Developing key human resources in China: an assessment of University Management Schools in Beijing,Shanghai and Tianjin in the decade 1979–88

This article focuses on differences and dynamics with respect to the organization of learning at work. It starts with a reflection on actual research perspectives on the subject of training in organizations. Four perspectives, which are currently dominant in the educational and social sciences, will be discussed: the structure-oriented approach, the system-oriented approach, the actor-oriented approach and the network approach. The network approach is a particularly promising new development in training research. We will elaborate this approach here and illustrate its potential by applying it to the analysis of training systems in two different types of organizations: bureaucratic and professional organizations. Data from recent case studies demonstrate that these types of organizations show remarkable differences with respect to the basic processes of their training systems: the shaping of training policies, the development of training programmes and the execution of training activities. In practice, training systems are much more organization-specific than training literature usually suggests. A network approach to training can provide a better understanding of the backgrounds of this organizational variety.