Learning in the Twenty-First-Century Workplace

TLDR

Human capital resources are essential for organizational competitive advantage, and learning—through formal training, informal learning, and knowledge sharing—shapes their development. This article reviews learning research across individual, team, and organizational levels, offering a framework to understand how learning contributes to human capital and competitive advantage. The review is structured around five themes—rethinking learning, redesigning its form, facilitating workplace learning, broadening learning outcomes, and enhancing research methodology—each examined with current studies, gaps, and future research suggestions.

Abstract

Human capital resources are key for organizations to gain a competitive advantage. Learning based on formal training and development programs, informal learning, and knowledge sharing influences the development of human capital resources. This article provides a selective review of research on learning that occurs in many different forms and at the individual, team, and organizational levels. It is organized around five themes—thinking differently about learning, reconsidering the form and design of learning, facilitating learning in the workplace, expanding the scope of learning outcomes, and improving methodology in learning research. These themes provide a framework for understanding how learning can contribute to the development of human capital resources and organizations’ competitive advantage. For each theme, relevant research is reviewed, and limitations and future research directions are provided.