Examining the development of action learning practice in South Korea

This year marks the 25th anniversary since action learning (AL) was first introduced in 1993 in South Korea. Although AL has greatly contributed to meeting organizational needs so that it would result in its strong presence as an organizational learning tool, there is no single review study on the development of AL practice in Korea. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the development of AL practice in Korea to understand its current state and envision the future. To that end, two research questions guided our inquiry: What are the distinctive features of the development of AL practice in Korea? What is unique about the development of AL practice in Korea? To answer the two research questions, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 AL practitioners who have experienced AL practice for many years, analyzed 13 annual AL conference proceedings published since 2005, and reviewed Korean publications on AL published since 2000. Based on the triangulated data analysis, we discuss the uniqueness of the development of AL practice in Korea and implications for research and practice.