The interplay between learning strategy and organizational structure in predicting career success

The institutionalization of management development and the money spent on it is in sharp contrast to the importance attached to what we know about how managers learn and whether it helps them to get promotion, given the specific organizational context in which they work. We therefore examined career success as a complex positive or negative function of the individual's learning strategy and the organization's structure. One hundred and twenty-seven managers from three government-related organizations completed a questionnaire. A deep learning strategy, characterized by a focus on meaning and relations, fosters career success, especially in a lowly specialized context. In contrast, a surface learning strategy, characterized by a focus on instructions and facts, hampers career success, especially in a highly integrated context. The findings strongly suggest that management development programmes need to be made to measure, taking into account both how the manager learns and how the organization is structured.     

Toward a theory of professional service marketing

The existing marketing theory is inadequate in its attempts to explain service marketing. This paper contributes to both the theory of industrial marketing and service marketing through its treatment of the following two questions: What is a professional service? And what relevance has a generic definition of a professional service to the marketer of those services? These questions are dealt with in the broader areas of the current theories and models of industrial marketing and the emerging conceptual frameworks of service marketing.     

Union or commonwealth? The balance of power and the organisational structure debate in the Dutch Federation of trade unions*

The stalemate that persists within the Dutch Federation of Trade Unions (FNV) concerning organisational restructuring is analysed from an interorganisational perspective. Data on power resources of the affiliated unions show that three large unions dominate decision making. Decreasing power of the federal organisation, bilateral arrangements and, possibly, amalgamations are expected.