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The purpose of this paper is to propose a holistic set of thinking or cognitive skills for professionals, managers, and executives to stay relevant in a digital economy.

The viewpoint is based on more than 20 years of experience gained working with multinational companies and public sector organizations across various industries in Asia.

To stay relevant in a digital economy, there is a need to develop a holistic set of cognitive skills such as design thinking, process thinking, systems thinking, futures thinking, and creative thinking that complements technical and people skills.

The paper provides senior human resources practitioners with suggestions on a holistic set of thinking skills that complements technical and people skills to help manage organizational capabilities and develop talents to stay relevant in a digital economy.

The paper provides senior human resources practitioners with suggestions on a holistic set of thinking skills that complements technical and people skills to help manage organizational capabilities and develop talents to stay relevant in a digital economy.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on human resource development by providing insights on a holistic set of thinking skills that are needed in a digital economy.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the “learning nation” concept and examine the characteristics and implications of using the “learning” premodifier in this nation-building program.

This article reviews how the “learning” aspect is inter-related to a series of national information and communication technology masterplans and includes a comparative analysis of the related premodifier “smart” as Singapore sets forth its ambition to become a “smart nation” as part of the digitalization megatrend. A print media indicator and Google Trends form part of the methodology to ascertain the rise of digital technology over a certain period. The former technique involves identifying relevant bibliographic databases and analyzing the volume of publications. The latter technique is a real time index of the volume of queries that users input into Google.

It is suggested that using the term “learning nation” previously and more recently “smart nation” is a consequence of the rise of the digitalization megatrend. The “smart-ness” involves learning about digital technologies, developing digital competencies and harnessing the benefits of these digital capabilities. From a public policy perspective, the article showcases how a city-state can transform itself through technology by riding on megatrends. Also, there is a need to be selective in developing specific areas for the application of digital technologies.

This article contributes to a better understanding on the frequent usage of the word “learning” as a premodifier and Singapore’s nation-building journey through human capital development and digitalization.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the near future digital technology landscape and propose several specific in-demand digital skills for organizations and individuals in the next few years.

This article reviews some recent publications from representative inter-governmental, governmental, non-governmental, and commercial organizations on the rise of digital technologies and corresponding growth in digital jobs. Within this context, several specific in-demand skills are proposed by the author who has written a book on the topic of digital transformation.

Rapid advancements in digital technologies continue to shape organizational practices and the future of work. To take advantage of emerging digital technologies and better compete in the marketplace, organizations and individuals need to upskill and reskill.

The main purpose of this article is to suggest a list of specific digital skills for executive management and human resources professionals to help prepare employees for digital jobs in the next few years. Corporate policy makers could introduce and promote these digital skills as part of the organizations’ training and development curriculum. In the area of talent management, organizations could also formulate hiring policies and assessment mechanisms to attract, develop, and retain employees with the requisite digital skills. For information technology and business professionals seeking to upskill and reskill, they could acquire these digital skills to enhance their current roles and prepare for the future digital workplace environment.

This article contributes to a better understanding of the digital technology landscape and digital skills. A list of specific in-demand skills is proposed to help organizations and individuals close the digital skills gap.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of developing the “right” attitudes toward change.

The viewpoint is based on more than 20 years of experience gained and insights developed through consulting projects and training conducted for numerous multinational companies and public sector organizations across Asia. An overview of international and national competency frameworks that include change management from Australia, United Kingdom, and Singapore is also presented.

A competent change manager requires a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitude to effect change. While knowledge and skills have traditionally been emphasized, there is a need to develop the “right” attitude as well.

This article is based on the author's personal viewpoint which may be subjective.

The paper provides researchers with an insight on the importance of attitudes as a key contributing factor to change management competency. For the practitioners, it provides another perspective for designing more effective education programs to train change managers with an emphasis on attitudes.

This paper contributes to the existing change management literature by providing insights on the importance of competency, in particular, the “right” attitude required of a change manager.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key characteristics and propose a working definition of a smart nation.

A case study of Singapore through an analysis of the key speeches made by senior Singapore leaders, publicly available government documents and news reports since the launch of the smart nation initiative in December 2014 was carried out.

Just like smart cities, the idea of a smart nation is an evolving concept. However, there are some emerging characteristics that define a smart nation.

The paper provides an initial understanding of the key characteristics and definition of a smart nation at the nascent stage and a foundation for further research on the topic.

This paper contributes to the existing smart cities and smart nation literature by providing insights to the key characteristics of smart nation and proposing a working definition of the term.

The purpose of this paper is to provide advice to organizations on how to become successful in the digital age. The paper revisits Peter Senge’s (1990) notion of the learning organization and discusses the relevance of systems thinking and the other four disciplines, namely, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning in the context of the current digitalization megatrend.

This paper is based on content analysis of essays from international organizations, strategy experts and management scholars, and insights gained from the author’s consulting experience. A comparative case study from the health and social sector is also included.

With the current digitalization megatrend sweeping across the globe, the practice of systems thinking would certainly become more crucial for organizations seeking to develop new digital ecosystems. In addition, the application of the other four disciplines of the learning organization would also help to nurture a digital culture for organizations to stay ahead of the competition.

Organizations and digitalization practitioners could benefit from applying systems thinking to develop digital ecosystems, and the other four disciples to nurture a digital culture.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by offering a relook and justifications on the relevance of the five disciplines, in particular systems thinking, in the present times. It offers advice to organizations on how to become successful as part of the digital transformation journey.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of a role play activity as part of an experiential instructional strategy to develop an empathetic mindset among professionals, managers and executives attending an executive education program in change management.

This paper provides an approach and process for management educators and facilitators of executive education programs to introduce and teach role play for the busy executives to learn about empathy.

Role play is a useful teaching method that helps adult learners understand the importance of seeing things from another person’s point of view especially within a short period of time.

Management educators and facilitators could introduce and teach role play for the busy executives to learn about empathy based on the proposed approach and process in this paper.

This paper provides an approach and process for management educators and facilitators of executive education programs to introduce and teach role play for the busy executives to learn about empathy especially within a short a period of time.

The organizational behavior and knowledge management literature has devoted a lot attention on how structural knowledge processes enhance learning. There has been little emphasis on the informal knowledge processes and the construct remains undefined. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of informal knowledge processes, propose a definition for these processes and link them to the socialization and internalization processes suggested by Nonaka and Takeuchi in the SECI model. The paper offers a fresh perspective on how informal knowledge processes in organizations help to enhance the organization’s learning capability. It will enable scholars and managers to have a better understanding of how informal knowledge processes promote tacit knowledge.

The fields of organizational behavior (OB)/strategy and marketing have taken different paths over the past two decades to understanding organizational learning. OB/strategy has been pre-occupied with theory development and case study illustrations, whereas marketing has taken a highly quantitative path. Although relying on essentially the same foundation theory, the two disciplines have had minimal crossfertilization. Furthermore, both fields tend to blur or usually ignore the distinction between structural and informal knowledge processes. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the distinction between informal and structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination processes and propose new definitions to differentiate them. Future research should bring together cross-disciplinary studies from OB/strategy and marketing to develop an organizational learning framework to test structural knowledge processes alongside informal knowledge processes.