Learning At Work

This issue is dedicated to ‘‘learning at work’’, arguably one of the most significant enablers of business strategy now and in the future. Speaking on the theme of ‘‘learning and leadership’’ at a recent corporate event, a UK board director talked of his firm’s drive to become the world leader in brewing. His view was that the growth needed to achieve this objective could only be achieved by ensuring that learning for everyone – not just organizational leaders – received top priority. How is this to be achieved? The indications are that the major firms in hospitality and related industries are creating their own learner-centred structures, sometimes called corporate universities, corporate business schools or ‘‘own brand’’ learning initiatives. For possibly the first time ever in an international hospitality management journal, this issue profiles the rise of corporate business school structures in major hospitality firms, from both professional and practical perspectives. Eight of the nine articles are co-authored by organizational leaders and learning specialists from the major firms: Compass, Granada, Interbrew, Rocco Forte Hotels, Sodexho USA and Whitbread. Each in their own way is using accredited action learning to facilitate the development of large scale, learning designs, facilitated and certified by the University of Action Learning at Boulder (UALB), Colorado, USA. How do these initiatives differ from the post experience courses offered by other universities? First, the approach here uses an embedded system called IMCA Socrates2 second, the learning designs are customized to meet the dynamic requirements of the workplace; and third, the process celebrates professional (rather than academic) excellence. Gordon Prestoungrange, Chancellor of UALB, poses the question, ‘‘Why do managers learn best at work?’’ He considers the factors that are driving the switch from mainstream higher education to internalized corporate university/corporate business school structures and reviews the reasons why managers learn best using a customercentred curriculum. He profiles the role of the Internet in ‘‘democratizing’’ knowledge access and the signs of maturity and progress that characterize the emerging corporate structures for learning at work. The ‘‘learning at work’’ theme is developed in the next four articles, interlinked by coauthor Richard Teare. With Stephanie Monk the changing nature of managerial and organizational work is explored in relation to the opportunities that this affords for learning from change. The article concludes that a logical step is to create an internal template for learning that mirrors the business challenges and realities and that this can be used as a basis for affirming the company’s own agenda for learning via an internal business school structure. With Jane Neil, the state of