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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how activity theory was used as a method of facilitating change in the understanding of work as a driver for disciplinary and professionally‐oriented learning in a UK university. The paper focuses on staff learning.

The paper takes the form of a case study and discussion. The central intervention used was to bring course teams to focus on the nature of work that would be relevant to their discipline, and to ask who might benefit from or commission that work, as a means to disrupt conventional thinking around curriculum design and to expand thinking around activities that could integrate real world activity with learning.

Facilitation informed by conceptualizing the curriculum in terms of Engestrom's activity system seemed to provide a catalyst for groups to develop their own models of work integrated learning with strategies that were appropriate for their disciplinary areas, and that led in each case to an opening up of roles and collaborations amongst the staff group and with external colleagues.

The introduction of a “client” or external agency as the commissioner or customer for the work seems to have had the effect of helping a number of academic staff to engage with the curriculum in new roles. It also enabled students to take professional responsibility, and in some cases to be positioned as colleagues in a community of practice.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a qualitative observational study of how middle managers in healthcare in the UK on a work-based masters programme in leadership were introduced to foundational aspects of creativity and delivering innovation through an assignment on contemporary architectural design.

The assignment involved individual research of a recent architectural design followed by group poster presentations of findings and structured analysis. No prior knowledge of design was required. An activity theory approach was used to explore common principles of creativity and leading innovation, key features of design processes and tools for facilitating implementation.

A total of 89 managers in seven cohorts completed the assignment. Data from process records and group work, artefacts and follow-up evaluation questionnaires were analysed within an interpretive approach. Analysis of data lent support for the view that exploring architectural design as an activity system helped participants to develop conceptual and applied links between management performance, creative collaboration and delivering innovation in their own, different field of practice. Where participants expressed limited self-efficacy regarding the capacity for fostering creativity, this was usually ascribed to systemic inhibitors.

Exploring architectural design could provide a relatively low-cost, highly stimulating component of management development programmes seeking to harness the contribution of creative industries to foster work-based creativity and innovation.

This study explores a novel use of architectural design within the context of work-applied development programmes for healthcare managers.

The purpose of this paper is to present and examine the addition of a “professional artefact” to the course requirements for the BA Honours Professional Practice (BAPP) (Arts) programme at Middlesex University.

This paper takes a case study approach using reflection, indicative theories and consideration of student work to evaluate the introduction of the “professional artefact” into the BAPP (Arts) curriculum. Following pragmatist and phenomenological descriptions of the lived experience as embodied (Dewey et al., 1989; Merleau-Ponty, 2002) and using learning models based on experience in the workplace (Boud and Garrick, 1999), the paper's methodology takes the work-based principle of “experience as knowledge” to examine the impact of the professional artefact on students learning.

The professional artefact has proven to be a useful way for the learners on the course to reflect on the purpose of their own study and the ways in which work-based learning can be incorporated into their practice through embodied “ideas”.

The paper suggests that the inclusion of a professional artefact to the curriculum provides a flexible means for bridging academic and workplace learning. The inclusion of the professional artefact could be recommended as a strategy for other work-based learning programmes.

The added value for professional practice is that the professional artefact provides a flexible and creative means of communication for emerging and establishing workplace professionals.