Currently I am in Pakhuis De Zwijger, Amsterdam at the Startup Weekend. This is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web, software or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. Entrepreneurship is a trade you learn in practice and this is [...]

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Ever since the introduction of the term Learning Organization back in the 1990s the concept has been the ‘holy grail’ for many organizations. In some business plans I reviewed recently, the organizations producing them had an explicit aim of becoming a learning organization. As it has turned out that the concept of the learning organization [...]

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Recently I wrote a working paper for the International HRD Conference that will be held on June 2-4, 2010 in Pecs, Hungary. This working paper will be presented in the conference stream: business strategy, organizational learning and knowledge management. The paper tries to establish a connection between the fields of Human Resource Development (HRD) and Strategic Management [...]

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The German drugstore Schlecker will be leaving the Dutch market. The price fighter faces decreasing revenue and decided to close all stores. Recently we have seen quite some companies aiming at price competition close their doors. Although it always has been argued that this strategy is not sustainable, it is interesting that it becomes clear [...]

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An interesting HBR Blog post ‘Learning from Toyota’s Stumble’ by Stephen Spear. It reflects on what we can learn from the recent issues Toyota is facing with pedal malfunctions. Toyota for a long time has been leader in quality and books were published on the Toyota Way in almost all management area’s. From this case we [...]

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