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The purpose of this study is to explore the construction of collective self-determination in development-oriented group discussions. This paper provides empirical understanding of how collective self-determination is constructed in social interaction using certain communication styles.

The qualitative data were based on four development-oriented group discussions (totaling 180 min) of supervisors from Finnish central hospital and information and communication technology organization. Participants from hospitals worked as head nurses, while those from information technology organizations worked as leaders and project managers. The data were analysed through interaction and content analyses.

Based on the findings, collective self-determination is constructed in social interaction through speech sections in which individuals’ different speech acts facilitate basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. In collective self-determination, the individual and the collective are emphasized at the same time, meaning that collective self-determination cannot occur without individual-level self-determination.

Organizations and teams should focus on finding suitable ways to implement collective self-determination and consider the importance of social interaction and certain communication styles. Moreover, employees should be offered enough resources and support to be able to work in collectively self-determined manner.

The study offered an approach to understand self-determination and its construction in group discussions aiming at collective learning. Collective self-determination emphasizes the group and its ability to be autonomous, responsible and capable to learn and to orient toward common goals and tasks. As such, it extends the previous understanding of self-determination as collective-level phenomenon. More research is needed in the context of working life.

The purpose of this study is to describe the construction of leadership through authentic dialogues at work and leaders’ actions as contributors to dialogic leadership.

The authors collected the data by recording the organisation’s meetings and discussions and used content analysis of dialogic leadership and typifying of critical moments as analytical methods.

On the basis of the findings, this paper suggests that dialogic leadership begins with a startup critical moment and progresses through the different positions by manager and employees through democratic interaction. Individual and collective level learning of participants and the formation of new knowledge were used in decision- or conclusion-making. The manager promoted the construction of dialogic leadership in conversation by creating important critical moments, which enabled a dialogue to start or contributed to already ongoing dialogue.

The study proposes concrete actions that can be applied in working life. This study provides a new understanding of the leader’s activities in promoting dialogue.

This paper aims to examine employee-driven innovation (EDI) intertwined with learning, creating a new description combining these two concepts: employee-driven learning and innovation (EDLI). This paper provides insights into the nature of EDLI based on the existing theories and perspectives. It seeks to elaborate EDLI as an ongoing process in and through work.

The paper draws on Jaakkola’s (2020) guidance for structuring a conceptual article. The authors first describe the theoretical starting points related to EDI and then elaborate its relationship with learning at work, with the aim of structuring the key elements involved, drawing on and interpreting existing theory and knowledge.

In summary, advanced here are five premises for describing EDLI at work: (1) EDI and workplace learning are strongly intertwined phenomena, (2) learning in the EDI process occurs simultaneously at the intra-personal and inter-personal levels as a reciprocal process of adaptive and innovative learning, (3) innovations are only manifested in and are relevant to the specific cultural-historical and social context of particular enterprises, (4) the continuity of innovations and learning processes is enabled by participation and (5) triggers from outside the workplace, behind the innovation and the specific consequences (that transcend workplace boundaries) of the innovation anchor aspects of the process outside the workplace or work practice.

The paper advances a description and justification of EDLI. As such, it extends, connects and updates previously established theoretical models and explanations of this about EDIs. Based on the premises advanced here, the theoretical and practical contributions are discussed and the research gaps and needs for further research identified.

The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of low hierarchy and self-organised structures for employees’ learning and competency development at work. In the past decade, interest in employees’ and organisations’ self-directedness has increased. Self-organised structures are perceived as better able to answer to the quickly changing requirements of clients and business environments. Within these structures, employees are expected to take on more responsibility and maintain more control over their workplace learning, which means they must be self-directed and autonomous. An important question for this approach is how can workplace learning and employee competence development be enhanced.

Two self-organised Finnish information and communication technology-companies participated in the study. With the help of data-driven content analysis, 36 interviews were analysed.

Unclear roles, structures and areas of responsibility caused challenges during the guidance and support of learning, for long-term and sustainable professional development possibilities and in organising and prioritizing work tasks related to learning.

In self-organised structures, there should be a means of the better supporting individual- and team-based learning. This will allow learning to have as much value as possible in the future and, therefore, be more sustainable. The findings are also important to be taken into account in managers’ and HR professionals’ education and training.

The findings of this study can offer insights into employees’ well-being emerging from the possibility to learn and be supported in that learning especially in self-organised structures, which so far has been scarcely studied.

Meaningfulness at work means experience of work as important, satisfying and valuable. It is a key factor in promoting individual growth, strengthening the belief in one's own abilities and supporting a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization. In this paper, we explore managers' perceptions of meaningful work in the future, focusing on managers' talk about meaningful work and its promotion in their organizations.

The data for the study consists of 25 stories of future working life collected from Finnish managers in spring 2022, using the empathy-based method.

From managers' stories of future working life, we identified two overarching perception categories of meaningful work: (1) Perceptions of contexts underlining the experience of meaningfulness: evolving technologies, developing expertise and demands and change in working life values and (2) Perceptions of management practices determining meaningful work: leader-centered, distant and technical management practice versus participatory and interactive management practice.

The research produces a new and detailed understanding of the ways in which managers talk about decreasing and increasing meaningfulness at work and management practices related to it. As the research is qualitative in nature and based on a small dataset, its results cannot be generalized. Instead, it strengthens and sharpens the previous understanding of meaningful work and the future of work.

This study aims to increase the understanding of the starting points and presuppositions of organizational learning (OL) processes in a hospital’s surgical department based on the existing theory of OL and to make visible the practical possibilities of the theory in this context.

The study was conducted as a case study. The data were collected from personnel of the hospital’s surgical department and consisted of 26 thematic interviews. The data were analyzed using qualitative theory-driven content analysis.

This study found different starting points for both employee-oriented and organization-oriented learning processes that could potentially progress to different levels of the organization: from individuals to a wider group or from a large group to an individual. The starting point of employee-oriented learning processes was depicted as everyday life problems or situations or was based on the person’s interest. The starting points of organization-oriented learning processes were described as achieving or maintaining the organization’s expected skill levels, pursuing continuous development or pursuing the organization’s specific development needs. Different kinds of presuppositions were also located within the OL processes.

This study produced new practice-based knowledge about the starting points of OL processes and their presuppositions. In health-care organizations, learning is especially important due to intensive and complex changes, and this study provides empirical evidence on how to enhance learning.