Learning, talent and resilience: pathways to organizational viability

Issue 4 of Volume 32 of The Learning Organization journal brings many interesting studies dealing with talent management, but also with learning, leadership, digital transformation and resilience as pathways to organizational flexibility, adaptability, innovation, renewal, development or in short – organizational viability. Quansah, Solansky, Wang, & Moghaddam (2025) focused on the survival and development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and examined how their continuous learning, or the learning of their employees, helps to develop and maintain organizational resilience by strengthening their dynamic resilience capabilities, which further helps to support and improve their performance.Effective leadership is crucial in this process. For this reason, in this issue Asfahani (2025) has presented a literature review of management curricula and education with a focus on the skills required in learning organizations. In their viewpoint, Youngblood, Franzen, & Priest (2025) especially focused on leadership learning and development at work. One of the most important tasks of every manager and every leader is to recognize and promote talent. For this reason, Banerjee & Sharma (2025) have conducted a systematic literature review on digital transformation and talent management. It is very important to retain talent, which can be achieved not only through talent management but also by empowering talent, which was addressed by Karim, Rabiul, Munira, Karim, & Kawser (2025). Ishiyama & Tanaka (2025) examined self-perceived talent status and employee outcomes in terms of work engagement and organizational commitment. Galanti & Fantinelli (2025) addressed the future of talent management by evaluating the benefits of digital gamification or gamified processes for this purpose, while Khalil & Samhan (2025) addressed the impact of cloud adoption on talent management.In today’s conditions of rapid change, unpredictability and complexity, learning seems to be the only viable strategy to ensure survival and development. Learning is a process that has many aspects, levels and modalities. It can be individual and experiential or practice-based, such as learning by doing, action learning, project-based learning; it can be observational or social, such as vicarious learning and imitation or modeling, as well as learning in communities of practice; it can be reflective, such as reflexive learning or experiential learning, which can be individual and collective; and it can be organizational-level learning, such as single-, double- and triple-loop or generative organizational learning.In this issue, Quansah et al. (2025) focus on individual and team learning in SMEs as a means of developing dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2007) or organizational resilience that can help SMEs to thrive and reach maturity. Dynamic capabilities refer to the organizational ability to generate, integrate and leverage internal and external resources through constant vigilance, quick action in terms of gathering and recombining resources and capabilities to successfully adapt to changing conditions. Dynamic organizational capabilities lead to greater organizational resilience (Ricciardi, Zardini, & Rossignoli, 2016). This is also the essence of a true learning organization, i.e. an organization in which learning takes place at all levels and using different modalities so that the organization is continuously changing and evolving (Marsick & Watkins, 2003). In such an environment, change and development occur through learning-based experimentation and innovation.SMEs are very important for the study of their learning dynamics, dynamic organizational capabilities and resilience, as they are usually the most important and vibrant aspect of any economy and the engine of innovation, development and growth. However, their existence is fragile due to their limited resources, loose structure and management, which makes them vulnerable to internal and external turbulence. For this reason, their failure rate is high. Any measure and corresponding research that could support their survival and development is therefore of great importance not only for them, but also for the economy as a whole. Startups, SMEs are often part of larger ecosystems, so their existence and functioning could also be jeopardized if the individual components fail. On the other hand, their key survival and competitive characteristics are based on their flexibility, agility, adaptability and innovation.Despite their small size and agility, not many companies go through all phases of the life cycle (Alquhtani, Duong, Taylor, & Eulaiwi, 2022). After entrepreneurial ideas have been transformed into something tangible, the company seeks legitimacy from the market and all relevant stakeholders. If they get through this phase and manage to generate orders, they can focus on improving their cost structure and operational efficiency, and thus, profitability. However, further adaptation, innovation and agility should occur when the company reaches the maturity phase, where professional management practices are introduced, followed by a more formal structure and coordination mechanisms. Learning to develop and maintain dynamic resilience is therefore important at every stage, but especially as the business moves through the lifecycle stages.The framework of the learning organization is particularly suitable for such companies, as it offers a vibrant environment in which all members learn, participate in a reflexive discourse and joint sense-making, share knowledge and improvise and experiment during implementation. Learning organizations encourage the development of a learning culture that promotes continuous awareness of all contingencies, learning, knowledge sharing, learning from mistakes and celebrating failures and successes as great sources of learning. This is part of the learning orientation that encourages continuous learning-based adaptation and development. However, the key is continuous learning, which forms the basis for the development of new and emerging skills that can help overcome challenges and improve performance. Continuous learning is, therefore, a guarantor of an organization’s long-term resilience, especially in a dynamic and complex business environment, and contributes to improved and sustainable performance. This is important regardless of whether an entrepreneur wants to grow their business or remain a lifestyle entrepreneur on a smaller scale. Learning-based resilience is simply the key to survival.Quansah et al. (2025) examined this relationship on a sample of SMEs and their managers from the USA and Canada. Practitioners may be interested in how they measured their variables. Customer loyalty, productivity, profitability and return on investment were examined to measure SME performance. Continuous learning was measured through questions on shared learning, knowledge sharing and sharing mistakes for the sake of learning. Dynamic resilience was measured by examining whether business owners continuously monitor the impact of their decisions on their business environment and in particular on customers, whether they effectively manage their operational risk and whether they are alert to early signs of threats and opportunities. It was found that continuous learning is indeed key to the survival and performance of SMEs. It was also confirmed that continuous learning is key to developing resilient dynamic capabilities, suggesting that new practices should be introduced to enable survival and development.The results have many practical implications. First, they underscore the importance of learning at all levels, which can help to identify new opportunities and threats to increase the likelihood of preparation and appropriate response and to take proactive action. In developing such an environment, supported by a learning culture, the role of leadership is critical. Leaders should instill values such as learning, knowledge sharing, support, experimentation and innovation. However, to encourage such actions, leaders should also empower employees to strengthen their sense of ownership and engagement. In this way, resilience becomes a shared goal and the common vision, part of the shared mental model, a guide for developing personal mastery and the most important outcome of their systems thinking.The increasing complexity of the economy and the environment has created new opportunities, but also challenges that require appropriate knowledge and skills. This puts pressure on educational institutions to keep pace with the new theoretical and practical knowledge, and to develop appropriate curricula to pass on the new knowledge to their students. With the increasing importance of different stakeholders and their interests, management education has expanded to include business ethics and corporate social responsibility to ensure that managers navigate the turbulent economic and social waters with a moral compass. In addition to these disciplines, good stakeholder management, which is also the backbone of learning organizations, requires good communication and negotiation skills based on strategic, systems, creative and critical thinking.Leaders are the key figures who design visions, strategies, goals and policies. However, if they fail to communicate these clearly and effectively to all stakeholders, the chances of successful business outcomes diminish. The authority of leaders is therefore based on a solid strategic foundation, but also on motivating and inspiring others to achieve the goals with zeal and enthusiasm, but also to work and cooperate effectively with others. Employees need direction, so leaders should be very good at critical thinking to recognize relevant facts, ideas with leverage and key people who can make a difference in a team. However, their strategic and critical thinking should go hand in hand with their developed emotional intelligence, i.e. the ability to recognize, correctly interpret and manage emotions so that small sparks turn into passion in themselves and others and unclear misunderstandings do not escalate into full-blown conflicts. For this reason, management training has shifted to the development of soft skills and personal competencies. Of course, in addition to these skills, basic management principles must not be neglected, followed by the development of concepts, their relationships and results that have been proven in practice. However, modern business also requires the inclusion of international perspectives and cultural diversity to provide a detailed and holistic approach. However, a culture rooted in integrity seems to be the glue that binds all organizational members into fair and decent relationships.The question arises as to what pedagogy will achieve the best educational outcomes. Lectures that introduce concepts and problems and encourage critical thinking are always the basic learning approach. They should be complemented by case studies in which a situation is carefully examined so that key stakeholders, the problem and their perspectives are identified and students can critically evaluate and solve real business problems based on the systematic theoretical framework. Experiential learning (Kolb & Kolb, 2005) such as project-based learning or role-playing can provide students with practical experience and a sense of the complexity of different situations and further strengthen personal competencies, especially soft skills. In today’s world, pedagogy is also predominantly technology-driven, indicating a shift toward e-learning and online learning, which allow for greater flexibility, inclusion and adaptability. However, the pedagogical approach should be adapted to different generations and individual preferences. Some people may prefer e-learning and multitasking, while others may prefer more focused face-to-face learning. Blended or hybrid learning can be an effective solution to combine and bridge online and face-to-face learning and skills development, especially for older students and managers. In this approach, synchronous and asynchronous learning can be combined so that instructor-led sessions are complemented by self-directed learning, contributing to greater student autonomy.Universities offer diverse educational programs that include both lectures and other more practice oriented types of learning. In their viewpoint, Youngblood et al. (2025) focused particularly on the learning and development of leaders in the workplace. They presented a case study of an organization that approached the head of the leadership development program at a university to develop a work-based leadership learning and development program that would be tailored and help improve collective decision-making in that organization by assessing and improving leadership communication processes. Executive team meetings were identified as a space for such an intervention, as they represent the core of communication and decision-making in the organization.The educational facilitators were initially involved as active listeners and observers of the executive team dynamics and debriefed later. The aim was to reflect the team dynamics to the executive team almost in real time so that it was possible to engage into group sense-making and subsequently action. The idea was to follow the pattern of observe – interpret – intervene or to find appropriate measures through dialog. First, it was important to establish what the facilitators observed. This meant that they reported what behavior they observed, who spoke and who did not, what the level of engagement was and what the general atmosphere was like. However, it is also important to let the members share how they observed the dynamics and how they interpreted them. This can lead to many surprises as different people may interpret different gestures and words differently. Therefore, it is always important to state what was said, what was understood and what was intended.The tool with the greatest leverage was critical inquiry, in which the instructors asked critical questions to help the executive team members recognize their own patterns of interaction, determine their appropriateness and make corrections with the help of the instructors. 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