Educational institutions all over the world face challenges which necessitate them to invest in their ‘human capital’. Examples of challenges are, educational innovations that imply new roles from teachers and, thus, require new pedagogical skills (OECD, 2014); increased demands of parents regarding their children’s achievements (Biesta, 2020); or the challenges put forward due to the recent crisis regarding COVID-19. These kinds of challenges force educational institutes to provide teachers and leaders with room for professional development and development of new practices and to develop collaborations with other institutes.

              The papers in this symposium explore the individual and work-environmental factors that stimulate teachers and leaders to engage in professional learning with others within or outside their institute.

              The AMO-Theory of Performance – a meta theory which states that employee performance is a function of their abilities (A), motivation (M) and opportunities (O) to perform (Appelbaum et al., 2000) - forms the common theme across the papers that will be presented. The AMO-Theory is one of the founding theories in HR research and is, for example, used to determine the components of ‘high performance work systems’ (Jiang & Messersmith, 2018) or to explain employee performance in terms of e.g. innovation (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017).

               The first two papers focus on how practitioners across different institutes can be stimulated or facilitated to collaborate and learn together and from one another. The AMO theory has been applied here as an analytical model in recognising factors that promote collaboration. A first paper focuses on how interprofessional collaboration between childcare services and primary schools can be explained and found that impediments can be predominantly attributed to opportunity factors. More specifically, impediments regarding a lack of an inclusive organisational climate appeared most crucial. The second paper examines  the role of cross-border collaboration aiming to support schools in maintaining an appropriate climate for teaching and learning in a time when many challenges are brought about by the COVID-19 epidemic. Findings show that collaboration affected practitioners’ AMO to develop their resilience, resourcefulness, adaptability and ingenuity.

              The last two papers in this symposium focus on how HRM systems within educational institutions should comprise (A) ability-, (M) motivation- and (O) opportunity-enhancing HRM practices which can contribute to teachers’ professional learning. In this regard, it is important to pay attention to the specific context of education as AMO-enhancing practices carried out within the private sector cannot simply be applied to other contexts (Runhaar, 2017). Hence, these papers contribute to our knowledge on AMO-enhancing HRM in education.

              More specifically, the thirdpaper focuses on strategic human resource management (which takes into consideration the strategic planning in schools and teachers’ individual needs) and its relationship with several AMO-factors for teachers to professionally learn within the school. A fourth paper zooms in on Team oriented HRM as AMO-enhancing to stimulate team learning in educational institutions. Both papers show that HRM can contribute to teachers’ AMO to professionally learn within the school. However, the papers also show that this relationship is not straightforward, but zoom in on important differential influences.

              The papers presented in this symposium, based on data from three European countries, demonstrate that AMO is a fruitful lens to study professional learning and collaboration in educational settings, thus adding knowledge on this field. Although there are differences in the extent to which the AMO-framework explicitly has been applied in advance in these papers, the various components can certainly be identified and distinguished in all four papers. Following findings of Blom et al. (2018), AMO-enhancing practices focused on team working, professional autonomy and job design seem essential to improve employee performance in educational settings.

Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P., & Kalleberg, A. L. (2000). Manufacturing advantage : why high-performance work systems pay off. ILR Press. Biesta, G. (2020). Regaining the Democratic Heart of Education. In Flip the System US (pp. 32-38). Eye on Education. Blom, R., Kruyen, P. M., Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M., & Van Thiel, S. (2018). One HRM Fits All? A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of HRM Practices in the Public, Semipublic, and Private Sector. 0(0), 0734371X18773492. Bos-Nehles, A., Renkema, M., & Janssen, M. (2017). HRM and innovative work behaviour: a systematic literature review. Personnel Review, 46(7), 1228-1253. Jiang, K., & Messersmith, J. (2018). On the shoulders of giants: a meta-review of strategic human resource management. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(1), 6-33. Runhaar, P. (2017). How can schools and teachers benefit from human resources management? Conceptualising HRM from content and process perspectives. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 45(4), 639-656