The broadening use of the concepts of lifelong and lifewide learning has opened space for exploring learning processes beyond official educational institutions providing formal education. Environments where adults learn intensively in both informal and non-formal ways include businesses. The specific environment of family businesses is an attractive research topic in the context of intergenerational learning and consistent with the concept of workplace learning (Evans, Hodkinson, Rainbird, & Unwin, 2006; Novotný, 2009). A family business is a place where intergenerational learning is a necessary and desirable part of its everyday operation. One might even speculate that the success of the family business depends to a certain extent on intergenerational learning among the employees, who happen to be family members. This aspect of family businesses has not yet received research interest in the Czech Republic. This chapter presents findings concerning intergenerational learning interactions in family businesses, what initiates these learning interactions, and their form and content. The findings are then related to organizational culture, i.e. the culture of the family business.
Workplace learning is defined variously and plays a pivotal role in the enhancement of vocational education teachers' practices. Based on a comprehensive desk-based review of the related literature, this article defines and discusses the concept of workplace learning and its contribution to vocational education teachers' continuous professional development. The article demonstrates explicitly that the existing theoretical frameworks guiding workplace learning are mainly drawn from different learning theories. Among these, Illeris's (2011) learning model is found to be theoretically sound and to provide a foundation to be extended to hypothesise about the relationships of various key concepts discussed in association with the workplace learning of vocational education teachers. Three lines of arguments have been identified for providing support to Illeris' model: (1) the significance of workplace learning practices, (2) individual and social aspects of learning situations, and (3) individual and social levels of workplace learning. In addition, based on Illeris's model and related literature on teacher professional development, the article proposes a workplace learning model for vocational education teachers and evaluates its implications for vocational education teachers' professional development, work identities, and transfer of knowledge into practice in the working situation in vocational education and training.