The prescriptive quality of 11 design principles for knowledge productivity

This study explores the learning processes that contribute to knowledge productivity: gradual improvement and radical innovation of an organisation’s operating procedures, products, and services, based on the development and application of new knowledge. The research is based on the assumption that innovation is the result of a series of powerful social learning processes. Previous research revealed a set of eleven design principles that reflect factors that really matter in an innovation process. The study at hand presents how these design principles facilitate the design of an innovation practice. Review workshops and design workshops were used to answer the main research question: How do the design principles facilitate the design of an innovation practice? The data reveals that the design principles do not work as prescriptive rules that in a specific combination, applied to a predefined situation, will result in certain effects. Every design principle offers a new perspective on the innovation practice. This new perspective helps to get new ideas for interventions in the innovation practice. After the design of these interventions it is mainly the facilitator who has an important role in making it a success. If he sees opportunities and is capable, then he can use the interventions to create breakthroughs in the innovation practice

De vele verschijningen van leiderschap. Leiderschapsontwikkeling (18): epiloog

Bestaat er zoiets als nieuw leiderschap en wat is dan het oude leiderschap? Hoe beoordelen verschillende organisaties het belang van leiderschapsontwikkeling, door welke visies laten zij zich inspireren en welke modellen en trajecten gebruiken zij daarbij

Andragogy

The main focus of andragogy has been: helping adults learn and develop, creating favorable conditions for learning and development in a work environment as well as in their private lives. The development of andragogy has close relationships with adult education and HRD and encountered major debates on its assumptions and scientific foundations. The critical approach of andragogy still offers a meaningful contribution to HRD in an emerging knowledge society

Knowledge work in successful supermarkets: Shop assistants as innovators

Managers constantly seek for innovative ideas to improve their organisations. Their staff, sometimes supported by external consultants should then develop these ideas further and implement the results in the organisation. This does not always work out the way intended. In this paper we examined this process of change in the case of a supermarket chain in the Netherlands. The aim was to learn from successful supermarkets how the employees in these shops contribute to the change of their work environment. We also looked for interventions that stimulate the knowledge worker’s contribution to this process. Our research in 17 supermarkets revealed that it is necessary to allow for diversity; that ownership and entrepreneurship contribute more to change than discipline and obedience; and that the specific role and capability of the manager seems to be crucial. Staff needs to develop competencies that match their own ability and interests in order to successfully innovate in the supermarket. In order to become innovative shop employees should be granted the authority to engage in knowledge work. In the supermarkets that we visited during the research, we found various interventions that could support the development of ownership and entrepreneurship of the supermarket staff

Relating learning, knowledge creation and innovation: Case studies into knowledge productivity

This study explores which learning processes contribute to the improvement and innovation of an organisation’s procedures, products and services. It aims to find the variables that promote or inhibit these learning processes. For this purpose a conceptual framework was developed. This framework helps both to better understand learning processes that lead to improvement and innovation and to stimulate knowledge productivity in practice. In this article, we first present the conceptual framework. Next, we present the results of 16 reconstruction studies deployed in various organisations in the Netherlands, China and Indonesia. The results confirm that the elements in our framework play an important role in developing and using new knowledge that is needed for improvement and innovation. An earlier version of this article was as a paper presented at the fifth European conference on Organisational Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities