ERIC Number: EJ838204
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007-Jun
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1360-3736
EISSN: N/A
Learning in the Process of Industrial Work--A Comparative Study of Finland, Sweden and Germany
Kira, Mari
International Journal of Training and Development, v11 n2 p86-102 Jun 2007
By combining a positivistic and an interpretive approach, this research investigates the learning opportunities that contemporary industrial work processes and workplaces offer for employees individually and collectively. The research explores how employees can become trained through their work and how individual development may expand to collective development. Finnish and Swedish package-supplier companies have served as case-study organizations, and the findings from them have been benchmarked to the available corresponding German data. The results show that although employees may have opportunities for individual learning in enriched, enlarged and autonomous manufacturing work, the prevailing bureaucratic power relations prevent employees from fully engaging in collective learning. It is concluded that a positivistic research approach and a sociotechnical theoretical framework make visible the training through work taking place at the individual level, while an interpretive research approach and concepts from complexity thinking reveal the obstacles to collective learning.
Descriptors: Employees, Research Methodology, Foreign Countries, Comparative Analysis, Individual Development, Case Studies, Models
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Finland; Germany; Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A