Frontline employees as participants in service innovation processes : innovation by weaving

Innovation is today a phenomenon that is promoted in private and public organizations as a critical success factor for growth and survival. Early work on innovation primarily focused on R&D and technology as the main drivers of innovation within an organization. This has shifted towards viewing innovation as a more interactive and open process, involving different actors across different practices, organizations and sectors. This thesis is concerned with frontline employees as actors in service innovation. It aims to develop new understanding of how frontline employees are engaged, and act in service innovation processes. The overall purpose is to contribute knowledge of frontline employees as participants in service innovation processes. This thesis argues for a balanced approach to innovation, innovation with care, as a framework to view and discuss frontline employees as actors in bottom-up, practice-based processes and in top-down, strategic-based processes. The empirical studies, presented in four appended papers, investigate employees’ innovation activities by studying the micro processes they are engaged in, in particular the interactions between employees and managers, between employees themselves, and between employees and customers. The findings place frontline employees as valuable actors in both strategic-, and practice-based innovation processes. The employees’ gain knowledge in the customer-supplier interface. This knowledge together with their knowledge of the organization, is combined into new and useful solutions for the customers and/or the work practice. In top-down processes frontline employees actions are based on invitation by management, while in practice based innovation processes, employees innovate when having access to resources and/or by collaborating with managers. The role of the participant, as described in the thesis, is one that gives the employees influence on their innovation activities, and the option to follow up on how the activities will affect their work practice and the organization. Frontline employees are found to exercise agency through three aspects: their workplace-related knowledge and skills, their interest and motivation to continuously improve their workplace and their access to resources. Here, the aspects are emphasized as the employees’ ability, willingness and opportunity to contribute. By understanding how frontline employees practise agency is influenced by management, this thesis contributes to the understanding of how employees become participants in service innovation. This thesis argues that agency is exercised in practice-based innovation processes, where frontline employees initiate, develop and enact new solutions. Middle managers are identified as having significant enabling roles as gatekeepers, translators and facilitators. Innovation by weaving is introduced as a metaphor to symbolize how new ideas emerging from different sources are thought of as threads woven into the existing structure in order to develop new patterns. The concept demonstrates accordingly how employee-based ideas and their innovation activities can become part of organizational innovation management through the roles of the middle managers

«It’s really two completely different things» A qualitative study of teenagers’ contextual writing

Mastergradsoppgave i kultur- og språkfagenes didaktikk, Avdeling for lærerutdanning og naturvitenskap, Høgskolen i Hedmark, 2014.Norsk: Temaet for denne masteroppgaven er ungdommers skriving i to kontekster: på skolen der ungdommene skriver tekster i norskfaget og på fritida der de skriver blogg. Problemstillingen min er todelt. Det første spørsmålet er: Hva har formålet med skrivingen å si for skrivemotivasjonen? Problemstillingens andre spørsmål er: Hvilke positive effekter fra blogging kan skolen dra nytte av? Målet med oppgaven er å rette oppmerksomheten mot et viktig område i skriveundervisningen. Den metoden jeg anser som den viktigste for å finne svar på problemstillingen, er det kvalitative forskningsintervjuet. Jeg intervjuer tre ungdommer på 18 år. I tillegg bruker jeg dokumentanalyse. Jeg analyserer et utvalg elevtekster og blogginnlegg fra de tre ungdommene jeg har intervjuet. Som et tillegg til denne empirien gir en gruppe Vg2-elever skriftlige uttalelser om hva de mener kjennetegner en typisk bloggtekst og hva som kjennetegner en typisk tekst skrevet i norskfaget. Jeg drøfter funnene mine opp mot sentral lese- og skriveteori. Formålet med skrivingen i de to kontekstene er forskjellig, og informantene uttrykker at det påvirker motivasjonen. På skolen skriver ungdommene for å svare på en gitt oppgave og få en vurdering. Formålet med bloggingen, derimot, er å ytre seg og skrive om det de tror andre vil lese om. Bloggingens formål kan også være å få mange lesere. Å skrive blogg, mener informantene, er motiverende fordi de selv velger tidspunkt for bloggingen og temaet de vil blogge om. Skriving i norskfaget er forbundet med tidspress og karakterpress. Skoletekster og bloggtekster innehar også ulike egenskaper. Skoletekstene er sterkt knyttet til sjanger, mens blogginnleggene knyttes tettere til tema. Blogginnlegg har likevel likhetstrekk med enkelte av skolens sjangre, slik som artikkel. Jeg diskuterer i oppgaven om de positive sidene ved blogging kan overføres til skoleskrivingen. Det antas å være begrenset overføringsverdi. Mitt inntrykk etter å ha analysert tekster og intervjuet de tre ungdommene, er at det er et skille mellom hverdagsblogging og skoleskriving som ikke kan eller bør viskes ut.English: This master’s thesis discusses two contexts of teenagers when writing; Writing texts at school, and writing blogs in their spare time. The research question is twofold. Firstly, is the motivation for writing influenced by the purpose of the writing? Secondly, what positive effects from blogging can be utilized by the school? The aim of the thesis is to draw attention to an important area in linguistic training in schools. I consider the qualitative interview as the most appropriate method to answer the research question. Three persons aged 18 have been interviewed. In addition, I have used document analysis, in order to examine a number of scholastic texts and blogs written by the interviewees. Supplementing the empirical data, a group of students in their middle year of upper secondary school has defined their subjective, archetypal understanding of the structure and contents of a blog and a scholastic text respectively. All findings are discussed in the light of central theory on the subject. The informants expresses that the motivation for writing is indeed influenced by the distinct contextual differences. At school, the informants write in order to solve a specific given task in order to be evaluated. The purpose of blogging, on the other hand, is to write about something they believe others will want to read. The purpose of blogging may also be to attract a large number of readers. According to the informants, writing a blog is motivating because they themselves define the time and the theme, whereas scholastic writing is associated with time pressure and marks. The two types of texts also possess different characteristics, with scholastic texts being linked to genre, and blogs being linked more closely to a theme. Nevertheless, blogs do have similarities with certain scholastic texts, like articles. In the thesis I discuss whether the positive aspects of blogging can be transferred to scholastic writing. I find such a transfer to be of little value. After analyzing texts and interviews with the three teenagers, I find that the separation between blogging and scholastic writing cannot and should not be blurred

Co-creating dementia care: Manoeuvring fractured reflexivity in service design

This is the accepted manuscript version (AAM) of the published article: Bast, A., Røhnebæk, M.T. and Engen, M. (2021), "Co-creating dementia care: manoeuvring fractured reflexivity in service design", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 665-690. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-11-2020-0251This study aims to theorise and empirically investigate how vulnerable users suffering from cognitive impairments can be involved in service design.acceptedVersio

Linking Structural Empowerment to Employee-Driven Innovation: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

This paper aims to link structural empowerment to employee-driven innovation (EDI) with psychological empowerment as a mediation mechanism. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in utilizing all sources of knowledge in an organization to stimulate innovation among all employees. A clear understanding of some of the mechanisms used to achieve this is needed. The paper applies a quantitative approach based on two studies. Study 1 involved a total of 228 employees in a public sector organization, while study 2 involved 60 employees from a private sector organization. We employed structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships among the variables. It was determined that both structural empowerment and psychological empowerment have a direct positive association with EDI. Second, the relationship between structural empowerment and EDI was partially mediated by psychological empowerment. EDI can only happen in an organization if employers and managers empower the ordinary employees to not only generate creative ideas but also to participate in its development and implementation.publishedVersio

Collected worker experiences, knowledge management practices and service innovation in urban Norway

Knowledge‐intensive services firms prefer to locate in cities that provide access to rich information flows and abundant opportunities for learning‐by‐recruiting. Focusing specifically on such locations, this paper explores how innovation is associated with work experiences ‘collected’ by employees through their recent career paths and the implementation by current employer firms of practices to manage knowledge. Strong complementarities are found using a unique Norwegian dataset: The statistical association between practices and innovation outcomes depends strongly on variety of experience‐knowledge among employees. Conversely, while said variety does not affect innovation in the absence of dedicated practices, it strongly does in their presence.publishedVersio

Learning through urban labour pools: Collected worker experiences and innovation in services

Knowledge-intensive services firms (KIS) depend on the skills and networks of employees, and tend to cluster in large-city regions. This raises the fundamental question of whether KIS ‘learn through urban labour pools’ in manners that have implications for innovation. To address it, a distinction is in this paper made between ‘related variety’ (RV) and ‘unrelated variety’ (URV) of work-life experiences collected by employees and combined in firms. The empirical analysis uses innovation survey and register data to demonstrate that higher levels of URV among staff in urban KIS inspire innovation activity, and increase the probability of innovation success. Outside cities, where KIS on average have more specialised knowledge bases, innovation responds negatively to URV and positively to RV. As a result, the sign, size and significance of urban-rural dividing lines in innovation propensities depend on whether firms have cultivated the skill profiles that are most conducive to innovation in their locations. Constraints faced specifically by KIS outside cities in this respect are identified and implications for policy drawn.acceptedVersio

A Conference Report

I 2000 møttes "The International Research Colloquium on Inclusive Education" på Hamar. Dette var samtidig en anledning til å møtes for deltakere i Norges Forskningsråds evaluering av Reform 97, nærmere bestemt forskere innen tema 3, "Einskapsskulen, likeverd og kulturelt mangfald". I en åpen konferanse ble de norske enhetsskoletradisjonene satt opp mot internasjonale ideer om den inkluderende skole. Rapporten presenterer bidragene på denne konferansen.English: In 2000 the International Research Colloquium on Inclusive Education met at Hamar. This also was an opportunity for researchers in the Norwegian curriculum evaluation programme "Evaluating Reform 97" to meet, particularly those researchers who were involved in topic 3 projects concerning the comprehensive school, equality and cultural diversity. In an open common conference the national traditions concerning one school for all or "the unitary school" were viewed in the light of the international ideas of inclusion in education. The report is based on the contributions to this conference

Prospective individual patient data meta-analysis of two randomized trials on convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients

Data on convalescent plasma (CP) treatment in COVID-19 outpatients are scarce. We aimed to assess whether CP administered during the first week of symptoms reduced the disease progression or risk of hospitalization of outpatients. Two multicenter, double-blind randomized trials (NCT04621123, NCT04589949) were merged with data pooling starting when = 50 years and symptomatic for <= 7days were included. The intervention consisted of 200-300mL of CP with a predefined minimum level of antibodies. Primary endpoints were a 5-point disease severity scale and a composite of hospitalization or death by 28 days. Amongst the 797 patients included, 390 received CP and 392 placebo; they had a median age of 58 years, 1 comorbidity, 5 days symptoms and 93% had negative IgG antibody-test. Seventy-four patients were hospitalized, 6 required mechanical ventilation and 3 died. The odds ratio (OR) of CP for improved disease severity scale was 0.936 (credible interval (CI) 0.667-1.311); OR for hospitalization or death was 0.919 (CI 0.592-1.416). CP effect on hospital admission or death was largest in patients with <= 5 days of symptoms (OR 0.658, 95%CI 0.394-1.085). CP did not decrease the time to full symptom resolution

«It’s really two completely different things» A qualitative study of teenagers’ contextual writing

Mastergradsoppgave i kultur- og språkfagenes didaktikk, Avdeling for lærerutdanning og naturvitenskap, Høgskolen i Hedmark, 2014.Norsk: Temaet for denne masteroppgaven er ungdommers skriving i to kontekster: på skolen der ungdommene skriver tekster i norskfaget og på fritida der de skriver blogg. Problemstillingen min er todelt. Det første spørsmålet er: Hva har formålet med skrivingen å si for skrivemotivasjonen? Problemstillingens andre spørsmål er: Hvilke positive effekter fra blogging kan skolen dra nytte av? Målet med oppgaven er å rette oppmerksomheten mot et viktig område i skriveundervisningen. Den metoden jeg anser som den viktigste for å finne svar på problemstillingen, er det kvalitative forskningsintervjuet. Jeg intervjuer tre ungdommer på 18 år. I tillegg bruker jeg dokumentanalyse. Jeg analyserer et utvalg elevtekster og blogginnlegg fra de tre ungdommene jeg har intervjuet. Som et tillegg til denne empirien gir en gruppe Vg2-elever skriftlige uttalelser om hva de mener kjennetegner en typisk bloggtekst og hva som kjennetegner en typisk tekst skrevet i norskfaget. Jeg drøfter funnene mine opp mot sentral lese- og skriveteori. Formålet med skrivingen i de to kontekstene er forskjellig, og informantene uttrykker at det påvirker motivasjonen. På skolen skriver ungdommene for å svare på en gitt oppgave og få en vurdering. Formålet med bloggingen, derimot, er å ytre seg og skrive om det de tror andre vil lese om. Bloggingens formål kan også være å få mange lesere. Å skrive blogg, mener informantene, er motiverende fordi de selv velger tidspunkt for bloggingen og temaet de vil blogge om. Skriving i norskfaget er forbundet med tidspress og karakterpress. Skoletekster og bloggtekster innehar også ulike egenskaper. Skoletekstene er sterkt knyttet til sjanger, mens blogginnleggene knyttes tettere til tema. Blogginnlegg har likevel likhetstrekk med enkelte av skolens sjangre, slik som artikkel. Jeg diskuterer i oppgaven om de positive sidene ved blogging kan overføres til skoleskrivingen. Det antas å være begrenset overføringsverdi. Mitt inntrykk etter å ha analysert tekster og intervjuet de tre ungdommene, er at det er et skille mellom hverdagsblogging og skoleskriving som ikke kan eller bør viskes ut.English: This master’s thesis discusses two contexts of teenagers when writing; Writing texts at school, and writing blogs in their spare time. The research question is twofold. Firstly, is the motivation for writing influenced by the purpose of the writing? Secondly, what positive effects from blogging can be utilized by the school? The aim of the thesis is to draw attention to an important area in linguistic training in schools. I consider the qualitative interview as the most appropriate method to answer the research question. Three persons aged 18 have been interviewed. In addition, I have used document analysis, in order to examine a number of scholastic texts and blogs written by the interviewees. Supplementing the empirical data, a group of students in their middle year of upper secondary school has defined their subjective, archetypal understanding of the structure and contents of a blog and a scholastic text respectively. All findings are discussed in the light of central theory on the subject. The informants expresses that the motivation for writing is indeed influenced by the distinct contextual differences. At school, the informants write in order to solve a specific given task in order to be evaluated. The purpose of blogging, on the other hand, is to write about something they believe others will want to read. The purpose of blogging may also be to attract a large number of readers. According to the informants, writing a blog is motivating because they themselves define the time and the theme, whereas scholastic writing is associated with time pressure and marks. The two types of texts also possess different characteristics, with scholastic texts being linked to genre, and blogs being linked more closely to a theme. Nevertheless, blogs do have similarities with certain scholastic texts, like articles. In the thesis I discuss whether the positive aspects of blogging can be transferred to scholastic writing. I find such a transfer to be of little value. After analyzing texts and interviews with the three teenagers, I find that the separation between blogging and scholastic writing cannot and should not be blurred

«Egentlig er det jo to helt forskjellige ting» En kvalitativ analyse av ungdommers skriving i to kontekster

Norsk: Temaet for denne masteroppgaven er ungdommers skriving i to kontekster: på skolen der ungdommene skriver tekster i norskfaget og på fritida der de skriver blogg. Problemstillingen min er todelt. Det første spørsmålet er: Hva har formålet med skrivingen å si for skrivemotivasjonen? Problemstillingens andre spørsmål er: Hvilke positive effekter fra blogging kan skolen dra nytte av? Målet med oppgaven er å rette oppmerksomheten mot et viktig område i skriveundervisningen. Den metoden jeg anser som den viktigste for å finne svar på problemstillingen, er det kvalitative forskningsintervjuet. Jeg intervjuer tre ungdommer på 18 år. I tillegg bruker jeg dokumentanalyse. Jeg analyserer et utvalg elevtekster og blogginnlegg fra de tre ungdommene jeg har intervjuet. Som et tillegg til denne empirien gir en gruppe Vg2-elever skriftlige uttalelser om hva de mener kjennetegner en typisk bloggtekst og hva som kjennetegner en typisk tekst skrevet i norskfaget. Jeg drøfter funnene mine opp mot sentral lese- og skriveteori. Formålet med skrivingen i de to kontekstene er forskjellig, og informantene uttrykker at det påvirker motivasjonen. På skolen skriver ungdommene for å svare på en gitt oppgave og få en vurdering. Formålet med bloggingen, derimot, er å ytre seg og skrive om det de tror andre vil lese om. Bloggingens formål kan også være å få mange lesere. Å skrive blogg, mener informantene, er motiverende fordi de selv velger tidspunkt for bloggingen og temaet de vil blogge om. Skriving i norskfaget er forbundet med tidspress og karakterpress. Skoletekster og bloggtekster innehar også ulike egenskaper. Skoletekstene er sterkt knyttet til sjanger, mens blogginnleggene knyttes tettere til tema. Blogginnlegg har likevel likhetstrekk med enkelte av skolens sjangre, slik som artikkel. Jeg diskuterer i oppgaven om de positive sidene ved blogging kan overføres til skoleskrivingen. Det antas å være begrenset overføringsverdi. Mitt inntrykk etter å ha analysert tekster og intervjuet de tre ungdommene, er at det er et skille mellom hverdagsblogging og skoleskriving som ikke kan eller bør viskes ut