It was John Dewey who clearly argued that we should integrate learning with work and work with learning. His view was that experience could be a great teacher, providing we had opportunities to learn from action. He emphasised that there was ‘An intimate and necessary relation between the...

THE central characteristic of all businesses is that they are organized: only some are better organized than others. This in itself is hardly a finding of originality, but bears repetition to the extent that many companies tend to overlook it. The task of establishing and maintaining the...

Management education has grown at a rapid pace in this country during the last decade. This has brought with it many problems. This paper concentrates on two of the crucial problems—the educational content and mode of presentation of that content. It is hoped that this will enable both tutors...

Communication in research and development has changed dramatically with our ability to organise. The innovators prior to this century had limited means of influencing people. The learned article, the book or the public presentation and debate were the major forms of message dissemination. Many...

Chief executives have a considerable role in shaping policy and practices of organisations. However, the factors which influence them in their careers have received relatively little attention. The work of Mintzberg, and more recently that of Kotter and Lee, have illustrated different facets of...

Managers as Actors Those of us who manage are playing on an organisational stage every day. We enter early every morning to take up our roles, whether it is as chief executive, marketing manager, personnel adviser, production executive or any of the numerous other roles that have to be performed...

The role of the adviser to management is a crucial one in introducing change to a business. The six main approaches by which advisers approach clients, individual, interpersonal, structural, socio‐technical, conflict and information developments, are outlined and explained.

Suggests there is misplaced overemphasis on individual competence levels and not enough attention paid to team competency. Feels that individual competencies need to be seen in the context of what a team requires to perform well. Presents nine major team competency factors and a resulting team...

Managers at a firm of 7,000 workers were included in a plan drawn up for executive development which had the typical problems relative to size and nature. Encouraged to discuss problems and put forward ideas and agendas, the managers showed higher commitment and in the environment provided...