Essential Readings in Management Learning

Bringing together some of the best writing published in the journal Management Learning since its re-launch in 1994, this selection reflects the mission of the journal to act as a showcase for innovative, international and interdisciplinary work which covers a wide gamut of issues connected to management, organizations, learning and knowledge.

The field of management learning, widely drawn in this way, brings together some of the key preoccupations within several areas of management, organization studies and social science more generally.

Learning and knowledge have become central themes within thee areas for several reasons, both practical and theoretical. These include the way that organisational learning is seen as a key source of competitive advantage, and the wider analysis that individuals and organisations now inhabit a 'knowledge economy'.

Theoretically, recent years have seen emerging understandings of the social significance of 'communities of practice', whilst learning in its many manifestations is increasingly seen as being implicated in issues of power. The latter points to one of the particular areas which has been a focus for the journal, namely more critically orientated approaches to management learning.