Recent research on video lectures has indicated that the instructor's pointing gestures facilitate learning performance. This study examined whether the instructor's pointing gestures were superior to nonhuman cues in enhancing video lectures learning, and second, if there was a positive effect, what the underlying mechanisms of the effect might be. There were three kinds of video lectures in the study: one with the instructor's pointing gestures, one with nonhuman cues, and one without any cues. Eighty-four Chinese undergraduates were randomly assigned to view one of the three video lectures in a laboratory. As hypothesized, the results of analyses of variance showed that the instructor's pointing gestures improved learning performance more than the nonhuman cues and no-cues conditions. The pointing gestures directed the learners' visual attention to the relevant learning content of PowerPoint (PPT) slides in the video lecture. This suggests that the instructor's pointing gestures can be a valuable means to improve learning performance in video lectures, in particular PPT slides with much learning information.

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This paper introduces a newly developed knowledge management concept, dynamic intellectual capital (IC), which refers to a company’s ability for self‐renewal. The paper presents how dynamic IC is created in three different knowledge environments – mechanistic, organic and dynamic – and brings out relevant empirical evidence from three case studies of multinational and Chinese firms. The paper concludes that knowledge‐intensive organizations need to master all the three knowledge environments regardless of their different strategic focus. Failures on any environment might form a hindrance for market efficiency. The development of dynamic IC is subject to the firm’s ability to balance both current arena (e.g. realized IC) and potential force (e.g. potential IC). The development of dynamic IC is strongly based on multi‐way communication, which must include both top‐down and bottom‐up as well as cross functional communication. The analysis of tensions, problems and challenges can be a critical step toward a self‐renewing organization in managing such complexity of dynamic IC.

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On China’s current path toward modernization, information sharing and effective communication become major learning challenges. This article explores how the change and emerging tensions are managed. Data collected from a Sino-foreign joint venture and a Chinese joint-stock company, analyzed within the framework of cultural-historical activity theory, indicate that Confucian authority chains and guanxi should be viewed as two complementary and interactive principles. The communicative configuration generated by these two principles is in transition in Chinese organizations. The zone of proximal development emerging for communication in Chinese companies takes the shape of two-way movement: toward an increasingly personal character of the Confucian authority principle on one hand and toward an increasingly production-oriented character of the principle of guanxi on the other hand. The successful design and implementation of communication systems in Chinese companies will largely depend on management’s ability to understand and shape this historical change.