Loek Nieuwenhuis

Critical Reflective Working Behaviour: A Survey Research.

In this paper critical reflective working behaviour will be operationalized. Second, the question will be raised which factors have impact on critical reflective working behaviour. The following dimensions of critical reflective working emerge: reflection, vision sharing, challenging group-think, asking for feedback, experimentation and awareness of employability. In a survey amongst 742 respondents these dimensions are validated. Important influencing factors seem to be self-efficacy and participation.

Innovation and learning in agriculture

Innovation is a complex process, based on interactive network learning and processes of trial and error on the shop floor. Small companies, such as in agriculture, are depending on external knowledge infrastructures for effective innovation. Within small companies, the entrepreneur has a pivotal role in the innovative process: the entrepreneur is the professional learner. Learning and innovation as major parts of entrepreneurship are central to this contribution. How do farmers learn and innovate within a market‐led, high‐tech agricultural sector and what should governmental policy look like to support and facilitate innovation, avoiding the pitfall of protectionism? Two case studies are presented: one on linear innovation policy and one on learning processes of farmers. Innovative learning is balancing between the chaos of uncertainty and the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship.

Goal rationalities as a framework for evaluating the learning potential of the workplace

There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the learning potential of the workplace. Some studies conclude that workplaces should be seen as strong learning environments, whereas others show evidence of the ineffectiveness of the workplace as a learning environment. In this article, we argue that this disagreement might be caused by different goal rationalities in relation to the institutions that are involved in workplace learning. For economic reasons, societies have organized learning in a preparatory rationality: education as preparation for work. The learning potential of the workplace is often discussed from this goal rationality. In this article, this preparatory goal rationality is challenged by arguing that other rationalities in workplace learning should also be taken into account. Rationalities of optimizing goals, transformative goals, and personal goals are discussed. The model of goal rationalities that is developed in this article must be kept in mind when evaluating the learning potential of the workplace: different goals imply different evaluation criteria.