Lifelong Learning for Professional Survival

Adjusting to change can be difficult for anyone. A commitment to continuous learning can help in coping with change. This chapter presents a picture of real lifelong learning in a field that has undergone dramatic changes. The author, Philip Doesschate, has had wide-ranging experience in the information technology field over almost five decades. As he recalls his career accomplishments and challenges, he identifies a set of personal life lessons from his work in this rapidly changing field. During his career, Doesschate has worked in numerous roles, industries, and specialties, on projects of small to significant size, using many different computer languages, operating systems, application frameworks, architectures, application packages, and analytical tools. The lessons illustrate issues not only of staying current but also of mastering new approaches as they evolve to meet customer needs and expectations.

Transitions to Leadership as Foundation for Continuous Learning

The transition to leadership is a formative time during which the new leader’s motivation to lead and the organization’s culture and management influence the new leader’s evolving self-image and behavioral style that sets the foundation for future learning. This chapter reviews the literature on leader identity, motivation to lead, and variables that contribute to motivation and that underlie transformational and transactional leadership styles. Based on this review, we present a model of how a new leader’s motivation to lead may be influenced by characteristics such as achievement goals, sensitivity to others, and a keen desire to learn. The model indicates that new leaders’ motivation combined with the extent to which the organization and higher-level managers empower new leaders and support their development will influence the extent to which new leaders learn to lead by exerting dominance and/or garnering followers’ respect for their leadership competence and concern. Organizations that understand these processes can shape the extent to which new leaders learn transactional and transformational styles and identities that are the foundation for ongoing leadership development. Also, these processes can avoid negative power dynamics from a mismatch between individual characteristics and organizational culture.

Sustainable Education, Employability, and Job Prospects for Next Generations in the Digital Era

Enabling employability, the next generations’ employment and job prospects is crucial in achieving meaningful lives of equal dignity within the current digital era and beyond. Not only have the responsibilities associated with major drivers become crucial in our lives but also the issue of a transformation to a development that is sustainable is taking increasing precedence in our daily routines. One of the key factors in achieving a meaningful life that is sustainable is education in its capacity to empower the next generations. The role of education with regard to the people’s capability and human needs is multiple and complex. This chapter offers an understanding of the focus on “capabilities” from the humanistic and holistic perspective in education. The inspiration behind such a vision is based on the concept of a just and equitable future for the next generations on a stable and resilient planet and is particularly pertinent in view of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, sustainable employability today as well as in the future depends as much on employment prospects as on “capabilities.” Although “capabilities” in concrete terms are not yet an integral part of education for sustainable employability, they should not only enable the next generations to do their job, seize job opportunities, and cope with changes but should also enhance the said future. Finally, this chapter looks forward at further areas of research that will spur researchers to examine the topic in more detail in future empirical work.

Cultural Competency Interventions

This chapter describes three theoretical frameworks used to increase cultural competency. Corresponding case studies follow each framework description to illustrate how the framework guided cultural interventions designed to help students and employees study and work in a culture different from their own. The three case study topics include mapping cultures in a Korean-owned Mexican automobile plant; pre-departure social, emotional, and academic development education with cultural intelligence training for Polish Fulbright scholars; and Schlossberg’s transition theory applied to Asian students during service learning in Canada. The frameworks and illustrative examples will contribute to the literature around cultural competency development and may specifically support the work of human resource professionals, higher education faculty and administrators, and researchers responsible for supporting cross-cultural communication, interactions, and transitions.

Assessment Centers

This chapter addresses the application of assessment centers as a management development strategy for adult learning and describes how innovations in technology and other tools can elevate the traditional assessment center design to allow for a comprehensive blended-learning approach that adds to the fidelity and impact of the assessment center experience. Effective training and development programs can enhance a company’s ability to prepare its workforce and, thereby, to achieve business results such as profitability, growth and expansion, and successful competition. Drawing on best practices and including client case studies and suggested directions for future practice, the chapter offers guidelines for designing and implementing an assessment center.

Talent Development as an Alternative to Orthodox Career Thinking

This chapter argues that orthodox career thinking—which focuses on vertical progression to higher-level managerial positions—is suffering from three shortcomings. First, it is insufficient to explain career dynamics in modern knowledge organizations. Second, it disregards the importance of experiential, lifelong learning on the job. Third, it does not incorporate how career is embedded in the organizational and cultural context, including a wide range of national, institutional features. Based on this, the chapter suggests that we move the focus from narrow career thinking to the broader concept of talent. The talent concept signifies any kind of outstanding competence of an individual (whether it is managerial or any kind of significant specialist field) which is strategically important to the organization, difficult to achieve, difficult to replace by other types of resources, and difficult to replicate by competitors. Also, a broader definition of how talent can be developed is needed as it should encompass informal and experiential methods as well as formal education. The broader concept of talent is discussed in relation to the Scandinavian context as the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) are knowledge-intensive economies with a highly educated workforce. This characteristic makes a broader talent paradigm much more appropriate than an orthodox managerial career perception and model.

Participation in Continuing Education Programs

This chapter focuses on continuing education opportunities offered to working adults. In the first section, the authors examine the antecedents to participation in continuing education programs; they consider both individual differences and situational factors. In the second section, the authors examine the outcomes of continuing education, including changes in employees’ attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors on the job. In the third section, the authors explore the roles that organizations play in encouraging employee participation in continuing education and in facilitating the transfer of learning. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of directions for future research on continuing education and implications for management practice.

Learning Throughout Life About the Needs of All Generations

The rapid social transformation that occurs in modern longevity societies ensures that successive generations encounter some unique situations people of other age groups cannot experience firsthand. When this happens, peer group communication becomes dominant and causes generational isolation. These conditions present an urgent need to develop a societal plan for education that enables people of all ages to become aware of what is expected of them for contributing to their collective potential. When each generation is viewed as a separate culture, understanding cultural diversity depends on getting to know the needs experienced by other age groups and becoming responsive to them. This chapter presents the priority goals and concerns of Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation. The chapter’s purpose is to actualize the concept of lifelong learning, from childhood through old age, by motivating sustained development of maturity as demonstrated by reciprocal caring by all generations.

Learning Life Skills of Emotional and Social Intelligence Competencies

Emotional and social intelligence competencies distinguish effective performance among managers, leaders, and professionals. People in power (i.e., leading and helping) roles infect others with their emotional state through the contagion of emotion. The consequences of using emotional and social intelligence competencies are amplified in work and social settings through the quality of people’s relationships. Although most attempts to develop these competencies at work and in graduate education fail, there is longitudinal evidence that they can be developed sustainably. Intentional change theory explains the physiological and psychological process that results in significant improvement in these competencies. The three most distinctive aspects of this model, in contrast to typical approaches, are (a) fostering the person’s ideal self, vision, and dream before exposing them to any data feedback; (b) using coaches to create relationships that help the person through the process; and (c) developing social identity groups that create peer coaching relationships and sustain the developments.

Emerging Conceptualizations in Adult Learning

Global shifts across industries are influencing trends in research and practice, resulting in new discoveries that shape and provide direction to the science. This chapter discusses changes in the modern workplace that result in implications for learning content and delivery methods as well as reviews the tried-and-true principles for learning and development that should continue to be considered moving forward. In addition, it highlights several key points missing from the current understanding of training effectiveness and makes recommendations for areas that should be expanded upon in future research to reinvigorate the field and bring necessary contributions to practice in the modern world of work.