Boundary spanners enabling knowledge integration for sustainable innovations in university–industry research centres

This book chapter was originally published by De Gruyter in “Universities, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and sustainability” on 06/12/2021.Available online: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110670219/htmlpublishedVersio

Increasing companies' absorptive capacity through participation in collaborative research centres

Norway has developed ambitious goals to become one of the leading environment friendly energy nations. The establishment of Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (CEER) scheme is one of the main measures for addressing these goals. The CEER scheme seeks to develop expertise and promote innovation through focus on long-term research in selected areas of environment-friendly energy, in close collaboration between prominent research communities and users like industry and public administrative bodies. The main objective of this paper is to explore and present the potential benefits companies may gain from participation in collaborative research centres like CEER, as well as possible barriers for participation. The framing in this paper is on the development of the absorptive capacity for the industry partners through active participation in the concrete research activities. Based on the empirical material for this paper, collected from one of the eight technological CEERs, we conclude that there are benefits to be gained from companies involving themselves in large-scale research centres. Their potential absorptive capacity is increased by exposure of knowledge and hopefully new positive experience with collaboration over time. However, both this effect, and a potential increase in realized absorptive capacity is very dependent on the active involvement of the company and choosing the right persons to represent the company towards the research centre. By contacting the researchers on a regular, keeping up to date, taking initiative and proposing research projects, combined with some patience, participating industry partners should be well positioned to reap the benefits from their funding

Shadowing managers engaged in care: Discovering the emotional nature of managerial work

Within the Managerial Work and Behaviour tradition, researchers have for nearly 60 years studied what managers do in their everyday work. However, these studies have to a little extent acknowledged the emotional nature of managerial work. In this thesis, I examine why and how managers engage in care towards their subordinates. Based on empirical data derived from shadowing four managers for a complete week each, supplemented with interview data from the manager and their co-workers, I show that managers accomplish care through mundane activities like listening and chatting. It is also evident that shadowing is a well-suited method for studying the emotional reactions from managers and others in organizations. The research question “Why do managers engage in care?” is explored at three different levels of analysis. On the individual level I find that managers engage in care by observing that it can immediately reduce tension in a relationship. On the interpersonal level I find that managerial care affects co-workers both directly and indirectly through social influence processes. On the institutional level I find that managers engage in care because of authority derived from their formal position. Together these three explanations integrate the phenomena managerial care across micro and macro levels of analysis. I argue that the managerial authority also includes certain duties, which is influenced by the legal framework and more importantly by the employees’ expectations. To manage other people, and especially having personnel responsibility, makes the manager more inclined to perform emotional labour. It is therefore important to recognize the positive aspects of care and also to observe the flip side of this coin. My study shows that managerial care can be experienced as burden for those that must engage in it. My findings should encourage managers, management educators, and scholars to acknowledge emotions in organizations and particular to recognize the emotional burdens of being a manager. It is time to acknowledge that managers are human beings with emotions, both positive and negative, and that an understanding of these is necessary to understand the total nature of managerial work.Innenfor forskningstradisjonen kjent som Lederarbeid og lederatferd, har forskere i mer enn 60 år studert hva leder gjør i sitt daglige arbeid. Disse studiene har i liten grad anerkjent lederarbeidets emosjonelle natur. I denne avhandlingen har jeg undersøkt hvorfor og hvordan ledere viser omsorg ovenfor medarbeidere. Basert på empiri fra å fotfølge fire leder for en hel uke hver, samt intervjudata fra lederne og deres medarbeidere, viser jeg at ledere utfører omsorg gjennom hverdagslige aktiviteter som lytting og å slå av en prat. Jeg viser også at fotfølging er en godt tilpasset forskningsmetode for å studere emosjonelle reaksjoner hos både ledere og andre i organisasjoner. Forskningsspørsmålet om hvorfor ledere viser omsorg blir diskutert på tre ulike analysenivåer. På det individuelle nivået finner jeg at ledere kan vise omsorg etter å ha observert at det umiddelbart kan redusere spenningsnivået i en relasjon. På det mellommenneskelige nivået finner jeg at lederomsorg påvirker andre både direkte og indirekte gjennom sosiale innflytelsesprosesser. På et institusjonelt nivå finner jeg at ledere viser omsorg på grunn av autoriteten de har gjennom sin formelle posisjon. Til sammen integrer disse forklaringene fenomenet lederomsorg på tvers av mikro- og makroanalysenivåer. Jeg argumenterer for at lederes autoritet fører med seg bestemte plikter. Disse pliktene påvirkes både av det juridiske rammeverket, og i enda større grad av medarbeidernes forventninger. Å lede andre mennesker, og spesielt personalansvar, krever at ledere må utføre emosjonelt arbeid. Det er derfor viktig og ikke bare anerkjenner de positive sidene ved å vise omsorg, men også synliggjøre medaljens bakside. Min studie viser at lederomsorg kan oppfattes som en byrde for de som må utøve det, og at omsorg er en viktig og integrert del av ledelse i organisasjoner. Mine funn bør oppmuntre ledere og forskere til å ikke bare anerkjenne følelser i organisasjoner, men også å anerkjenne byrdene av å være leder. Det er på tide å erkjenne at også ledere er mennesker med følelser, både positive og negative, og at en forståelse av disse er nødvendig for å forstå totaliteten av lederarbeidets natur

Have post-bureaucratic changes occurred in managerial work?

Summary This study examines if managerial work below the top management level has changed to become more post-bureaucratic. This should be indicated by less preoccupation with administrative work and a more dialogue-oriented contact pattern. The empirical findings support the existence of a new contact pattern, but are unable to provide evidence of less administrative work as previous studies of middle managers. However, this does not necessarily rule out the existence of post-bureaucratic managerial work for middle managers, rather this raises some questions regarding the conceptualization of post-bureaucratic managerial work. It is thus possible that managers working at different levels in a post-bureaucratic organization have quite different experiences, and that the less administrative work is more feasible for top than middle managers. Future research is encouraged to explore this issue. In addition, the consistent findings of middle managers preoccupation with administrative work suggest a need to redirect attention from variation to commonalities in managerial work, and from describing commonalities to explaining them.Managerial work and behaviour Middle managers Post-bureaucracy R&D

Co-creating New Dancefloors Through a Parallel Organisation: Workplace development through union-management cooperation in public the sector

Across industries, union density is under great pressure from different forms of organisations and, in many ways, a more individualised working life. Employee relations within the public sector have undergone a transition due to privatisation, decentralisation, and the adoption of quality management approaches. Employee relations in Nordic countries are strongly embedded in national regulations and agreements. However, research on workplace development within the public sector rarely includes discussions of the union role. The Nordic model perspective acknowledges that the different social parties share interests and visions, and it promotes a collective effort when workplace development is sought. This paper poses the question of how public organisations can change the “boxing and dancing” behaviour in union–management relationships through the establishment of a parallel organisation (PO). The PO serves as a different organisational mode when the operating organisation is unable to successfully deal with certain prevailing issues, where knowledge rather than authority should determine decisions. The findings show that the PO creates a “dancefloor”, less confined by bureaucratic barriers, where unions and managers co-create new relations. In addition, participants experience more enhancement of their roles, and their focus towards developing their workplace collectively is more prominent. Our findings contribute to the industrial relations literature by proposing POs as a tool for building relations between unions and managers in a public organisation. Our paper also contributes to the PO literature by proposing that the inclusion of unions in a PO can be crucial when attempting to transfer outcomes into the operating organisation

Increasing companies' absorptive capacity through participation in collaborative research centres

Norway has developed ambitious goals to become one of the leading environment friendly energy nations. The establishment of Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (CEER) scheme is one of the main measures for addressing these goals. The CEER scheme seeks to develop expertise and promote innovation through focus on long-term research in selected areas of environment-friendly energy, in close collaboration between prominent research communities and users like industry and public administrative bodies. The main objective of this paper is to explore and present the potential benefits companies may gain from participation in collaborative research centres like CEER, as well as possible barriers for participation. The framing in this paper is on the development of the absorptive capacity for the industry partners through active participation in the concrete research activities. Based on the empirical material for this paper, collected from one of the eight technological CEERs, we conclude that there are benefits to be gained from companies involving themselves in large-scale research centres. Their potential absorptive capacity is increased by exposure of knowledge and hopefully new positive experience with collaboration over time. However, both this effect, and a potential increase in realized absorptive capacity is very dependent on the active involvement of the company and choosing the right persons to represent the company towards the research centre. By contacting the researchers on a regular, keeping up to date, taking initiative and proposing research projects, combined with some patience, participating industry partners should be well positioned to reap the benefits from their funding

Critical incident technique and action learning to enable organizational learning

This paper focuses on a two-year program with a Norwegian public sector project-based construction company, where action learning groups and critical incident technique were combined to enhance organizational learning. Project-based organizations typically face difficulties of ‘project amnesia’, as they fail to integrate learning from experience into organizational memory. In drawing lessons from experience, employees often focus on solving short-term problems with individual projects rather than contributing to medium- and longer-term organizational learning. The program that is the focus of this paper engaged newly-appointed engineers in action learning groups and trained them to use critical incident technique to gather and analyse information about recent projects undertaken by the company. The groups reported back their findings to colleagues in the program and to managers and senior executives in the company. Originally designed as an alternative to the traditional induction training for new employees, the program generated useful practical learning across the whole organization about project success factors. This paper explains how action learning and critical incident technique combined in this program to enhance individual, team and organizational learning, and argues that the synergies between these three processes should be explored in other contexts. Keywords: Action learning; Critical Incident Technique; Organizational learning; Action research; Project based organizatio

Evaluering av TK‐Utvikling. Et organisasjonsutviklingsprosjekt i Trafikant og Kjøretøy i Statens vegvesen Region øst

Denne rapporten er utarbeidet av NTNU og SINTEF og presenterer evalueringen av prosjektet TK-utvikling; et omfattende virksomhetsutviklingsprosjekt for å utvikle medarbeiderskap og lederskap gjennom partssamarbeid og bred medvirkning i avdeling for Trafikant og Kjøretøy i Statens vegvesen Region øst. Prosjektet har vært organisert rundt fire hovedaktiviteter: 1) tverrfaglige grupper, 2) felles ledelsesutvikling for ledere og regionstillitsvalgte, 3) utvikling av ledermøtene, og 4) piloter med lokale utviklingsprosjekter ute i avdelingene, og. I tillegg har følgeforskning fra NTNU/SINTEF vært et læringselement gjennom hele prosjektet. Aksjonslæring med kollektiv refleksjon, aktiv utforskning og utvikling av egen praksis har vært den bærende læringsformen i prosjektet. Selv om det ikke er mulig å vise til store målbare endringer viser resultatene at det er positive effekter av prosjektet på flere områder. Det er skjedd flere endringer i organisasjonen som følge av utviklingsprosjektet og partssamarbeidet har fått et betydelig løft ved at tillitsvalgtsrollen har blitt styrket. Det er spesielt enhetene som har jobbet med lokale utviklingstiltak i piloter som har hatt størst effekt. NTNU/SINTEF vurderer prosjektet TK-utvikling som et vellykket organisasjonsutviklingstiltak hvor designet har bidratt til økt partssamarbeid, lederskap og medarbeiderskap i deler av organisasjonen, som igjen gir grunnlag for et betydelig løft for hele TK. Vi anbefaler at TK fortsetter med å holde fokus på utviklingsarbeid i det daglige, støttet opp av både strukturer, dialoger og arbeidspraksis utviklet gjennom prosjektet.publishedVersio

Evaluering av Læringsløpet i Statens vegvesen Region øst.

Rapporten presenterer evalueringen av Læringsløpet, en kompetansesatsing for nyansatte i Statens vegvesen Region øst. NTNU og SINTEF har gjennomført evaluering av piloten i Læringsløpet fra 2015 til 2017. Evalueringen baserer seg på en rekke datakilder; inkludert kvalitative intervju, dokumenter, observasjoner og spørreskjemaundersøkelse til deltakere og kontrollgruppe. Oppsummert viser funnene at Læringsløpet har bidratt til at deltagerne har hatt betydelig positiv utvikling når det gjelder innsikt og oversikt i organisasjonen, spesielt om kjerneprosess veg og samhandling. Det er også indikasjoner på at Læringsløpet har ført til læring og utvikling på det organisatoriske nivået, både ved at rutiner og prosesser har blitt endret som følge av Læringsløpet og at elementer fra Læringsløpet har blitt spredt både internt og eksternt. Vår hovedkonklusjon er at piloten i Læringsløpet har vært en ambisiøs og i stor grad vellykket utprøving av en kompetansesatsing for nyansatte i regionen. Vi anbefaler at Læringsløpet videreføres som utviklingsløp for nyansatte i Statens vegvesen, men at det tilpasses og gjøres forbedringer basert på funnene i denne evalueringen. Vi skisserer tre forbedringspunkter knyttet til 1) varighet og tidsbruk, 2) målgruppe og differensiering av deltagere, og 3) forankring, involvering og eierskap hos ledere.publishedVersio