I suppose you think that's funny! The role of humour in corporate learning events

This paper examines the uses of humour among participants in five bank training programmes in the UK. These programmes, run by the banks themselves, were studied using ethnographic methods and the observations reported here are based upon extensive field notes. The paper examines the ways in which participants deployed humour during these learning events and the role humour played in the management of their relations with their fellow learners and the course instructors. The course instructors' use of humour is also examined. It is argued that humour played a far from trivial role in the programmes studied. On the contrary, humour was vital to their maintenance as viable organizational practices. In conclusion it is suggested that the more systematic study of humour could make an important contribution to the understanding of the social realities of corporate training programmes.     

Do subjective expectations explain asset pricing puzzles?

The structural uncertainty model with Bayesian learning, advanced by Weitzman (AER 2007), provides a framework for gauging the effect of structural uncertainty on asset prices and risk premiums. This paper provides an operational version of this approach that incorporates realistic priors about consumption growth volatility, while guaranteeing finite asset pricing quantities. In contrast to the extant literature, the resulting asset pricing model with subjective expectations yields well-defined expected utility, finite moment generating function of the predictive distribution of consumption growth, and tractable expressions for equity premium and risk-free return. Our quantitative analysis reveals that explaining the historical equity premium and risk-free return, in the context of subjective expectations, requires implausible levels of structural uncertainty. Furthermore, these implausible prior beliefs result in consumption disaster probabilities that virtually coincide with those implied by more realistic priors. At the same time, the two sets of prior beliefs have diametrically opposite asset pricing implications.     

The learning economy and embodied knowledge flows in Great Britain

This paper examines the `learning economy' from the perspective of occupational characteristics and changes in the British labour market between 1980 and 1992. Following a discussion of the learning and knowledge economy, cross-sectional employment data are analysed to ascertain which occupations can be classified as knowledge-based. Longitudinal career history data are then used to trace the flows of these `knowledge workers' over time. Sectoral shifts are examined, with a particular focus on the knowledge-intensive service sectors. The data come from the Employment in Britain survey: a large-scale employee survey from 1992. The approach used allows us to measure somewhat intangible aspects of economic behaviour such as learning and tacit knowledge and attempt to trace their flows. Shifts in knowledge from the manufacturing to the service sector are shown to be important and related to previous work which demonstrated the importance of knowledge intensive business services for both output and productivity in manufacturing.     

中国风电产业技术创新对风电投资成本的影响

本文通过对学习曲线模型进行拓展,将规模效应对成本下降的影响从技术创新的影响中分离出来,解决了变量遗漏偏差的问题。并采用过程仿真方法,解决了中国风电时间序列数据样本过小的难题,提高了测算风电产业对新技术学习率的准确度。研究发现,中国风电产业的学习率仅为12.7%左右,即当风电累计装机容量增加2倍时,风电的单位投资成本因技术创新的下降率只有12.7%左右。由技术创新带来中国的成本下降不仅远远低于发达国家的,而且低于中国的太阳能等其他的新型可再生能源。因此政府在加大对风电基础科研投入的同时,应将政策的重点放在新技术的转化上。     

公务员学习能力培养

学习是一个社会进步的标志,公务员作为国家社会的管理者,其学习能力的高低直接影响着这个国家的发展速度。本文论述了公务员学习的重要性,并希望能够全民学习,共同发展社会。     

An Exploratory Framework for Analysing International Retail Learning

It is argued that international retail research has overlooked an essential component of the retail internationalization process, notably learning. This paper proposes an exploratory framework that enables the application of learning theory to the study of international retailing. The paper provides a meaningful starting point for developing an overarching framework which would represent one sort of re-conceptualization of the retail internationalization process, and arguably a new perspective for reinterpreting, re-evaluating and refining the existing literature on international retailing. Alongside this exploratory framework, we present a series of research propositions that might serve as an agenda for research into international retail learning. The paper concludes with a summary of the key themes and ways in which the area of international retail learning may be investigated.     

EAP理念下大学英语“合作学习”教学模式探究

从上世纪七十年代起，“合作学习”作为学术英语（EAP）能力培养的主要途径引来不少教师的关注，但将其科学合理地运用于教学课堂，并研究其实际开展的例子不多。文章以“行动研究”为框架，对实际教学实践中“合作学习”教学模式进行系统探究，通过文献查找、课堂观摩和教师访谈等研究方法搜集数据。研究表明，“异质组”是“合作学习”前最佳分组方式；“合作学习”任务应将趣味性、真实性、目标性合为一体；而教师不应过度介入学生“合作学习”中。     

A CGE model of 'Dutch disease' economics in Taiwan

A computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of Dutch disease economics in Taiwan's economy is established in order to examine the impacts of the imbalanced growth in output, endogenous learning effects from imports and exports and the import tariff reduction. Twenty-nine industry sectors and five quintiles of households are taken to measure the changes in industry structure and functional distribution of income. An imbalanced growth, either from output or exports, contributes to the reduction in the share of manufacturing industry, but the deterioration in the functional distribution of income only happens to an imbalanced growth in intersectoral output. A widespread trade liberalization policy helps to mitigate the Dutch disease phenomenon in the sense that de-industrialization and deterioration of the distribution of income by an imbalanced growth in manufacturing industry are not so severe.     

The Learning Tourism Destination: The potential of a learning organisation approach for improving the sustainability of tourism destinations

Globalisation, increasing complexity, and the need to address triple-bottom line sustainability have seen the proliferation of Learning Organisations (LO) who, by definition, have the capacity to anticipate environmental changes and economic opportunities and adapt accordingly. Such organisations use system dynamics modelling (SDM) for both strategic planning and the promotion of organisational learning. Although SDM has been applied in the context of tourism destination management for predictive reasons, the current literature does not analyse or recognise how this could be used as a foundation for an LO. This study introduces the concept of the Learning Tourism Destinations (LTD) and discusses, on the basis of a review of six case studies, the potential of SDM as a tool for the implementation and enhancement of collective learning processes. The results reveal that SDM is capable of promoting communication between stakeholders and stimulating organisational learning. It is suggested that the LTD approach be further utilised and explored.     

Putting the learning curve in context

In implementation of change, people learn new ways of doing things, develop new skills, and adopt new organizational routines. This paper applies learning curve theory to implementation by developing a system dynamics model that includes two extensions to classic learning curve theory. First, the model includes a required output level for the individual. Second, the model includes a budget constraint on time that forces a choice between an old and a new way to achieve the output. Doing work the new way builds experience, increasing productivity and thus favoring continued use of the new skill, but model analysis demonstrates that this reinforcing process works to favor the new skill only at relatively high levels of productivity. Otherwise, the same process is a vicious cycle, driving out the new skill. The model exhibits a mode of behavior in which learning begins and then stalls and another mode in which the new skill becomes the preferred one. The paper identifies the tipping point between these two modes and characterizes the transition problem: Learning by doing is a dynamic process, a transition from use of an old way to a new way that requires accumulating experience beyond a threshold.