Yrittäjyyden ja ammatillisen koulutuksen osaamisyhteisö: Arjen kokemuksia InnoOmniasta

Working life orientation and entrepreneurial thinking are pivotal in today’s vocational education. Through a case study, we discuss the multi-actor knowledge community of InnoOmnia in Espoo, Finland. By breaking traditional silos, education transforms into co-learning, where entrepreneurs, students, educators, and other parties can all contribute equally. However, the transition is not painless. Based on rich qualitative text and image data, we identify tensions pertaining to community boundaries, operational culture, structure, and leadership. There is no single shared view of a community, but rather, every participant seems to hold an individualised interpretation of InnoOmnia. Diverging expectations result in inter-actor conflict. Our analysis suggests that by default, an innovative, entrepreneurial community inevitably contains criticising and destructive forces. In terms of community support, enthusiasm and joy of work emerge as particularly meaningful forces. Further research focusing on work enthusiasm and tolerance of conflict in knowledge communities could advance vocational education substantially.Artikkeli käsittelee työelämälähtöisyyden ja yrittäjyyden vahvistamista ammatillisessa koulutuksessa. Esittelemme Espoossa toimivan InnoOmnian, jossa oppilaitoksen yhteyteen on syntynyt monitoimijainen osaamisyhteisö. Kun perinteisiä siiloja rikotaan, opetus muuttuu yrittäjien, opiskelijoiden, opettajien ja muun henkilöstön kanssaoppimiseksi. Muutos ei ole kuitenkaan kivuton. Laajasta, eri toimijoiden tuottamasta teksti- ja kuva-aineistosta nousee esille yhteisön rajoja, toimintakulttuuria, rakenteita ja johtamista koskevia jännitteitä. InnoOmnia ei näyttäydy osallistujille yhtenäisenä, vaan jokaisella toimijalla näyttää olevan oma käsityksensä yhteisöstä, “minun InnoOmniani”. Erilaisista odotuksista seuraa ristiriitoja toimijoiden välillä. Tutkimus antaa viitteitä siitä, että innovatiivinen, yrittäjämäinen yhteisö sisältää väistämättä myös repiviä ja ristiriitaisia voimia. Erityisen merkitykselliseksi nousevat myös innostuneisuus ja työn ilo yhteisön kantavina voimina. Ristiriitoja sietävän, innostusta ja työn imua lisäävien osaamisyhteisöjen tutkimus voisi tuottaa jatkossa merkittävää tietoa ammattikasvatuksen kehittämiseen

Finland : VET and Omnia

Until the economic crisis of 2008, the growth of Finland’s GDP was faster than in the EU in general. During the last few years, however, the economy has been in recession. While this has led to the need to reduce public sector costs, it has also been a driver for overhauling the education system. The country has few natural resources and so has long emphasised the importance of maximising educational opportunities; its best capital is knowledge capital, as shown in its highly skilled labour force. There are no tuition fees in the Finnish education system and the publicly funded comprehensive school system has no selection, tracking or streaming of students. The higher education system is divided into universities and polytechnics (also known as universities of applied sciences). The Education Index, published with the UN’s Human Development Index in 2008,1 lists Finland as one of the highestranked countries in the world in terms of education. Finland has also consistently ranked high in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study — and at one point was ranked first — prompting widespread international curiosity about its formula for success. The Finnish Ministry of Education attributes its success to the innovative basic education provided to all school-aged children, highly competent teachers and the autonomy granted to schools

Educational Institutes and Large-scale Outplacement Processes : Combining Education with Social Responsibility and Outreach

Outplacement activities are a form of professional care toward dismissed employees. The purpose of outplacement is to offer support for re-employment and making a forced leave easier. Outplacement services often contain recruitment training for writing applications and self-presentation, career counselling, job placement or job search services, and psychological and legal counselling. In outplacement, activities that are common in seeking employment are paid by the downsizing organisation, and not the individual. The activities are often tailored to the organisation’s specific needs, location, and industry. Outplacement serves to ease the individual’s transition towards new employment, and also, to control the negative impact on an organisation’s reputation. In Finland, nearly 12,000 employees were made redundant in 2015. Roughly 114,000 employees were under co-determination negotiations potentially leading to termination. Employees’ rights against termination of employment can be seen as weaker in the Nordic countries in comparison to Europe in general. To support large-scale redundancies, the Republic of Finland has received support from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund. In April 2016, Nokia announced plans for massive reductions in its Finnish workforce, aiming to downsize by 1,300 employees in Finland. Shortly after this, Microsoft announced its plans to terminate its mobile phone design and production operations in Finland, resulting in 1,350 layoffs. Both of these incidents have a direct impact to the larger Helsinki metropolitan area, particularly the City of Espoo. The City of Espoo took an active role once the reductions were announced and organised a network meeting for different organisations, who might be able to help the transition and re-employment of the affected employees. The City of Espoo is seeking for new approaches in outplacement. One that seems to have a lot of potential is education, as it can help the individual in identifying current capabilities, but also, in training for a new profession. Laurea University of Applied Sciences partnered with the vocational education provider Omnia to design a joint education program, targeted towards these recently terminated employees in the ICT sector. The program, “Laurea MBA – from digital competences to entrepreneurship”, offers new career choices as well as an entrepreneurial path. For Laurea and Omnia, participating in the outplacement process offers a unique opportunity. First, it ties in with their core tasks of educating individuals and improving their competences. Secondly, it offers a way to achieve social responsibility in an important economic area. Thirdly, the opportunity is also a way to leverage societal impact and outreach, a task which is becoming increasingly important in education. Traditionally, universities have played a less pronounced role in outplacement processes. However, it appears there are substantial benefits for all parties, and the issue should be investigated more thoroughly, particularly as the importance of self-employment has risen dramatically in the society. Education can be an important means to ensure psychological well-being in the stressful posttermination situation

Spatiality in higher education : a case study in integrating pedagogy, community engagement, and regional development

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) are expected to contribute to local economies and the working life through collaboration and regional development. Increasing demands and diminishing resources call for innovative solutions. We discuss the benefits of integrating education and regional development in HEIs through spatiality. We build on community engagement, knowledge transfer, spatiality and the Triple Helix; identifying a HEI’s knowledge and people flows. We apply the frame to a case study of a university of applied sciences in Finland. Results suggest that there are a number of ways in which a HEI can collaborate with local industries and strengthen its regional impact without significant structural trade-offs and while supporting pedagogy. The results have implications for higher educational institutions, particularly, concerning the agile, transportable educational space concept. The study raises an important issue related to the assumptions of what makes a university: physical presence versus knowledge flows

Teachers' communication styles, students professional growth and the discourse of interaction

Traditionally, the teacher’s role is to be the voice of knowledge while students listen and ask questions. The teacher’s role is changing: in the future, the teacher needs to be able to tutor students’ capabilities, network with the world of work, and facilitate joint knowledge creation with the world of work. In this article we approach teachership from the point of view of the teacher’s communication styles and her capabilities in interaction. Our qualitative analysis suggests that the teacher’s communication style has an important effect on student socialization and professional growth. The connection, however, is complex. Students in the early phases of their studies tend to appreciate and expect the expert teacher and a conventional, unilateral information exchange. However, once students progress on their path of professional growth, the situation changes. The expectations shift towards interaction, guidance and co-learning. From the teacher’s point of view, there emerges a need to grow with the student and change the communication style accordingly

Access Denied: Patterns of Consumer Internet Information Search and the Effects of Internet Search Expertise

The Internet is said to improve the consumer’s position in relation to businesses. This is said to result from the improved accessibility of consumer information and, consequently, better decision-making. However, certain difficulties hinder the way to the improved situation. The Internet brings about completely new types of difficulty for consumers, as it is an entirely consumer-driven setting. The study argues that consumers’ Internet search patterns largely determine the information to which the consumer has access. The relevance of this information is vital – it is only used in a decision if it is perceived to match the consumer’s information needs. Access to relevant online information requires an ability to identify and choose appropriate search patterns. The focus is thus on the patterns of Internet search and Internet search expertise. Typologies are created based on differences among seekers of information (i.e. people) and paths to information in the searches. The first finding of the study suggests that in contrast to the previous classifications of seekers, on the Internet, a different approach to “search” and its dimensions is needed. Six Internet seeker typologies emerge based on their characteristic features: high knowledge seekers, navigators, low seekers, social seekers, offline ad seekers, and retail seekers. The composition of the clusters appears stable based on external validation. In previous studies, it is commonly assumed that the inherent properties of information sources distinguish among the search patterns. Results indicate that in online search, the way through which the consumer finds each of the sources is emphasized, rather than the source as such. The search paths in online search belong to heuristic or analytical modes. Specific coding is developed for analyzing the paths to the information. The second finding indicates that consumers’ Internet searches largely rely on heuristics, in other words, trial and error. This happens to the extent that heuristic search is more prominent than analytical search in consumer information acquisition. Although the diagnosticity (i.e. likelihood of finding sufficient information to terminate search) of heuristic search is rather low, it gives the consumer flexibility with different information types. This suggests an interesting conflict between consumers’ specific information needs and flexibility of low-specificity searches. The third finding is that locating information online requires capabilities of consumers. To embrace these, the study introduces the concept of “Internet search expertise”. Structural equation modeling is used to assess its effects. The results show that Internet search expertise increases the effectiveness of the search (gives greater diversity of information) but has negative effects on the efficiency of the search (increases effort). The results may be due to the motivational effects – consumers with Internet search expertise are also highly motivated to search online, to the extent that the relative productivity of the search starts to decrease. Comparisons of two conflicting theories on the relation of Internet search expertise and product class knowledge are performed. One interpretation suggests that Internet search expertise compensates for the lack of product class knowledge, as online information sources are accessible in a uniform fashion. The other suggests that the best results in search require “double expertise”, i.e. presence of both capabilities. The structural equation models support the first theory: Internet search expertise has a positive effect on the diversity of information found, while product class knowledge fails to achieve statistical significance. On the other hand, the results from classifying information seeker types appear to countervail these findings, as product class knowledge is clearly emphasized in certain groups

Tensions in Creating an Innovative Community of Vocational Education and Entrepreneurship

New innovations are necessary to ensure and enforce entrepreneurship skill development and working-life-centricity in vocational education. We present an example from Finland. InnoOmnia is a multi-actor knowledge community within a VET organisation. It brings together students, entrepreneurs, and teachers in a non-formal setting where traditional roles are revamped. A number of traditional silos have been broken in order to build a co-learning innovation environment. The transition is not painless, however. Using a large dataset of text and visual content, we identify tensions relating to the transition. The tensions fall under the themes of community borders, operational culture, structures and leadership. InnoOmnia is not perceived as one community. Rather, every participant seems to have his or her own representation of it. Based on these differences, conflicts arise. Our research indicates that an innovative, entrepreneurial community inevitably contains destructive and conflicting forces as well. A key force counterbalancing the tensions is enthusiasm

Access Denied: Patterns of Consumer Internet Information Search and the Effects of Internet Search Expertise

The Internet is said to improve the consumer’s position in relation to businesses. This is said to result from the improved accessibility of consumer information and, consequently, better decision-making. However, certain difficulties hinder the way to the improved situation. The Internet brings about completely new types of difficulty for consumers, as it is an entirely consumer-driven setting. The study argues that consumers’ Internet search patterns largely determine the information to which the consumer has access. The relevance of this information is vital – it is only used in a decision if it is perceived to match the consumer’s information needs. Access to relevant online information requires an ability to identify and choose appropriate search patterns. The focus is thus on the patterns of Internet search and Internet search expertise. Typologies are created based on differences among seekers of information (i.e. people) and paths to information in the searches. The first finding of the study suggests that in contrast to the previous classifications of seekers, on the Internet, a different approach to “search” and its dimensions is needed. Six Internet seeker typologies emerge based on their characteristic features: high knowledge seekers, navigators, low seekers, social seekers, offline ad seekers, and retail seekers. The composition of the clusters appears stable based on external validation. In previous studies, it is commonly assumed that the inherent properties of information sources distinguish among the search patterns. Results indicate that in online search, the way through which the consumer finds each of the sources is emphasized, rather than the source as such. The search paths in online search belong to heuristic or analytical modes. Specific coding is developed for analyzing the paths to the information. The second finding indicates that consumers’ Internet searches largely rely on heuristics, in other words, trial and error. This happens to the extent that heuristic search is more prominent than analytical search in consumer information acquisition. Although the diagnosticity (i.e. likelihood of finding sufficient information to terminate search) of heuristic search is rather low, it gives the consumer flexibility with different information types. This suggests an interesting conflict between consumers’ specific information needs and flexibility of low-specificity searches. The third finding is that locating information online requires capabilities of consumers. To embrace these, the study introduces the concept of “Internet search expertise”. Structural equation modeling is used to assess its effects. The results show that Internet search expertise increases the effectiveness of the search (gives greater diversity of information) but has negative effects on the efficiency of the search (increases effort). The results may be due to the motivational effects – consumers with Internet search expertise are also highly motivated to search online, to the extent that the relative productivity of the search starts to decrease. Comparisons of two conflicting theories on the relation of Internet search expertise and product class knowledge are performed. One interpretation suggests that Internet search expertise compensates for the lack of product class knowledge, as online information sources are accessible in a uniform fashion. The other suggests that the best results in search require “double expertise”, i.e. presence of both capabilities. The structural equation models support the first theory: Internet search expertise has a positive effect on the diversity of information found, while product class knowledge fails to achieve statistical significance. On the other hand, the results from classifying information seeker types appear to countervail these findings, as product class knowledge is clearly emphasized in certain groups