Learning at the Top.

A. Mumford Developing Organizations Series, McGraw Hill, Maidenhead, 1995, ISBN 0-07-709066-7, 216pp.

Imagine an "outsider" spending a day in a business school. During the course of the day it is difficult to believe that he/she would not (at least this year) hear the term "the learning organization". Moreover, if the outsider became involved in an extended discussion of the notion, two thoughts would likely occur: people are talking past each other, as everyone has a different definition or meaning of the term; and what exactly does the term mean in terms of tangible organizational practice? In other words, how could one recognize a "learning organization" and/or help establish one?

Given these (arguably not untypical) practitioner reactions to such an intuitively appealing and arguably highly …