Team Learning: the Missing Construct from a Cross-Cultural Examination of Higher Education?

Team learning should be an important construct in organizational management research because team learning can enhance organizational learning and overall performance. However, there is limited understanding of how team learning works in different cultural contexts. Using an international comparative research approach, we developed a framework of antecedents and outcomes in the higher education context and tested it with samples from the UK and Vietnam. The results show that a common framework is applicable in the two different contexts, subject to slight modifications. However, this study does not find that team learning (measured via the proxy of “attitude towards team learning”) exhibits any statistically significant relationship as a predictor of the proposed outcomes. Other findings from this study on educational contexts are important not only to scholars in this field, but also for practicing managers, particularly those who study and operate in the extensive global market

ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF DIALECTIC IN ST. AUGUSTINE’S WORK

Augustine’s idea of dialectic combines basic ancient traditions: Aristotelian, Stoic and Neoplatonic ones. But its subject-matter should be viewed not only empirically as a mixture of historical elements, but also properly philosophically, i.e. as dependent on its own concept. In the case of this logical approach every particular historical form of dialectic is a stage in the consciousness of its concept, so the elements of Augustine’s conception constitute a hierarchy. The highest level of this hierarchy is Neoplatonic, and on this stage the concept of dialectic in Augustine’s thought reaches its universally self-conscious, or absolute, form. And yet, although dialectic in Augustine’s work acquires the title of “true truth”, it is not posited as a concrete unity of subject and substance , which is its concept in itself. It will take fourteen centuries of development of thought to acknowledge the processuality of the thinking subject to be a background of the substantial realm of metaphysic, which will take place at the end of modernity in Hegel’s dialectic

A Measure of Selling Skill: Scale Development and Validation

Selling skills are learned proficiency at performing tasks necessary for a sales job. They are among the most important predictors of sales performance. However, the research into selling skills has been hampered by the lack of an overall scale. To address this shortcoming the present paper identifies a model of sales skills consisting of three components of interpersonal skills, salesmanship skills, and technical skills. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the authors report the development of a Selling Skill scale as a reliable and valid instrument. The authors suggest priorities for future research and potential uses of this instrument