ABSTRACT
Identifying the boundaries between the different stakeholders interested in the general field covered by this encyclopedia is both difficult and not very fruitful. A few years ago, a conference took place on the topic of emergent fields in management. The flyer advertising it was interesting in that it demonstrated the breadth of the field. It contained a diagram with the labels ‘Management Learning’, ‘Human Resource Development’, ‘Training and Development’, ‘Management Education’ and ‘Management Development’. Below the diagram, it read:
Learning has emerged in recent years as a central concept in relation to management and organizations. It is seen as crucial to both organization success (the ‘learning organization idea’) and individual employment changes in globalizing, knowledge-based economies. Learning, knowledge, information, training and development, education and people are now more actively managed than ever before and numerous masters programmes have sprung up to ‘educate’, ‘develop’ and credentialize the professionals concerned with managing them. (Fox and Grey, 1997)
In practice, when thinking about change in organizations, most managers approach the topic in a narrower way. Management development methods have been used by company trainers and training consultants to help organizations to adapt to change, and to become more effective and efficient. Where management development ends and the development of organizations begins is difficult to establish. Indeed, the distinction may be an artificial one. That is why my previous two works, the Encyclopedia of Management Development Methods and Encyclopedia of Organizational Change Methods, have been integrated into a single volume and updated and expanded.