New forms of learning in co‐configuration workYrjö Engeström
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521477
Focuses on the theories and study of organizational and workplace learning. Outlines the landscape of learning in co‐configuration settings, a new type of work that includes interdependency between multiple producers forming a strategic alliance, supplier network, or other such pattern of partnership which collaboratively puts together and maintains a complex package, integrating material products and services. Notes that learning in co‐configuration settings is typically distributed over long, discontinuous periods of time. It is accomplished in and between multiple loosely interconnected activity systems and organizations operating in divided local and global terrains and representing different traditions, domains of expertise, and social languages. Learning is crucially dependent on the contribution of the clients or users. Asserts that co‐configuration presents a twofold learning challenge to work organizations and outlines interventionist and longitudinal approaches taken.
Lifelong learning in the workplace? Challenges and issuesPaul Hager
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521486
There is much scepticism about the concept of lifelong learning within both the educational literature and the literature on work. Certainly, many work arrangements discourage learning, let alone lifelong learning. Nevertheless, there are also work situations in which significant learning occurs. However, even in instances where work arrangements are more favourable for learning, there does not seem to be wide recognition that this is the case. This paper suggests that this reflects the fact that learning is widely misunderstood. The common‐sense view of learning as a product gives many types of learning a bad press, including learning at work and lifelong learning. However, when the process aspects of learning are given due attention, as in the emerging view of learning outlined in this paper, much learning, including informal workplace learning at its best, is accurately described as a form of lifelong learning.
Distributed systems of generalizing as the basis of workplace learningJaakko Virkkunen; Juha Pihlaja
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521495
This article proposes a new way of conceptualizing workplace learning as distributed systems of appropriation, development and the use of practice‐relevant generalizations fixed within mediational artifacts. This article maintains that these systems change historically as technology and increasingly sophisticated forms of production develop. Within these parameters, Taylorism is analyzed as the principal form of the learning systems of mass production, and the total quality management as the learning system of flexible manufacturing, or continuous improvement of processes, as it is also called. The article also maintains that the current IC technology‐based transformation of businesses increasingly calls for meta‐level learning, which makes it possible for the stakeholders within a given system of production to flexibly transform their system of producing generalizations, as the business concept's life cycle proceeds from one phase to another.
Learning in two communities: the challenge for universities and workplacesCathrine Le Maistre; Anthony Paré
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521503
This article reports on a longitudinal study of school‐to‐work transitions in four professions: education, social work, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy. Each of these professions is characterized by the need for an undergraduate degree for certification; extensive, supervised internships before graduation; and, to a greater or lesser extent, supervision for beginning professionals after graduation. Students in their last years of university, beginning professionals in their first years of practice, and the experienced practitioners who supervise both these groups were interviewed. The article draws on theory and data to help explain why the move from classroom to workplace is often so difficult, and make recommendations to stakeholders in the training and induction of new practitioners in these professions. The recommendations may be extrapolated to other workplaces.
Learning for/at work:Somali women “doing it for themselves”Gayle Morris; David Beckett
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521530
This article draws on the understanding of the lives and experiences of two Somali women, as case studies, to examine the relationship between identity, work and language learning. It begins with a brief discussion of embodied knowledge, with a view to exploring how “know how” intersects with literacy and identity. The article then moves to the two case studies to illustrate how certain experiences of work, and of seeking work, embody vital knowledge. The article concludes by considering how this practical embodied knowledge can be confirmed and harnessed to enrich adults’ learning for the workplace.
Safety in operating theatres Improving teamwork through team resource managementAlan Bleakley; Adrian Hobbs; James Boyden; Linda Walsh
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521549
Work in progress is reported for a research project aiming to improve multiprofessional teamworking in operating theatres through iterative educational intervention. Experimental design is combined with collaborative inquiry. The hypothesis is: will planned, complex educational intervention focused upon improving communication in teamwork lead to better patient safety? The project is embedded in a wider educational agenda promoting democratic working practices, and this is reflected in the participative inquiry aspect of the research where operating theatre staff take ownership of the project through establishing common meanings for “good practice”. The cohort involves 300 personnel (surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and support staff) spread across two theatre complexes (11 theatres in total) in a large UK hospital. The focus of this paper is necessarily upon design and methodology, as the first data set is being gathered and analysed at the time of writing. Future papers will focus upon results and offer conclusions and recommendations.
Learning processes in a work organization From individual to collective and/orvice versa?Tuija Lehesvirta
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521558
The study investigates learning as knowledge‐creation processes on individual and collective levels. The processes were examined in an ethnographic study, conducted in a metal industry company over a four‐year period. The empirical study suggests that conflicts and crises experienced on individual level were some kind of incidental starting points for individual learning processes. Whether these processes continued to the collective level depended on how the individual learner or the collective recognised the significance of sharing knowledge as well as on opportunities, willingness and ability of individuals to share their experiences. It also depended on managers’ understanding of learning processes whether opportunities for knowledge sharing were arranged and thus, whether learning at work was supported.
The savvy learnerRichard Dealtry
2004 Journal of Workplace Learning
doi: 10.1108/13665620410521567
This article defines the cultural nature and scale of change in learning consciousness that has to take place when the organisationally‐based adult learner makes the transition from formal prescriptive learning practice to self‐owned, self‐directed learning. It articulates some of the learning‐to‐learn process models that introduce, accelerate, enhance and facilitate the adult person's understanding of this evolutionary journey. It also provides practical guidelines in progressively shaping their endeavours to take effective ownership of their own managerial learning at work. It draws on experience in delivering learning‐to‐learn programmes to suggest that the management learner in particular has to be increasingly aware and more discriminating in how they spend their time and learning energy if they are to arrive where they want to be and at the same time satisfy all the stakeholders investments in these process events. It illustrates, using a portfolio of learning‐to‐learn process‐management‐practice ideas, how the individual and groups of learners can effectively and progressively begin to manage the quality of their experience in learning to learn. The author advises that, in the long term, taking responsibility for learning to learn is not something that can be absolved by the learner manager; it has to become a self‐determined series of personally‐managed events. Adult learners have to have a heightened state of alertness to the dynamics of gradualism in managing the new learning process itself – to become “savvy” about the dynamics of the learning process and the key decision areas that will make a difference between learning satisfaction and success or failure in achieving their personal objectives.