This dissertation investigates the nature of learning and knowing in adult formal vocational education and training. In a two-year period, I attended a training institute in western Canada and collected data from a variety of courses that were designed for practitioners to initiate a career or promote their rank in maritime industries. My research consists of four separate yet interrelated studies that, as a whole, comprise core chapters of this dissertation. I used video-mediated ethnography as my method to record and socio-cultural and situated perspectives as my primary framework to analyze and better understand my research data, participants’ interactions, and the learning and knowing possibilities in the course of the activities. In my first study, I looked at the assessment system for certification, a major impediment and contradiction that prevents the current vocational education system from reaching its objectives. I analyzed how current practices adversely affect the performance of the system and how it can be improved. In the second study, I examined and addressed the shortcomings of vocational education policies. I proposed a conceptual framework for policy analysis and design that affords the reduction or elimination of the current impediments in the implementation processes. In the third study, I developed the concept of quasi-community as a theoretical framework for theorizing the learning and teaching of adult practitioners in formal educational settings. I theorized learning as the membership and co-participation in a quasi-community developed by its members. The aim of a quasi-community is to create an interactive environment for the participants to share their expertise and utilize cultural resources in order to provide opportunities for collective activities and collaborative learning. In my final study, I focused on a new phenomenon in workplaces, namely the introduction of technology and the demand it created for change in educational systems. Based on the concept of quasi-community, I proposed a distinct pedagogical method for adult technology education. This dissertation provides empirical evidence that the conceptual framework of quasi-community allows for the creation of effective pedagogies that provide authentic learning opportunities for adult learners to develop vocational and technological competencies required in their workplaces. / Graduate

The aim of this study is to analyze the construction of research culture and collaboration within the research studio Tools for Creativity, one node in the larger Interactive Institute. This studio is an arena that in today’s society is associated with boundary crossing, dynamics and variability: An environment with high-tech equipment, a staff equipped with diverse skills, and a flexible approach with the ambition of developing innovative tools based on ICT to strengthen human creativity. The present thesis is divided into four main parts. In Part One, culture as analytical framework is presented. This is followed by a presentation of field work, data and field site, the studio Tools for Creativity, and its employees. This includes a discussion of the methods of participant observations and deep inter-views. In the theoretical framework overview, perspectives used in this thesis is presented, including the so-called “new research landscape” debate, a background to this thesis. The introduction concludes with a chapter whith a reflexivity discussion including the making of the research self during field work and in the written text. In Part Two, entitled “Technology”, the informants’ definition of technology in relation ICT and the prototypes produced is ana-lyzed. The concepts “enlightenment optimism” and “romantic uneasiness” are presented as theoretical entrances to the chapter. This is the background for an analysis of the future- and speed-oriented discourse that characterizes the informants’ perception of technology. The aim of using technology to support human creativity, challenge presence and facilitate multi-cultural communication is further discussed. This is juxtaposed with another aspect of technol-ogy, namely the informant’s critique of technology’s impact on mankind, humanity and society. Part Three, “Re-search”, deals with interpretations and negotiations of the concept of research and the researcher conducted by the informants at Tools for Creativity. First, the concept of “boundary object” is presented followed by its use order to analyze the construction of research and the researcher in a multi-disciplinary arena like the studio. An important part of the making of the researcher is the trading of skills in the attempt of legitimizing the individuals’ efforts at conducting research. Here, focus is the negotiation of research as an activity between individuals representing the sciences and the arts, as well as those with formal education and autodidacts. Attempts to manage a broader research concept are placed in relation to academic quality demands. In this analysis, the point of departure is Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic capital. Here, gender is included as symbolic capital. Part Four is called “Reflections” and contains a discussion of the study and reflections concerning field work. This is followed by a summation of what happened to Tools for Creativity and Interactive Institute after finished field work.

Les organisations virtualisées sous multi-gouvernance sont des organisations co-gouvernées simultanément par plusieurs organisations indépendantes. Les distances organisationnelles et géographiques leur incitent à mettre en place des équipes virtuelles à grande échelle. Ces organisations des acteurs hétérogènes adoptent un mode de contrôle particulier riche d'enseignements pour la théorie du contrôle. En complément du contrôle interorganisationnel, leur système de contrôle est combiné d'un contrôle interactif informel. L'e-collaboration est le mode de travail essentiel. Les objets-frontières jouent un rôle important dans le contrôle interactif informel et dans l'e-collaboration des équipes au-delà des frontières organisationnelles, géographiques et temporelles. / Virtualised organizations with multi-governance are co-governed simultaneously by several independent organizations. Organizational and geographical distances encourage them to set up virtual teams on a large scale. These organizations adopt a particular control mode. In addition to the inter-organizational control, their control system is combined with an informal interactive control. The e-collaboration is their important way of work. The boundary objects play an important role in the and in the informal interactive control and in the e-collaboration, beyond organizational boundaries, geographical and temporal.

Denna avhandling undersöker hur omställningen av energisystemet har konstruerats i den riksdagspolitiska debatten, med fokus på förnybara energikällor. Utgångspunkten är det riksdagsbeslut som fattades 1980 och som innebar en omställning till förnybara energikällor. Studien bygger på textanalys av framför allt riksdagsprotokoll. Energipolitik är en ständig dragkamp kring definitioner och kategoriseringar och vilka ideal som bör utgöra politikens mål. I den riksdagspolitiska energidebatten om omställningen av energisystemet är det långt ifrån självklart vad som betraktas som problem, lösning och mål. Aktörer interagerar och förhandlar och skapar på så vis mening. Tre teoretiska begrepp är centrala i analysen av denna process: problematisering, obligatorisk passagepunkt och gränsobjekt. Den riksdagspolitiska debatten handlar om mer än bara vilka energikällor som är bäst lämpade. Livsavgörande framtidsfrågor har knutits till energiproduktionen. I den energipolitiska debatten väcks också frågor om kunskapsproduktion, hur energikällor och olika tekniska lösningar ställs mot varandra och blir argument i debatten om rationalitet och sanning. Förnybara energikällor har varit del av såväl utopiska som dystopiska framtidsbilder. De kan vara ett argument för det lilla och småskaliga, mot tillbakagång och det antimodernistiska, eller för utveckling, modernisering och det framtidsorienterade. Således handlar debatten om omställningen av energisystemet också om vad som utgör ”det goda samhället”. / This thesis examines how the energy system transformation has been constructed in the Swedish parliamentary debate, with a focus on renewable energy sources. The study is based on text analysis and the primarily material is parliamentary protocols. Energy politics is a constant tug-of-war over how to classify things, what categorizations to make and what ideals to turn into goals. Actors interact and negotiate, creating meaning and definitions. I draw upon three theoretical concepts to describe this process: problematization, obligatory passage point and boundary object. The decision to transform the energy system has been decisive for Swedish politics. In addition, it raises questions concerning knowledge production, pitting various energy sources and technical solutions against each other and making them into arguments in the debate on rationality and truth. Renewable energy sources serve as a basis for both utopian and dystopian visions of the future. Renewable energy sources can be used in multiple ways rhetorically, to advocate the local and small scale, to caution against regression and the anti-modern, and to uphold development, modernization and an orientation towards the future. Thus, the debate on what energy sources should be chosen also becomes a debate about the future and what constitutes “the good society”.Energy politics is a constant tug-of-war over how to classify things, what categorizations to make and what ideals to turn into goals. Actors interact and negotiate, creating meaning and definitions. I draw upon three theoretical concepts to describe this process: problematization, obligatory passage point and boundary object.

ICTs have enabled increased mobility and created a new era of workplace connectivity. Due to changes in work organization, global operations, increased mobility, and the new opportunities they are creating; work requires more coordination, more travel and a higher frequency of boundary spanning. ICTs have infiltrated into the personal life of individuals, while similarly, having an increasing impact on how organizations manage their workers‘ work-life balance. This research investigates the work boundary negotiation process in ICT-enabled work.Using an in-depth case study supplemented with visual data, this thesis studies the case of Sigma, an international consulting firm, that serves clients located in a large geographical area. It explores how consultants exhibiting mobile work practices, use ICTs to negotiate work boundaries. It draws on the structurational model of technology and complements it with the boundary object construct. The utilisation of this combined approach allows further understanding of work boundary negotiation.The research reveals that some ICTs as technological artefacts are boundary objects bridging between different groups of actors, crossing work boundaries, and allowing actors to negotiate their work boundaries while challenging traditional boundaries. Thus, allowing consultants to use their ICTs (specifically their smartphone) to negotiate their work boundaries on a need to basis. The boundary negotiation process (as revealed by the structuration process) is the means by which consultants try to make the most out of existing social structures – in this case specifically domination – in their organizational context. The ICT becomes a source of power and is mainly used to manifest domination over available resources. Consultants use them to maintain control over their life, increase their legitimacy and convey that they are professional experts. ICTs allow consultants to continuously redefine their work boundaries which become dynamic, fluid and contextual; the research reaffirms the sociotechnical nature of work boundaries.The thesis also develops a conceptual model of work boundary negotiation that conceptually illustrates how boundary negotiation is the outcome of the structuration process and the negotiation of existing structures of domination, legitimation and signification.

This research explores games as cultural heritage. The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how games as cultural heritage is made. The study seeks answers to which principal museum practices that are being carried out in the work with games as cultural heritage and what constitutes them. Furthermore this study explains how these practices influences the making of games as cultural heritage. The analysis has been carried out on Play Beyond Play, a game exhibition made at Tekniska museet in Stockholm 2018, where practices is being understood and analyzed from a practice theory perspective with the use of games as boundary objects. The empiric data was collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews with people working with the content of the exhibition and an place-based observation of the exhibition itself. The concept of ”anchoring practices” has been used as an analythic method to find and sort which principal practices that were carried out. The analysis resulted in six principal practices in the work of knowledge and mediation of games as techinchal development, the role of playablity, the matter of thinking ctitically, the effect of practical limitations and possibilities, the implementation and use of research, and the certification of games as cultural heritage. These practices influence the making of games as cultural heritage by defining games, how knowledge about games should be carried out and why games is important as cultural heritage through the location, role and area of focus at Tekniska museet. The study contributes with explanations and reinforces the connection between practices and the use of objects to create and mediate knowledge about games, where the knowledge carried out is affected by the context where it is being created through a longer period of time. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

Ausgangspunkt der vorliegenden Abschlussarbeit ist die Feststellung, dass jedweder Organisationstheorie explizit oder implizit eine bestimmte Vorstellung von „Arbeit“ in Organisationen zu Grunde liegt und „Arbeit“ somit zentrale Untersuchungskategorie sein sollte. Zahlreiche Publikationen postulieren zwar einen grundlegenden strukturellen Wandel von Arbeit, auf theoretisch-konzeptioneller Ebene wird sich allerdings wenig mit der konkreten Arbeitstätigkeit an sich als vielmehr mit Metaphern über Arbeit beschäftigt. „Arbeit“ wird in aktuellen Organisationsforschungsansätzen auf einer zu hohen Abstraktionsebene diskutiert, so dass sich die Forschung vom realen Prozess der Arbeit entfernt und der Arbeitsbegriff als solcher in den Konzepten vernachlässigt wird. Um diesem Defizit zu begegnen, wird vorgeschlagen, den Prozess der Erkenntnisgewinnung zu hinterfragen und einem praxistheoretischen Paradigma zu folgen, um Theorien zur Beschreibung von Arbeit auswählen zu können, die diese in ihren konkreten realweltlichen Zusammenhängen betrachtet. Er bezieht sich insofern auf Theorien, die ihre möglichen Analysedimensionen aus der konkreten Tätigkeit von Personen im Arbeitsprozess ableiten. Dazu diskutiert er die kultur-historische Tätigkeitstheorie, die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie und das Konzept des Boundary Object, wobei die Tätigkeitstheorie als Referenzrahmen für die anderen Konzepte dient. Ziel ist es, Dimensionen zur Erfassung und Beschreibung des Konstruktes Arbeit herauszuarbeiten und diese aus Sicht der gewählten Theorien zu interpretieren, zu diskutieren und anschließend miteinander zu vergleichen.

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Organizations benefit from the knowledge held by individual members as well as knowledge that is shared among those members. In order for knowledge to co-develop between members, and to spread, organizations must provide opportunities for members to collaborate. Organizational teams sometimes require assistance with interpersonal communication, establishing consensus, and sharing knowledge when collaborating. Group facilitators can offer guidance and intervene when teams need support. In addition, teams can find support through the use of visual representation boundary objects (VRBOs) to build trust, improve communication, increase cooperation, and share ideas. This study explores how knowledge is shared between team members and uncovers the importance of social interaction during the co-development of shared knowledge. The role that group facilitators play in team collaboration is highlighted. The results of the study indicate that a positive relationship exists between the use of a VRBO and the development of shared knowledge amongst a team. Patterns emerged from the findings that reveal a structure to the team’s collective meaning making that constitutes an underlying theory of action. The author examines the benefits of using VRBOs for teams and organizations including improved collaboration and communication.

Interest in ‘science-based targets’ (SBTs) as a means of helping the private sector achieve greater environmental sustainability has sharply increased in recent years. However, the significant ambiguity around what SBTs for Earth systems are and how they relate to broader sustainability issues has received little attention. This study adopts an interpretive approach to explore how different ‘framings’ of SBTs reflect very different storylines about sustainability problems and the role of SBTs in delivering solutions. It treats environmental governance not as a search for solutions to a pre-defined problem, but as a struggle over the definition of the environmental problem itself. In doing so, the study addresses deeper questions about whether sustainability science and practice should work within ‘the system’ to change it or critique it as part of the problem. It uses Q methodology to explore the perspectives of 22 scientists and practitioners engaged in SBTs for Earth systems. The results show two main framings of SBTs: ‘we need to develop science-based targets for the Earth system’ and ‘we need systemic economic, political and social change – and science-based targets.’ Results indicate that two distinctive storylines exist around SBTs, which emerge from reformist and radical environmental discourses. Alongside areas of consensus, they diverge on crucial issues regarding the nature of SBTs, sustainability problems and solutions, and the role of SBTs in transformation. The study suggests that the SBT is a boundary object; its ambiguity can both promote collaboration between diverse actors and conceal more radical discourse. It concludes that the plural interpretations of SBTs and their contribution to sustainability transformations have important implications. This highlights a need for greater reflexivity within sustainability science and practice, which could move them towards their sustainability aims.