International Journal of Training and Development 1:1 ISSN 1360-3736 Toward the learning organisation? explaining current trends in training practice in the UK Paula Raper, David Ashton, Alan Felstead and John Storey Here the authors take a critical look at the now popular concept of the ‘learning organisation’. In particular, they draw upon new research which helps to clarify some of the fine detail of current organisational practices with regard to skill formation. It is found that there are in fact some features of contemporary organisational practices which do accord with the concept but that, in the main, the abstract and aspir- ational character of the concept renders it a poor guide to understanding the dilemmas and activities of real organisations, and that on balance, the concept is more of a hindrance than a help. Despite continuing trends in downsizing, time relate, on the one hand, to the contin- delayering and so-called ‘atypical’ employ- gent and dispensable nature of labour and, ment contracts, the issue of learning and on the other, to the elevation of skill forma- training continues to be one of the central tion as a central tenet in the very concept of themes attracting the attention of prac- what it means to be a thriving organisation. titioners and analysts in the human resource In this latter, the term which above all others field. Hence, paradoxically, two of the most claims to capture this notion most forcibly is dominant ideas coexisting at this present that of the ‘learning organisation’. In this arti- cle we use the label as a convenient frame- work around which many, if not most, of the ❒ Paula Raper was until recently a Research Associate normative accounts in the current training at the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University literature can be located. Our main purpose of Leicester. David Ashton is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Labour Market Studies, is not so much to evaluate that concept per se University of Leicester. Alan Felstead is Director of but rather to use it as a device against which Research and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for we can help to make sense of the central Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. John tendencies in training practices today. Storey is Professor of Human Resource Management Despite its widespread use there is, in fact, at the Open University Business School. no agreed definition or meaning that can be  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA. Current trends in training practice in the UK 9