When sensemaking remains local: implications for distributed sensemaking in reform implementation

Source at https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1366-5626Purpose - This paper aims to contribute to the literature on distributed sensemaking by studying how the police establish and develop their new position as police contacts during the police reform. Design/methodology/approach - The authors studied how the position of police contact, a cornerstone of the recent Norwegian police reform, was interpreted and practised. The authors interviewed police contacts at two different times during reform implementation to explore how they made sense of and practised their job. Findings - The authors identified three interpretations of the position of police contact and describe them as ideal types: an administrative position, a professional position and a strategic position. The ideal types were reinforced rather than developing towards a shared understanding. Our data demonstrate that the sensemaking processes and experimentation to settle into the new position involved local actors internally in the police and externally in relation to local authorities, and reinforced local interpretations. Originality/value - This study supports the notion of sensemaking as distributed but extends previous research by suggesting that “ideal types” help us understand the content of interpretations. This study also extends the understanding by showing that distributed sensemaking takes place as individuals make sense of more open-ended problems. This challenges the understanding of the term distributed, because unless challenged, distributed sensemaking in isolated pockets of the organization remain local, and the authors suggest that the term local distributed sensemaking captures this phenomenon

Læringsmål i masteruddannelser – et underviserperspektiv på teori-praksis relationen

Artiklen belyser, med udgangspunkt i Ellströms kategorisering af handlings-, videns- og læringsniveauer (1996), at der eksisterer en generel grundlæggende forskel mellem, hvad underviserne oplever, at masterstuderende har som mål med deres uddannelse, og hvad underviserne selv tolker som det overordnede mål. De studerendes mål er ifølge underviserne overvejende at få teoretisk viden og teoretisk funderede svar på konkrete problemstillinger, mens undervisernes mål er at skabe refleksive praktikere gennem arbejdet med teorier og teori-praksis¬inte¬gra¬tion. Artiklen er baseret på kvalitative interviews med fem erfarne underviserer fra tre forskellige masteruddannelser, hvor kernefelterne er læreprocesser, organisations- og professionsudvikling samt lederudvikling. Based on Ellström’s categorization of levels of action, knowledge and learning (1996), the article shows that a fundamental difference exists between master students’ objectives for their education as experienced by the teachers, and the teachers’ own interpretation of the overall objectives. According to the teachers, the students’ objectives are primarily to acquire theoretical knowledge and theoretically based answers or solutions to specific practice related problems, whereas the teachers’ objectives are to create reflective practitioners through their work with theories and theory-practice integration. The article is based on qualitative interviews conducted with five experienced teachers from three different master programmes that focus on learning processes, organizational- and professional development and leadership development