracing brain that lives and grows from within itself and where you have to be close by if you want to belong to civilization. What will be the most intriguing and valuable is in fact the variety of messages, which was stressed with a special reason by Ben Goedegebuure at the FID 100th anniversary: “We will measure scholarly achievement in a different manner than before, since text will be only one dimension of a person's knowledge and not, as in today's world, the only dimension.” However, it's not good to look upon the Internet from the serious side only, since it requires a lot of good will, patience and above all time. And we have to be careful all the time not to fall into a trap, such as mentioned by Robin Ruskin (according to a sincere confession in PC Magazine, 26th April 1994): “If I was ever in close competition with another scientist, and I wanted to get a year ahead, I'd just go out and buy them a computer.” Something like that cannot happen to the participants in our story because they are very young and they have all their lives in front of them. Besides, they don't take their occupation with the Internet deadly seriously but rather as amusement in their free time, because they like it and because it is different from everything else they have to do.