Toward Employee-Driven Digital Innovation in Public Organizations Through the Use of Action Design Research

Innovation is important for development in the private sector, but inevitably public sector also needs innovation to enhance services and processes, with research on employee-driven digital innovation in public organizations being limited. We propose a study in a public organization based on action design research (ADR) methodology to enhance theoretical knowledge and develop practice in relation to employee-driven digital innovation. This research-in-progress study follows the divided stages of ADR, where the stage of problem formulation is to be conducted through semi-structured interviews. Findings from stage 1 will provide knowledge about the phenomenon with a public organization as a context and make up the problem definition within ADR. The stage of building, interventions and evaluation is to be conducted with interventions in focus groups where we will investigate how to increase adoption of employee-driven digital innovation and how introducing digital tools can support employee-driven digital innovation as an innovation practice. The study aims to contribute by creating general solution concepts about employee-driven digital innovation

Work organisation, forms of employee learning and labour market structure:Accounting for international differences in workplace innovation

International audienceWorkplace innovation has attracted increasing attention within Europe both amongst researchers and policy makers. This paper begins by drawing on the results of the 5th European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) to map different forms of work organisation for the EU-27 and Norway. It then examines at both the individual level and the group or national level the relationships between a measure of process innovation and the use of what are referred to as the ‘discretionary learning’ (DL) forms of work organisation, characterised by high levels of employee learning, problem-solving and discretion in work. The results point to a systemic relation at the level of national innovation systems between the frequency of process innovations and the frequency of the DL forms. This is explained in part by the way the DL forms provide employees with opportunities for the exploration of new knowledge that can result in new process innovations that diffuse beyond the firm’s boundaries. The paper then proceeds to address the issue of labour market policies for promoting the adoption of the DL forms. It presents evidence to show that the likelihood of the DL forms is higher in nations with more developed systems of ‘flexible security’ characterised by high levels of labour market mobility, unemployment protection and active labour market measures

The Nordic Model of Work Organization

Work organization, Learning organization, Nordic model, Constructivism, Quality of working life movement,

An agency-promoting learning arena for developing shared work practices

Despite the emerging recognition of the pivotal role played by professional agency within work contexts, little is known about how agency is promoted and enacted in organised work-related learning settings. This chapter focuses on the work conference as an orchestrated agency-promoting learning arena. We understand professional agency as a necessary precondition of work-related learning, and we emphasise the potential of work conferences to activate and promote such agency. Our empirical study investigated three work conferences in education and healthcare organisations in Finland. Utilising assessments, the investigation addressed how the participants perceived the conditions for learning and the learning outcomes in these conferences. The work conference was mostly viewed as a worthwhile learning arena. The conference advanced participants’ professional agency and participation across entrenched professional boundaries, and workrelated learning occurred at both individual and collective levels. A comparison of the three work conferences indicated that in terms of the generation and actualisation of innovative developmental discussions, the most prominent learning outcomes occurred when the participants were able to enact substantial professional agency, when there was comprehensive participation from the work community, and when boundary crossing occurred. This paper contributes to the understanding of the conditions that impede or support work-related learning.peerReviewe