Dear World Learners - I wanted to bring to your attention a book put out
by Oxfam Publishing on Development and the Learning Organization. This is
not an entirely disinterested email as I was one of the co-editors of the
publication. What spurred the call for papers was an interest in knowing
how development and humanitarian organizations (both international and
national) were applying learning organization thinking in their
institutional practice and to understand better the appeal of LO theory (a
body of literature emerging from the private sector, primarily in the US
and Europe) to development practitioners. We got a great response and
have articles under four broad headings:
-- Power, culture, and gender: challenges to organizational learning
-- Learning together: multi-institutional initiatives (which looks at the
challenges of developing good learning practice across-institutions when
you are dealing with very different organizational cultures)_
-- Levels of learning: organizational case studies (which looks at where
the "uptake" of learning practice occurs in organizations and how it is
disseminated throughout an organization)
-- Learning from humanitarian action (a fast moving, often highly complex
context, that is generally not conducive to reflection)
-- And a final section on tools and methods for learning and change
There is an introductory essay by myself and Jethro Pettit, my co-editor
which (we think) ties all the papers together.
It also has a resource section on books related to LO theory and practice
in the development field that were not necessarily cited in the papers.
If you are interested in looking at the table of contents (and ordering!)
you can go to www/oxfam.org.uk/publications.
Once there, click onto Professional and Academic, and from there NGO
Policy & Practice.
All best - Laura
Laura Roper
Director of the Planning and Learning Dept.
Oxfam America
26 West St.
Boston, MA 02111
lroper@oxfamamerica.org
617-728-2462 (phone)
617-728-2595 (fax)
--"Laura Roper" <LRoper@OxfamAmerica.org>
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