Action Learning ‐ A Paradigm in Emergence: the Problems Facing a Challenge to Traditional Management Education and Development

SUMMARY This paper examines the proposition that action learning is a new paradigm in management education. Action learning is becoming widely accepted methodology for the development of managers and managerial competence. This is in both public and private sector organizations and within the context of certificated and organisationally based programmes. The paper seeks to use Kuhn's work on the nature of paradigms and change as a way of explaining the increase of interest in his approach. Importantly, although this approach promises to answer some of the problems of traditional management education, it is not without its own critics. Kuhn's criteria for a paradigm change are explained with reference to action learning literature and knowledge of practice. From this a framework is developed that compares a traditional approach to management education with an action learning approach on three levels. Our conclusion is that action learning is a new paradigm, but for the maximum benefit to be gained from the approach its application needs to be more carefully considered, particularly in relation to the provision of some wider external frameworks for the manager to use as‘tools for thinking’