Becoming global – the troublesome integration process. The thesis is based on research in Kongsberg Automotive and its foreign subsidiaries in Mexico, U.S.A, Poland and South Korea. It is a study of how these foreign units were established and how the head office in Norway was able to integrate these units in the organization. The purpose of the study is to improve understanding of the challenges involved in internationalization processes. To what extent are cultural, political and social differences factors to consider when creating the international organization? In what way do actors and structures influence the process and the practices that emerge? In an international organization cultural, political and social differences may create barriers towards understanding the other. This may be further complicated by different languages, time and geographical distances. The local manager abroad is central to the development of relations between the head office and the local unit and his perception of what is appropriate and his ability to make others agree is central to understanding the various practices and solutions that emerge in the local organization. The main motivation and challenge of the central management is to control and coordinate the international organization. The study emphasizes the usefulness of different control mechanisms and how these attempts for control were perceived locally. Through time there was a stronger reliance on mechanisms for socialization and enculturation, and while these are directed towards creating a larger consensus in the organization, these should also be seen as means for decentralized control and self-monitoring. The various organizational entities in Kongsberg Automotive represent different communities-of-practice and to understand the interaction between these communities as learning processes is central to the study. This perspective also confers an understanding of power as a productive element in the interaction. The implications of this study for theory and future research are in embracing the complex nature of internationalization process. Relevant for understanding internationalization processes are both actors and structures intertwined. Institutional environments are central to an understanding of how different actors perceive practices and structures, and what they see as viable solutions. Neither the international organization nor the learning processes these undertake can be torn loose from the local cultural, political and social context.

Sulla base della teoria delle Comunità di Pratica e dell'Azione Situata, la ricerca si propone come scopo generale lo studio delle dinamiche interattive, relazionali e comunicative legate all’introduzione di una Cartella clinica medico-infermieristica informatizzata da parte di Comunità di Pratica professionali, composte da medici ed infermieri. Il primo obiettivo è quello di studiare in un’ottica psicosociale la creazione (primo studio) e il funzionamento (secondo studio) di Comunità di Pratica professionali nate intorno alle Nuove Tecnologie, tenendo conto anche se e in quale misura una comunità che segue un nuovo paradigma di interazione sociale possa essere considerata una vera e propria Comunità di Pratica. Il secondo obiettivo è quello di affinare una metodologia di indagine psicosociale in riferimento alle dinamiche che si concretizzano all’interno delle Comunità di Pratica, senza dimenticare la dimensione dell’Identità/Soggettività. I risultati, in un'ottica esplicativa di comprensione delle dinamiche sottostanti all’essere parte di una Comunità di Pratica o all’iniziare a farne parte, hanno restituito interessanti risvolti dal punto di vista interpersonale e organizzativo, con particolare riferimento alla costituzione e allo sviluppo delle due Comunità di Pratica e agli aspetti comunicativi e identitari della relazione medico-infermiere. Il terzo e ultimo obiettivo è provare a rispondere al quesito: per le Comunità di Pratica è possibile parlare di ‘Soggettività di pratica’? Per fare questo, una riflessione teorica conclusiva si propone di collegare il costrutto di Comunità di Pratica ai recenti sviluppi teorici sulla Soggettività. / According to the Community of Practice and the Situated Action Theories, the general aim of the research is the evaluation of the interactive, relational and communicative dimensions of the introduction and use of an interactive clinical-nursing record by medical professionals (doctors and nurses) Communities of Practice. In particular, the two studies investigate, from a psychosocial perspective, the emergence (first study) and the process (second study) of Communities related to the New Technologies, estimating if this kind of communities can be properly considered as Communities of Practice, referring also to the Identity/Subjectivity dimension. The results offers interesting practical implications -from the interpersonal and organizational point of view- on communication and identity aspects of the relationship among colleagues and between doctors and nurses. The last objective is then to try to answer to the question if it’s possible to assume a “subjectivity of practice”: a conclusive theoretical proposal aims to rely the Community of practice theory to the recent progress in Subjectivity concept.

This thesis describes the researcher’s journey as an online facilitator and reflective organization development (OD) practitioner as she explores how to nurture and cultivate space for learning and collaboration in an online community of practice. The research setting is a small group of mostly volunteers in a national health charity. The researcher adopts a reflective practitioner research approach engaging in a continuous process of story-telling throughout the thesis. She struggles with questions such as her own dynamic role as an outside facilitator, the role of technology, dilemmas of emergence versus design and discovery of purpose. Rather than arriving at a to-do-list for potential online facilitators, she discovers that hosting café style conversations, setting the online tables and enabling space for learning, collaboration and aliveness is more a matter of the facilitator’s capacity to listen, to be authentically present and to relinquish control.

This thesis describes the researcher’s journey as an online facilitator and reflective organization development (OD) practitioner as she explores how to nurture and cultivate space for learning and collaboration in an online community of practice. The research setting is a small group of mostly volunteers in a national health charity. The researcher adopts a reflective practitioner research approach engaging in a continuous process of story-telling throughout the thesis. She struggles with questions such as her own dynamic role as an outside facilitator, the role of technology, dilemmas of emergence versus design and discovery of purpose. Rather than arriving at a to-do-list for potential online facilitators, she discovers that hosting café style conversations, setting the online tables and enabling space for learning, collaboration and aliveness is more a matter of the facilitator’s capacity to listen, to be authentically present and to relinquish control.

I slutet av 1990-talet beslöt den dåvarande regeringen att initiera ett antal projekt i medelstora och större svenska städer. Projekten skulle förläggas till förorternas miljonprogramsområden och målen skulle vara att stärka kompetensen hos de invandrare som bodde i bostadsområdena, öka deras arbetskraftsdeltagande och öka kontaktytorna mellan svenskar och invandrare. Kooperativet Latitud är ett av dessa projekt. Inom kooperativet arbetar flyktingar, långtidsarbetslösa och lågutbildade. Männen har kommit dit genom arbetsmarknadsplaceringar, praktikplatser, aktivitetsgaranti, medan de flesta av kvinnorna har kortvariga anställningar. Studien bygger på Lave och Wengers teorier kring legitimt perifert lärande och lärande i en handlingsgemenskap. Dessutom prövas teoriernas användbarhet i den kontext som kooperativet utgör. Grundläggande i dessa teorier är att lärandet är situerat och sker i handling i en social gemenskap och att lärande och utveckling av identitet är sammanvävda. Arbetsplatsen Latitud studeras i dess egenskap av en handlingsgemenskap, där människors lärande är beroende av och förknippat med den mening de finner i verksamheten och i sin egen tillvaro i kooperativet, lika väl som av den gemenskap de formar som arbetsgrupp. Lärandets betydelse för individens identitet tydliggörs i fyra individers lärande och agerande under deras tid i kooperativet. Avhandlingen visar att de använda teorierna är väl skickade för att studera Latitud som miljö för lärande, dock krävs ytterligare utveckling av teorierna för att utforska och förklara individens lärande och samspelet mellan individ och kontext. En fördjupning av teorin krävs för att beskriva hur en människas identitet byggs från deltagande och lärande i olika lokala praktiker och behov, och hur varje individs lapptäcke av livserfarenheter och lärande formar ett individuellt mönster. / At the end of the 1990s, the then Swedish Government initiated a number of projects in large and medium-sized Swedish cities. The projects were to be conducted in suburban housing areas built during the Million Programme and the objectives were to improve the skills of migrants living in these areas, increase their participation in the workforce and strengthen contacts between them and Swedish people. The Latitude Cooperative (Kooperativet Latitud) was one of these projects. Refugees, long-termed unemployed and low-educated people work within the cooperative. The men have arrived there as labour market placements, whilst most of the women are on short-term employment contracts. The study is based on Lave and Wenger's theories on Legitimate Peripheral Participation and learning in a Community of Practice. The applicability of these theories was also tested in the context of the cooperative. The basic premise of these theories is that learning is situated and occurs when participating in a social community and that learning and development of identity are interwoven. The Latitude Cooperative is studied in its capacity as a community of practice, where people's learning is dependent on and associated with the meaning they find in the activities and in their own existence in the cooperative, as well as on the community they shape as a working group. The significance of learning for individual identity is exemplified in the learning of four individuals and their actions during their time in the cooperative. The thesis shows that the theories employed are well suited to the study of Latitude as a learning environment. The theories require further development, however, in order to research and explain individual learning and the interplay between the individual and the context. Dreier provides the necessary further development of the theory to describe how a person's identity is constructed from participation and learning in different local practices and needs, and how each individual's patchwork of life experiences and learning forms an individual pattern.

This paper addresses a new conceptual framework for a communitybased project management learning model that aims to support learning within a project and enhance the distribution of knowledge within a particular virtual community. This model also aims to develop a virtual community of doctoral students, who can manage their own projects online with other community members who have the same interest. In order to develop that model, a checklist of community-based project management process has been developed in the light of the literature review and the needs of stakeholders (doctoral students and researchers). Within this model, community-based project management includes three main elements: community, project and management. In relation to project, there are two main sub elements. First is projectbased learning (PBL), which is based on constructivist perspective of learning that make students construct their knowledge when they work together to accomplish specific goals. Second is the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK), which is a project management guide, and an internationally recognized standard [PMBOK Guide, 2004], that provides the fundamentals of project management as they apply to a wide range of projects, including construction, software, engineering, automotive, so the study deploy this approach to scaffold based project management learning model. In the terms of the community element, this study adopted the community of inquiry model, which defines a good e-learning environment through three major aspects: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. The last element which is addressed in this study called knowledge management. After identifying these elements, this study investigates a range of tools in the light of this model. The study analyses six different learning and content management systems (OPAL, Moodle, Joomla, e107, ZMS and TUDWCMS) in order to find out tool(s) that is/are sufficient for implementing the suggested study model.

In Norway research on immigrants and the labour market has to a large degree focused on immigrants’ shortcomings, be it their lacking knowledge, competence and skills (KCS) or their failures in being recruited to available jobs. This study seeks to refocus current academic interest and investigates the potential benefits of recruiting immigrant employees. It explores highly skilled immigrants and how their KCS is valued, shared and used in a Norwegian workplace. In this study seven immigrant employees in a State organisation (the Directorate) are interviewed about their experiences with having their KCS validated, shared and used. In addition they reflect on the Directorate’s framework conditions for sharing learning, and whether the organisation is able to expand the organisational culture to embrace immigrants’ values, opinions and practices. The study adopts a socio-cultural view on learning and operationalises this approach through the use of Lave and Wenger’s concept of communities of practice (CoPs). Employees in the Directorate are thus seen as members of CoPs and new immigrant employees as novices going through a participative process to gain access to the CoPs’ repertoire of accepted practices. Findings indicate that the negotiation of meaning taking place when new, immigrant KCS enters CoPs is a contested process in which both new employees and veteran members go through a process of identity formation. Findings also indicate that although an organisation may have an inclusive work environment regarding surface-level diversity, the inclusion of foreign values, opinions and practices and the development of a diverse learning environment is dependent on a conscious strategy on harvesting foreign KCS.

This thesis explores the scope for children’s voices offered to children in court mandated investigations regarding custody, residence or contact. The focus is on children who have been exposed to their father’s violence against their mother The aim is to study how the legislators’ intentions concerning children’s participation in this area are implemented in work groups. The assumption is that implementation can be seen as collective learning. Implementation may in this case challenge established relations of power like age and gender orders. Professional discourses on violence have to shift from gender neutral to gendered discourses and discourses on children have to include a participation discourse. Learning which includes a shift in discourses and challenges established power relations is defined as radical learning.The approach is social constructionist and draws on group interviews with social workers specialized in family law.The thesis analyses which discourses of violence and of children are accessible and used at group level. This can be seen as a discursive opportunity structure. The discourses in question are: gender violence, child protection, treatment and family law discourses as well as care and participation discourses. The conclusion is that all these discourses are accessible to the professionals and the effects of the different discourses are discussed regarding the possibilities for creating a safe situation for mother and child during the investigation.The thesis furthermore analyses the organisation of the work groups. These characteristics can be seen as an organisational opportunity structure. The analysis shows different patterns in the groups when it comes to structure and stage of learning process. One group seems to be at the stage where the members are prepared to start talking to the child about the father’s violence.The final chapter presents a discussion of radical learning and the possibilities for radical social change when established power relations are challenged.

Les processus métier font l’objet d’une standardisation. Les voies empruntées pour cette standardisation, à savoir la domination, la confrontation et l’incorporation, puisent leur origine tant dans les méthodes que sont l’Organisation Scientifique du Travail ou le reengineering que dans les outils de type progiciel de gestion. Or, il s’avère que la prescription et la standardisation des processus métier, telles qu’elles sont réalisées, posent des problèmes dans les organisations, aux niveaux stratégique, fonctionnel et opérationnel. Notre recherche s’attache à déterminer d’une part la nature d’une autre voie de standardisation et d’autre part les conditions pouvant faciliter son émergence.Convaincus que le changement ne peut plus se définir comme l’imposition d’un modèle a priori, un standard promulgué, nous nous interrogeons sur la capacité des pratiques à reconcevoir la nature du travail de standardisation, pour aboutir à un standard pratiqué. Afin de trouver des solutions aux problèmes rencontrés avec les voies actuelles de standardisation, nous proposons un modèle conceptuel qui place les pratiques au cœur d’une spirale de création de connaissances organisationnelles. Dans le cadre d’une recherche action, nous analysons les effets de la mise en place d’un outil matérialisant notre modèle conceptuel sur des terrains qui mobilisent différemment les conditions requises pour le changement, à savoir un institut bancaire public et un groupe de presse nationale. Les résultats obtenus, variant très fortement d’un terrain à l’autre, font ressortir deux enseignements majeurs qui nous éclairent sur l’avènement du standard pratiqué comme nouvelle voie de standardisation. Nous constatons tout d’abord que le standard pratiqué se nourrit du standard promulgué pour ancrer les processus métier dans toute l’organisation. Ensuite, l’émergence et le développement d’un standard pratiqué mettent en lumière des logiques particulières à l’œuvre dans l’organisation, à savoir un processus de création de sens, le soutien d’une structure de pouvoir parallèle au pouvoir officiel et un processus d’innovation organisationnelle. / Business processes undergo standardization. This standardization is achieved through domination, confrontation and incorporation, means that have their origins in methods like Taylorism, reengineering or the implementation of tools such as ERP systems. Prescription and standardization of business processes, however, create problems for organizations, at the strategic, functional and operating levels. Our research attempts to uncover on one hand novel ways of standardizing processes and on the other the conditions facilitating the emergence of these new ways.Convinced that change cannot be defined any more as the imposition of an a priori model or a promulgated standard, we investigate how work practices may contribute to the creation of standards, and result in “practiced” standards. To find solutions to the problems met with current ways of standardizing, we propose a model, which places practice at the heart of a spiral of creation of organizational knowledge. Through an action research project, we analyze the effects of the implementation of this model in two different settings, namely a public banking institute and a conglomerate of national press, requiring different conditions for change.Our findings, which differ considerably from one case to the other, highlight how the “practiced” standard emerges as a novel way of standardizing. First, we notice that the “practiced” standard feeds on the promulgated standard to anchor business processes in the whole organization. Second, the emergence and the development of the “practiced” standard bring to light specific processes that operate in the organization, namely a process of sensemaking, the support of a structure of power parallel to the official one, and a process of organizational innovation.

Text in English / Little is known about the current practice of the nurse practising as an independent private practitioner in South Africa. There is also limited information available about his/her needs for establishing and maintaining a private practice. In this exploratory, descriptive study the AFFIRM model was applied and specific data regarding the practice and needs of the nurse in private practice was collected through a questionnaire. Based on the analysed data, it would appear that the majority of private nurse practitioners are married females and fall into the age group below 44 years. Although a variety of nursing services are offered, quality control appears to be minimal. It was found that private nurse practitioners have specific learning needs particularly regarding business management skills, quality control and current nursing practices. Recommendations were made for the maintenance of standards in private practices and the introduction of short courses for nurses in private practice. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)