Alice C. Stewart

A Contingency Perspective on Organizational Learning: Integrating Environmental Context, Organizational Learning Processes, and Types of Learning:

Current research suggests that organizational learning (OL) occurs through different processes and describes various types of learning that are used in organizations. What is unclear, though, is what circumstances prompt an organization to engage in one learning process or the other. Equally confusing is the underlying relationship between learning processes and the types of learning. To address these issues, we develop a contingency model of organizational learning and suggest that perception of the environment influences the use of learning processes. We also show that differential emphasis on learning processes results in different types of learning. Our conceptual model connects perceptions of the environment, learning processes, and types of learning. The contingency framework offered in this article provides a more holistic perspective of OL and has implications for future research and management practice.

Charity begins at home : Family firms and patterns of community involvement

Research on philanthropy has made major advances in recent years; however, one issue remains largely unaddressed: the relationship between intraorganizational family-based relatedness and firm philanthropic involvement. The authors seek to remedy this gap by offering and testing the proposition that family firms are more likely to pursue philanthropic involvements. Using a recent typology of family firms, the authors report on the community involvement activities of more than 300 small community hardware stores. Given the small, informal nature of operation and community activity, the authors explore not only their philanthropic activity but also broader community involvement in such areas as business, youth, religious, and service organizations. An interesting trend emerges; firms reporting greater levels of family involvement report greater levels of community involvement than firms identifying themselves as nonfamily enterprises. The authors conclude by reflecting on what this finding suggests for future philanthropy research.

Instructional Design, Active Learning, and Student Performance Using a Trading Room to Teach Strategy

This research used a quasi-experimental design with two conditions to test the impact of active learning in the context of integrated instructional design. The control condition was a traditional approach to teaching an undergraduate strategy capstone class. The intervention condition was an undergraduate strategy capstone class that was designed based on Fink’s integrated instructional design principles and that incorporated an active learning element to teach students financial analysis. As part of the instructional design, the intervention representing active learning content was a set of financial trading room assignments. Though there were no differences in standardized test scores measuring total business knowledge, results showed a difference in student performance associated with financial knowledge between students who experienced the active learning intervention condition and students in the traditional control condition. Even when controlling for gender, major, and grade point average, the integrative instructional design using the trading room had an impact on student learning outcomes associated with financial knowledge.

The workplace of the organised church: Theories of leadership and the Christian leader

The issue of leadership is one that spans many organisations. While management literature has examined this topic in depth, little comment has been made regarding the legitimacy of traditional business leadership theories, developed primarily in the United States, for use in a values-based organisation such as the organised church. The unique spiritual nature of Christian organisations is in some ways at odds with the assumptions of traditional leadership models. That said, many churches in the United States and churches outside the United States, but influenced by US institutional structures, are desperately seeking improvement in both pastoral and organisational effectiveness. This research examines traditional treatment of leadership and identifies implications of traditional and more recent theories of leadership for pastoral leaders and Christian laypeople.

Learning from experience: creating leadership capabilities through computer simulated leadership challenges

Leadership is often described as something that is learned from experience. However, experiences do not often occur within a controlled environment where learning and its impact can be evaluated. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of two types of learning experiences. University students received leadership training of equal length through either Virtual Leader™, a game-based computer simulation, or traditional lecture and case-based training. We examine the performance of the two groups as they participated in the Looking Glass, Inc. ® simulation and draw conclusions about learning and leadership associated with each type of training.