Our study examines the organising of transitions in Vocational Education and Training in a rural Norwegian municipality. In Norway, Vocational Education and Training is diverse and interlinked in continual organising. Organising, in this context, is a continuous set of actions forming recognisable patterns that become institutions. An upper…

This study explores how Norwegian school leaders develop their capacity for instructional leadership, a leadership style that is strongly related to school effectiveness and school improvement across a range of national school systems. The concept captures important aspects of Norwegian school leaders' task preferences. To gain further insight…

In this paper, we explore possibilities and challenges for deliberative academic development. Deliberative academic development refers to a practice that engages members of the university in dialogue about its purposes, ways of organizing and leading higher education, as well as teaching and learning. The paper critically analyses data from focus…

Purpose: This paper aims to demonstrate how the Nordic model, featuring highly regulated trade union-employer collaboration, has enabled the building of learning organizations through a co-generative learning model involving both practitioners and action researchers. Design/methodology/approach: A literature search on the Nordic sociotechnical…

Purpose: This study aims to explore whether hierarchical position and organizational size affect perceptions of a learning organization (LO) during reform implementation. Design/methodology/approach: An electronic survey was distributed in four Norwegian police districts at an early stage of reform implementation. One of the objectives of the…

Academic career paths in Europe are heterogeneous, and the chances for early career researchers to become a permanent member of the academic profession differ from country to country. In some countries, the employment prospects are very insecure. It is asked whether contract conditions at universities influence the chance of taking over a mature…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which espoused values among police managers in the Norwegian police force are compatible with those of a learning organization. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was developed and administered to police managers in two police districts in Norway. A set of values was…

The purpose of this article is to present a specific approach to the practice of action research "in complex organisations". Clearly, there are many approaches to the challenge of doing action research in organisations; approaches that are, and also must be, quite context dependent and specific. But my purpose is neither to give an…

This article argues that participative approaches, such as those found in enterprise or entrepreneurship education, allow several factors to influence learning activity. The "Mini-enterprise" (Young Enterprise) approach is one where students set up and run their own business during a school year. This article is based on the analysis of…

This article deals with the question of how the restructuring of educational systems in Nordic countries affects teachers' working conditions. It is based on results from the project "Restructuring in Education: Reform policy and teacher professionalism in different Nordic contexts" in which the construction of the "New…

In this article the use, updating and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for teaching and learning purposes is discussed. Based on an empirical study using interviews and document analysis of the implementation of ICT in five Norwegian universities and colleges, the article analyse a number of factors that are of…

Explores methodological and substantive issues relating to school climate, using a dataset derived from 42 Norwegian schools at two points of time and a standard definition of organizational climate. Identifies and analyzes four school-climate dimensions. Three dimensions (collegial communication, orientation to change, and teacher influence over…

This paper explores the use of e-learning technologies for organisational learning within a commercial environment. A model has been developed to represent those factors that determine organisational learning. This model has been embedded within a case study based on the use of an e-learning program that was developed in order to enhance…

School districts have attempted to integrate their efforts at school improvement with concepts and techniques of organization development. Some of them have approached the problem of continuous change with the help of an internal cadre of peers who offer organization development services to their school districts. The following school districts…

The booklet reports on the results of a meeting of 10 nations held, under the auspices of the European Bureau of Adult Education, to make determinations about the present and future states of legislation which affects adult education. The 10 nations represented were: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,…