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The past fifteen years have seen a rapid growth in the number of coworking spaces worldwide. In the research literature, these spaces, in which start-up entrepreneurs and other self-employed people form professional and social networks, are often understood either as a manifestation of increasingly precarious forms of work within neoliberal capitalism or as a solidary alternative to this form of individualizing and competitive economy. Drawing on ethnographic research from a coworking space in Barcelona, this article shows how coworkers balance acts of sharing, gift giving and buying/selling their skills and knowledge in different ways, depending on their personal situations, experiences and professional skills. We specifically tease out three forms of sharing – demand sharing, passion sharing, and public sharing – all of which simultaneously carry the potential for communal and passionate work and for instrumental and exploitative forms of collaboration. We argue that, in their everyday activities and at special events, coworkers are able to engage in ‘differential commoning’ and obtain – even if only momentary – a sense of being part of an intentional community based on communal values of care and passion that intersects with and differs from what they perceive as individualist capitalist work life.

Informed by a generative approach to social practice theories, this chapter suggests the idea of “managerial stances” as a productive concept for investigating and understanding the work of connecting leaders as it unfolds. An ethnographic study following middle managers at work provides the point of departure for an exploration of the shifting identities manifesting in their managerial practices, enabling them to navigate the varying interests of staff, immediate superiors and wider organisational agendas. Rather than perceiving leadership and followership as traits assigned to particular organisational positions, the approach undertaken in this chapter operationalises leading and following as the adoption of managerial stances emerging within and across the different situated practices in which managers participate. In doing so, the figure of the connecting leader is perceived in practice, hosting a horizon of leader and follower identities brought into relief on the background of participation in organisational practices.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how new policies and standards to professionalise nightclub bouncing along with customer-oriented service imperatives affect bouncers’ work practices and identities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork among Danish bouncers and uses the concept of “emotional labour” and related ideas of “interactive service work” to explore how service imperatives play out at political/commercial and organisational levels and how such initiatives are negotiated by bouncers in their work practices. Findings – Until recently, the nocturnal work of bouncers had been relatively unaffected by labour market service paradigms. This is now changing, as policy initiatives and the capitalist service economy colonise ever greater domains of the urban night and the work conducted here. We argue that trends towardsprofessionalisation have landed bouncers in a double-bind situation, in which they are increasingly faced with competing and sometimes contradictory occupational imperatives requiring them both to “front up” effectively to unruly patrons and to project a service-oriented persona. We show how bouncers seek to cope with this precarious position by adopting a variety of strategies, such as resistance, partial acceptance and cultural re-interpretations of service roles.Originality/value – While existing research on nightclub bouncers has primarily focussed on bouncers’ physical regulation of unruly guests, this paper provides a theoretical framework for understanding current policy ambitions to “domesticate” bouncers and shows how attempts to construct bouncers as civilised “service workers” is fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities.

A unique experience of confidence between patient and nurse can be provided through the practical set-up in telemedicine. This embraces new standards for professional discretion among nurses, but also an increasingly complicated relation to doctors. This provides a dilemma that we characterise as ‘paradoxical accountability’. The study draws on ethnography in relation to a large 5 mio euro project at four hospitals in Copenhagen caring for 120 patients with COPD. Twenty screen mediated conferences was observed and two workshops focusing on nurses’ photo elucidation of the practice of telecare with focus on shifting tasks was undertaken. Furthermore, the method of ‘Interview to double’ was used the analytical ambition being to explore the becoming of tasks and relations. Analytically the study draws predominantly on Stars notion of ‘infrastructure’. Infrastructure is seen as human and non-human conduct that is embedded into wider organisational conventions, sites and structures. The analysis argues and demonstrates that the nurse is imposed to a new responsibility, but also a decreased access to clinical decision makers. It is discussed how these cartographies of relations integrate the professions they constitute with functions of power and we point to the ethical problem of leaving the nurse increasingly accountable and dependent. Telecare can offer a unique experience of trust in patient-nurse relationships, embracing new standards for professional discretion among nurses, but also reflects an increasingly complicated relationship between nurses and doctors. The study uses ethnographic methodology in relation to a large 5 million euro project at four hospitals caring for 120 patients with COPD. Twenty screen-mediated conferences were observed and two workshops, centring on nurses’ photo elucidation of the practice of telecare, were conducted with a focus on shifting tasks, professional discretion, responsibility and boundaries between nurses and doctors. Analytically, the study draws on Star’s notion of ‘infrastructure’ and Mol, Moser and Pols’ ideas of care as ‘tinkering’. Infrastructure is understood as human and non-human conduct that is embedded into wider organisational conventions, sites and structures. The analysis demonstrates and proposes that, in telecare, greater accountability, discretion and responsibility are imposed on the nurse, but that they also have less access to the means of clinical decision-making, i.e. doctors. The article explores how relational infrastructures ascribe the professions they constitute (nurses and doctors) functions of power and accountability and highlights the ethical problem of the nurse being given greater responsibility while simultaneously becoming more dependent on the doctor.

Currently a dilemma within organization studies seems to be represented by, on the one hand, proponents who argue for a retro-wave, to go back to the original ideas of organization studies, the core tasks of enterprises and importance of the relevance of organization studies to practitioners. On the other hand, another contemporary movement may be observed within organization studies, which is to defend the use of general theories of the social sciences. This latter trend is represented through the language of organizations as processes and practices, sometimes termed the ‘process-’ and ‘practice-turn’. Although I tend to subscribe to the latter position, I aim to illustrate the value of bridging the dilemma of a canon of history and tradition and the inclusion of more general social science theories within organization studies. I also argue that it is beneficial to hold the eye both on organizations as entities and to understand persons’ interactions around work as pivotal for education and learning related to enterprises. We both need the canon and organizations as continuously emerging; organizations as units and the interactions of its persons. I make the argument standing on the shoulders of pragmatist philosophy (particularly the works by John Dewey) and the basic understanding that present experiences are always both grounded in history and tradition (the canon) and dynamically oriented towards the future (emergent).

Hvad sker der, når alle skal være selvledende?Selvledende organisering undersøger, hvilke organisatoriske dynamikker der udfor­dres, og hvordan de kommer til udtryk, når alle skal lede (mere) selv. Det umiddel­bart individuelle begreb selvledelse bliver i bogen et organisatorisk begreb og det betyder, at man som læser må glemme det meste af det, man troede, man vidste om selvledelse. Bogen leverer et nyt organisatorisk perspektiv på selvledelse, men også en kritik af den individuelt orienterede, normative konsulentlitteratur om selvledelse, som ellers er udbredt.Bogen tager afsæt i forestillingen om, at organisatorisk værdiskabelse i det moderne arbejdsliv er knyttet til selvet : at det er i menneskets menneskelighed, at den cen­trale organisatoriske værdiskabelse sker. Det vil sige menneskets evner til at begå fejl, starte forfra, vurdere og lære nyt. Når selvet kommer i centrum for organiseringen, skaber det særlige organisatoriske dynamikker, der alle samtidig skal balanceres.Selvledende organisering udvikler begreberne Passion, Kunnen og Resultat til at forstå og håndtere denne komplekse organisatoriske verden med. Bogen bygger på forskning, og gennem bogen illustreres bogens pointer løbende med eksempler fra forskningsprojektet Trivsel, produktivitet og selvledelse (TRIPS).Målgruppen for bogen er bachelor-, kandidat- og masterstuderende, der arbejder med at forstå, analysere og skabe forandringer, trivsel og læring af organisatorisk art på såvel private som offentlige arbejdspladser. Bogen henvender sig også til konsu­lenter, ledere og medarbejdere, der arbejder med at forstå og udvikle organisationer, når og hvor selvledelse er udbredt.Bogen forudsætter en grundlæggende viden om organisation og ledelse. Den kan bruges som lærebog, som opslagsbog eller som inspirationsbog, idet den både beskriver den historiske udvikling af teorier om selvledelse og illustrerer sine pointer og begreber med eksempler fra forskellige arbejdspladser.

The media and political/managerial levels focus on the opportunities to re-perform the Scandinavian welfare states through digitization. Especially in Denmark, this trend is prominent. Welfare technology is a Scandinavian notion used to point at assistive technologies intending to support the elderly and the disabled and their care providers. Feeding assistive robotics (FAR) is a welfare technology, relevant to citizens with no function in their arms. Despite national dissemination strategies, it proves difficult to recruit suitable citizens. There have been many promises for the potential of welfare technologies and assistive robotics, including more cost-efficient healthcare delivery, engaged patients/citizens and connected care providers. However, the realities of enacting telecare, whether as patients or care providers, can be complicated, in ways often unanticipated by government agencies and technology developers. This study discusses roboticists’ and governmental agencies’ imaginaries with regard to what robotics can do in care work and argues that imaginaries intertwine with affected stakeholders’ organizing of their worlds. On this founding, the paper discusses the resulting tinkering during implementation. The study exemplifies and demonstrates how ethnography may be used as an important methodological tool in HRI research. The Actor Network Theory idea of ‘follow the actor’ inspired the study that took place as multi-sited ethnography at different locations in Denmark and Sweden. Based on desk research, observation of meals and interviews I examined sociotechnical imaginaries and their intertwinement, practical and ethical implications. Human - FAR interaction demands engagement and sustained patience and understanding of the citizen’s particular body, identity issues and situation. The study contributes to the HRI interaction literature by providing detailed empirical analysis based on an ethnographic study, where political strategies and imaginaries, the technology developers’ assumptions, and users and care providers everyday hassles are in focus at the same time. Keywords: Sociotechnical imaginaries, tinkering, STS, assistive robotics, care work The media and political/managerial levels focus on the opportunities to re-perform the Scandinavian welfare states through digitization. Especially in Denmark, this trend is prominent. Welfare technology is a Scandinavian notion used to point at assistive technologies intending to support the elderly, the disabled and care providers. Feeding assistive robotics (FAR) is a welfare technology, relevant to citizens with no or low function in their arms. Despite national dissemination strategies, it proves difficult to recruit suitable users. There have been many promises for the potential of assistive robotics, including more cost-efficient healthcare delivery, engaged patients/citizens and connected care providers. However, the realities of enacting assistive robotics, whether as patients or care providers, can be complicated, in ways often unanticipated by government agencies and technology developers. This study discusses governmental agencies’ and technology developers’ visions with regard to what robotics may do and argues that these visions intertwine with affected stakeholders’ organizing of their worlds. On this founding, the article discusses the resulting tinkering during implementation. The study exemplifies and demonstrates how ethnography can be used as an important method in HRI research. The Actor Network Theory idea of ‘follow the actor’ inspired the study that took place as multi-sited ethnography at different locations in Denmark and Sweden. Based on desk research, observation of meals and interviews the study examines sociotechnical imaginaries and their practical and ethical implications. Human - FAR interaction demands engagement, sustained patience and understanding of the citizen’s particular body, identity and situation. The article contributes to the HRI literature by providing detailed empirical analysis based on an ethnographic study, where political strategies, technology developers’ assumptions, and users and care providers everyday hassles are in focus at the same time. Keywords: Sociotechnical imaginaries, tinkering, STS, assistive robotics, care work

In a changing world, there is a need to reflect about the research basis of career guidance and counselling (CGC) as a professional practice, considering the contributions of various disciplines and research traditions. This paper outlines a possible European research agenda (ERA) to further enhance the knowledge foundation of the CGC practice. The proposed lines of research, which are pronounced in the ERA, are based on a literature review involving 45 researchers concerned with the CGC practice. At three events, approximately 150 researchers from across Europe were engaged in the discussion, what kind of research is needed to enhance the knowledge foundation of the CGC practice. The paper provides a systematic overview of the relevant research fields, and links key research questions to current research endeavours. Due to the necessary involvement of diverse types of practitioners, policy makers, and researchers from different disciplines to share the CGC practice and contribute to the development of its knowledge basis, the paper calls for open, cooperative and integrative research approaches, including the combination of different research paradigms and methods.

To present evidence for the outcomes of career guidance is increasingly seen as pivotal for a further professionalization of policy making and service provision. This paper puts an emphasis on researchers’ contribution to evidence-based practice and policy making in career guidance. We argue for a broader and more pluralistic research strategy to meet the complexity of possible questions needed to be asked to provide evidence in career guidance. The article puts a specific focus on the need for a stronger involvement of the voice of users.

This article introduces a method to critical reviews and explores the ways in which problems have been formulated in knowledge production on career guidance in Denmark over a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. The method draws upon the work of Bacchi focussing on the ‘What's the problem represented to be’ (WPR) approach. Forty-nine empirical studies on Danish youth career guidance were included in the study. An analysis of the issues in focus resulted in nine problem categories. One of these, ‘targeting’, is analysed using the WPR approach. Finally, the article concludes that the WPR approach provides a constructive basis for a critical analysis and discussion of the collective empirical knowledge production on career guidance, stimulating awareness of problems and potential solutions among the career guidance community.

Magazin erwachsenenbildung.at (2016) 29, 10 S., This article displays the importance of career guidance in Europe and beyond. The authors provide insight into the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), where mutual peer learning and development is of high importance. This paper highlights some of the elements of OMC in career guidance, discussing the terms “benchmarking”, “peer learning” and “qualitative goals”. Evidently, the OMC is seen as an instrument of governance, albeit a “soft“ one in relation to career guidance. The article points out the advantages of this soft steering model, e.g. mutual peer learning. However, it also talks about the criticism this particular approach earns, as being just another tool for policy convergence in areas that are outside democratic political control. The authors further discuss the focus of OMC to develop common frameworks for quality assurance across Europe. These frameworks put perspective on career management skills in developing quality assurance approaches and on establishing national career guidance coordination. Policies and practices, however, aren‘t interchangeable across national borders to create convergence, as structures, policies, resources, and cultures differ. There is plenty to be learnt from each other, and plenty of silos to be broken down. Practically, the vehicle for applying the OMC approach has been the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN). (DIPF/Orig.), Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt die Bedeutung der Bildungs- und Berufsberatung innerhalb und außerhalb Europas auf. Die Autoren gewähren Einblick in die Offene Methode der Koordinierung (OMK), bei der das gegenseitige Lernen von KollegInnen (Peer Learning) und ihre Entwicklung einen hohen Stellenwert einnehmen. Im Beitrag werden einige Elemente der OMK in Hinblick auf die Bildungs- und Berufsberatung beleuchtet und näher auf die Begriffe „Benchmarking“, „Peer Learning“ und „qualitative Ziele“ eingegangen. Die OMK gilt offensichtlich als Steuerungsinstrument – wenn auch als ein „sanftes“ in Zusammenhang mit der Bildungs- und Berufsberatung. Der Beitrag zeigt die Vorteile dieses sanften Steuerungsinstruments auf, wie z.B. das gegenseitige Peer Learning, beschäftigt sich jedoch auch mit der Kritik an diesem besonderen Ansatz: So handle es sich nur um ein weiteres Instrument der Konvergenzpolitik in Bereichen, die sich außerhalb der demokratischen politischen Kontrolle befinden. Die Autoren beschäftigen sich außerdem mit der Schwerpunktlegung der OMK auf die Entwicklung von gemeinsamen Rahmenbedingungen zur Qualitätssicherung innerhalb Europas. Diese Rahmenbedingungen legen das Hauptaugenmerk auf Kompetenzen zur Laufbahngestaltung und zwar durch die Entwicklung von Qualitätssicherungsansätzen und die Einführung einer nationalen Koordinierung der Bildungs- und Berufsberatung. Die Strategien und Praktiken lassen sich zum Zweck der Annäherung jedoch nicht einfach über Ländergrenzen hinweg austauschen, da es sich um unterschiedliche Strukturen, Richtlinien, Ressourcen und Kulturen handelt. Es gibt viel voneinander zu lernen und viele Barrieren müssen abgebaut werden. In der Praxis steht das European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN) als treibende Kraft hinter der Anwendung der OMK. (DIPF/Orig.)

‘Education, education, education’ has been a mantra in transnational and national policies since the mid-1990s: everybody has to take part in learning activities throughout their lives in order to stay employable. Hereby lifelong learning establishes a dividing practice between active and inactive lifelong learners constituting the latter as a ‘problem’. The EU call is to make people active, with an underlying assumption of people not being motivated. This article explores how one such ‘inactive’ group, low-skilled workers, narrates motivation for learning, work and other activities through a work life span. On the basis of the Self-Determination Theory, we argue that low-skilled workers are active and motivated; however, their motivational orientation may not be towards what is considered productive activities.

Over the past few decades, the ambition of establishing a ‘corporate culture’ has largely vanished from corporate agendas. Instead, resources and energy are spent on creating ‘value-based’ organizations. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Human Resources Department of Bang & Olufsen, a Danish producer of ‘high-end’ home electronics, I offer an explanation of this shift in managerial ideology from ‘culture’ to ‘value’ — I argue that much of the attraction of value-based management resides in the double-edged semantics of the word ‘value’ and its promise to accommodate economic bottom-line value and deep-seated moral and aesthetic values. My material suggests, however, that this ambiguity confuses more than it clarifies and leads to ironic and counter-intentional consequences. The identification of the values, which was meant to congregate the employees, came to symbolize and engender a split between staff and other parts of the company.

Based on a longitudinal case study in a multinational corporation operating in the medical industry, this paper shows how a group of employees from different sites and from various organisational levels learnt and innovated new training practices as they enacted and made use of organisational routines to develop a global training system that supported the company's overall standardisation process. The paper identifies how, in particular, three interrelated routines appear to trigger moments of recursive learning and employee-driven innovation (EDI) among employees. These routines are: 1) an organisational form of global communities of practice; 2) a 'cookbook' representing a set of guidelines to ensure a common approach to the sharing of best practices; 3) a set of governance procedures to support continual improvements. They do so by allowing employees to: a) collectively engage in and work towards a common purpose; b) identify, document and share knowledge about the problems and solutions they encounter in regard to their work; c) continually improve work practices. The findings contribute to an understanding of how organisational structuring of EDI can be developed and managed, and highlight the importance of deliberately organising routines, spaces and moments to foster such dynamics.

The developing discourse centered around the definition of technological literacy has been taken up from many quarters and between conflicting perspectives (Kahn & Kellner, 2006; Keirl, 2006). While the array of different technologies and applications that might be considered gives rise to differing disciplinary viewpoints (Liddament, 1994), there remains a lack of an adequate framework from which to view technology and its use within a particular context of practice. Seeing this as central to the development of professional disciplines immediately places technology literacy not simply as something useful for ensuring that certain technologically mediated tasks can be adequately satisfied but rather, because of technology’s pervasive quality, as something that encompasses the nature of working life itself.

Presentation of the results of 21 narrative interviews with people in middle range positions in the Danish labour market focusing on learning and support during transitions. The narratives presented bring forth many paradoxes in the Danish model and education and training system. There seems to be a long way to a genuine LLL system which provides access to education and training to all from cradle to grave.

A current challenge to public managers is the lack of a well-defined role. How can master’s programmes prepare managers to live up to an undefined function? In this paper we argue that the lack of role description enhances the need for reflexivity and show how it is done at Master in Educational Management (MEM). MEM provides the participating managers with a new language that can give them a critical distance to the overload of expectations they meet at work and MEM teaches the participants to translate this new language into practice. The pedagogy used for this is labelled ‘experimental management’. This requires participants to conduct experiments in their own organization, to reflect on and analyse their experiences with concepts from the curriculum. While the new language and the experimental teaching format are difficult, the participants learn a reflexive practice that can enable them to life up to an undefined role.

In this paper we present the main results of the National Survey of Latvia, conducted within the framework of the joint study Workplace Learning in Europe and Asia. This joint study was initiated by the Research Network 2 of the Education and Research Hub for Lifelong Learning of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM-LLL). The objectives of this comparative study were to find out what people understand to be voluntary and compulsory with respect to workplace learning, what companies and organisations offer in terms of formal and non-formal work-related learning, which of these are voluntary and which compulsory, and how objective opportunities and subjective perceptions influence employees’ motivation to learn at work and their satisfaction with the learning they have undertaken. We describe the theoretical and legal framework, the methodology used, main findings on the issues raised and our conclusions. We also include some recommendations to improve workplace learning in the actual context of Latvian society.

I bogen gives eksempler på de situationer, hvor medarbejderne er i krydspres mellem klienter og politikere. Eller hvor deres faglige mål for arbejde ikke harmonere med ydre mål for service/kvalitet uanset om det er i skoler, kommuner eller på universiteter. Gennem feltstudier gives et indblik i medarbejderes oplevelse af deres arbejdsliv og hvad de brænder for, og hvad der presser dem. Her konkluderer forskerne, at stress bør ses som et socialt symptom på en uhensigtsmæssig organisering af arbejdslivet – og ikke reduceres til et udtryk for individets manglende evne til at styre sine ressourcer, sådan som det sker i den moderne ledelsestænkning.

Som et led i DPUs uddannelsesreform blev udvalget nedsat med henblik på at vurdere og videreudvikle udbudsprofil og struktur på masterområdet samt komme med forslag til det fremtidige udbud af masteruddannelser, baseret på økonomisk og faglige bære-dygtighed samt at sikre, at der ikke sker et overlap i uddannelserne. Udvalgets arbejde har taget udgangspunkt i de overordnede visioner og mål for uddannelsesreform 2009-2013.