Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline” 30th anniversary: part II
Plus: introducing new associate editors and finding relevant research topics
In this editorial, I first of all want to say thank you to all who have contributed to the 2020 volume of The Learning Organization (TLO). Not least do I want to thank those who have contributed to this, the second issue of two in 2020 that is devoted to the 30th anniversary of Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990). As readers may recall, in the first issue of 2020, those who at that time were associate editors of TLO praised Senge’s master piece by presenting their own examinations of it in six articles, which all have been read with great interest by many of TLO’s readers. In the same way as we opened the TLO year of 2020 we also want to close it – thus, this issue is the final of two issues devoted to Senge’s best seller. However, we welcome more papers on Senge’s book (and also on others of his works) and papers that comment on any of the articles in any of the two issues – if any such are submitted, they will be considered for regular issues of TLO.
Moreover, I want to take the opportunity to welcome four new associate editors to the editorial team of TLO, as well as suggesting a few ways that anyone who has an interest in authoring for TLO could get ideas on what to write about.
Newcomers to The Learning Organization’s editorial team
The latest newcoming Associate Editor is Hong T.M. Bui, who will coordinate special issues of TLO and any matter related to these – from answering questions that guest editors may have, to assisting in the process of finalizing the special issues.
Hong T. M. Bui is an Associate Professor in Higher Education Management at the School of Management, University of Bath, UK. She is also the Director of the Education Network, AVSE Global, France. Hong has a broad background in Economics, Language and Communication, Education and Management. Her key research covers the area of learning organization for innovation and sustainability.
Another newcomer to TLO’s editorial team is Jacob Brix. It has not yet been finally decided which tasks he will take on as an Associate Editor of TLO, but one task he probably will take on is to guest edit special issues of TLO.
Jacob Brix is an Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark. In his research, he builds on the work of James March, especially the role of exploration and exploitation in organizational learning, which means that his research is placed at the intersection between organizational learning and organizational ambidexterity. He has a special interest in how local contextual variables influence the outputs and outcomes of organizational learning processes and also the mechanisms that trigger or inhibit the creation of successful outcomes when learning processes are realized in practice.
Finally, two new associate editors – Anabel Fernández-Mesa and Caleb Seung-hyun Han – share the responsibility for editing manuscripts that are based on empirical studies having been conducted through any quantitative method.
Anabel Fernández-Mesa is an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia, Spain. Her research focuses on organizational learning, innovation, entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities from a strategic management perspective. One of her major contributions has been to examine the interplay of organizational learning and innovation in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and export intensity. Another of her research lines is absorptive capacity. Currently, she is studying exploration and exploitation learning strategies of top managers.
Caleb Seung-hyun Han is an Assistant Professor of Learning, Leadership and Organization Development at the University of Georgia, USA. His research work uncovers and tests the mechanisms by which individuals and groups learn and develop from others’ expertise and experiences at work. His primary focus is on organizational learning by exploring how this learning is influenced by interpersonal relationships and interactions in organizations. His research publications focus on knowledge sharing process, knowledge management system, learning organization and organizational development.
The six other associate editors are (along with some of the work tasks they do for TLO), as you may already be aware of:
Nataša Rupčić and Simon Reese share the work of authoring “Implications for Practitioners” pieces for every issue of TLO and posting news about the journal and moderating discussions at the TLO LinkedIn group (which anybody is welcome to join: www.linkedin.com/groups/13500763/).
Teresa Rebelo sees to that there is a book or media review in each issue.
Nhien Nguyen and Shih-wei (Bill) Hsu both help to guest edit special issues of TLO.
Siu Loon Hoe is advising on quantitative method for manuscripts based on empirical studies having been conducted through any quantitative method, which either are edited by guest editors (and thus considered for any of TLO’s special issues) or edited by the Editor-in-Chief.
For contact details to all the associate editors, please see www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/tlo#editorial-team
Relevant research topics
As you can read at the TLO website (www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/tlo#aims-and-scope), as well as in the document “Making your manuscript relevant for TLO” (www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/tlo/making-your-manuscript-relevant-tlo-editor), TLO is an academic journal that considers and publishes papers that deal with any topic that is strongly related to learning on any aggregated level, such as the learning organization, organizational learning, team learning, group learning and organizational unlearning. Any topic that does not address learning at any kind of aggregated level must first strongly and explicitly connect (and preferably contribute with knowledge) to any such theme, before it could be considered for TLO.
In addition to the above suggestion, there are several ways to get an idea of what is relevant for TLO:
call for papers for special issues of TLO: one way is to regularly check out the call for papers for special issues: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/tlo#calls-for-papers. There will be more call for papers for special issues in the future, so please check the TLO website regularly;
comment/continue on the pieces that recently have been published in TLO (such as Mak and Hong, 2020);
comment/continue on pieces that recently have been published elsewhere, on any topic that TLO covers;
take on suggestions for further research proposed in any work on any of the topics covered by TLO (such as Örtenblad, 2019); and
carefully watching out for and reading editorials of TLO, in which research topics of particular interest may be suggested. This editorial makes no exception; please find below a list of a few topics that the Editor-in-Chief currently recommends submissions on:
Organizations’ learning how to deal with pandemics: Do organizations have the time and energy not only to deal with the pandemic but also to learn how to prepare for and deal with any future pandemic?
What makes the concepts of learning organization and organizational learning unique?: Is it that everything that these concepts cover nowadays has come to be included in other, somewhat newer concepts, such as knowledge management and organizational innovation, or is there still something that is both original and unique to these concepts and, thus, not covered by any other concept?
Public organizations’ learning: Are public organizations as good at learning as private organizations? Or are public organizations actually even better on learning than private organizations are? Are the concepts of the learning organization and organizational learning equally relevant for public organizations as they are for private organizations?
Other concepts on learning at an aggregated level: Which other concepts than those listed above may be of relevance and interest for TLO? Such concepts to consider do certainly include (but are not limited to) “learning region” (see, e.g. Knudsen, 2020), “learning economy,” “learning society,” “learning city,” “learning community” and “learning school.”
Literature reviews: literature reviews of any concept/topic that TLO covers, and/or connections between such concepts/topics or between such a concept/topic and any concept/topic that TLO not normally covers, are always welcome and of interest.
Contact the Editor-in-Chief: anyone is warmly welcome to contact the Editor-in-Chief to discuss and get feedback on any idea for a manuscript for TLO that they may have.
