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Purpose – The overall aim of the present study was to investigate the learning climate and work group skills perceived by managers and their subordinates in the municipal elderly care, prior to a development project. The specific research questions were: Are managers' and their subordinates' perceptions of the learning climate related? and Does the manager's assessment of the work group skills correlate with the work group's perception of the learning climate?

Design/methodology/approach – A total of 12 managers and 130 of their subordinates were selected, and answered a questionnaire. The subordinates belonged to work groups with five to 19 care assistants working in elderly care. The majority of the participants were women (92 per cent). The mean age was 43 years old, range 20-63.

Findings – Results suggest that the perception of the learning climate has a correspondence between the organisational levels (managers and their subordinates) and that there is a correspondence between managers' ratings of work group skills, in particular skills for effectively managing change, and the work groups' perception of their learning climate, in particular decision autonomy and developmental and collaborative potentials.

Research implications/limitations – The manager sample was small and from one single organisation.

Practical implications – The relations between the learning climate and the assssment of staff skills are important to the actions taken in order to facilitate workplace learning and development.

Originality/value – This study contrasted the managers' assessment of skills with their work groups' perceptions of learning climate, which is quite unusual in learning climate studies.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the learning climate in elderly care, its potential improvements after the “Steps for skills”, and its influence on knowledge from formal training. The assumptions were: the different activities of the Steps for skills should enhance the perceived learning climate; differences in working conditions in home help and residential homes should influence the perceived learning climate and its improvements; and changes in the perception of the learning climate should bring changes in the perceived usefulness of new knowledge.

Design/methodology/approach – The study is a case study carried out in the public elderly care in Sweden, and used a repeated measurements design. A total of 270 nursing assistants answered a questionnaire at Time I, and 174 at Time II.

Findings – Results show no improvements of the learning climate for the full sample. When contrasting the learning climate in home help services and in residential homes significant differences are found, and also a tendency for their learning climate to change in opposite directions. The perception of the learning climate seems to influence the perceived usefulness of new knowledge.

Research limitations/implications – The sample was from one single organization.

Practical implications – Developmental interventions should take in to consideration that context matters, and that the perceived learning climate influences the use of new knowledge.

Originality/value – In this study, a 15-items learning climate scale (LCS) is presented. Another contribution is identifying working condition failure as a potential explanation to why interventions usually do not result in expected changes.

Despite the popularity of Quality Improvement Collaboratives, the evidence of their positive impact is limited. However, awareness of the mechanisms underlying such interventional efforts, as well as of their outcomes, is crucial for HRD professionals. Thus, the general purpose of this study was to examine the relation between process and outcome by addressing two specific aims. The first aim was to explore the content of the quality improvement work and, the second aim was to examine how the content chosen influences employees’ psychosocial work environment. A mixed-methods design was used in this study, including observations and written documentation of the quality improvement work and questionnaires, distributed on two occasions, to136 nursing assistants. Results showed that (1) the content of the quality improvement work differed both in nature and flexibility, even though the same method was used, (2) the perceived learning climate, workload, and resource adequacy were influenced differently by the different contents chosen. This study offers insights into understanding the complexity around such interventions – which might be powerful in some situations and less appropriate in others. Choosing the right method and assuring that the method is implemented is not enough to guarantee the success of the quality improvement work. It is of vital importance that employees have achievable targets in relation to the resources available. Quality improvement should not be achieved at the expense of employees’ psychosocial work environment; otherwise, the improvement process may become counterproductive.

For people to be intrinsically motivated in contrast to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome, they have to experience their behavior as self-determined. It requires either inner resources or contextual supports for autonomy, that is, the extent to which people feel supported in their ability to function autonomously, make choices and decisions. The more one internalizes the reasons for an action, the more one’s extrinsically motivated actions become self-determined. Since individual autonomy is embedded in relationships and circumstances and contexts can yield autonomous regulation, when autonomy-supportive, awareness about the conditions that nurture regulation and internalization can contribute to optimize people's quality of life. Thus the present interview study aims to examine elderly care as an autonomy-supportive environment from the perspectives of professionals and elderly, and also whether an intervention aimed to improve elderly care quality enhances autonomy-support. Nine elderly care recipients and their contact persons participated at Time I and 7 contact persons at Time II. The results suggest that elderly care (in this study) is not an autonomy-supportive environment due to too many constraining interactions. Moreover, quality improvement work does not automatically increases autonomy-support. However, autonomy and elderly care may not need to be a paradoxical conjunction if autonomy and independence are seen as separate goals of elderly care.