The heart of learning organizations : exploring competence for change

Abstract: Organisational theory and leadership theory form complementary sides of the researched object. It is a shared belief that organisations must learn to adapt to the influence of society. This can be achieved if employees put their learning processes to work for raising their ability to deal with pressure and match municipal resources with individual needs. This thesis focuses on situated learning as an instrument for professional development and competence for change. The project organisation is operated by general activity theory with the aim to implement, manage and analyse aspects of learning, management of change and development of education. The methodology includes learning opportunities among peers, equals and colleagues as opposed to vertical learning delivered by consultants, experts, lecturers or administrators. The method for enabling and analysing development of individual and organisational learning is a cross-national project with educators in Finland, Sweden and Wales. Preparation of Thesis includes what people say, think and assume on an attitudinal scale. It also includes how they act and react on a behavioural scale. Schools are marked by relations between people and the contents of work. This study deploys the project as a tool for development of key-competencies that can enhance the competence of the educators for applying change. Preparations formed a chain of activities structured as background data in the Current Developmental Zone, intervention data in the Zone of Proximal Development and outcome data in accounts of educator experience of attempted change in their written reports. Project Work includes integration of upper secondary school practitioner and academic paradigms for action research. Project assignments are completed in an environment where educators contribute to learning team development with designed project phases of socialising, team building, application of change and dissemination of results. Compilation of Thesis explores results by means of quantitative data to select cases for analysis based on a Chinese-box model to explain why some educators manage to apply change where others fail. Data sets include units of analysis for individual educators, complementary triads in learning teams, local upper-secondary schools and national institutions.