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Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies

Industries are currently experiencing several kinds of disruptive changes, including digital transformation and environmental and health emergencies. Despite intense discussion about disruptive changes in companies, the impact of such changes on workplace learning is still underexplored. In this stu...

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Autores principales: Amenduni, Francesca, Ryymin, Essi, Maetoloa, Katja, Cattaneo, Alberto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9178193/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35693506
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889850
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author Amenduni, Francesca
Ryymin, Essi
Maetoloa, Katja
Cattaneo, Alberto
author_facet Amenduni, Francesca
Ryymin, Essi
Maetoloa, Katja
Cattaneo, Alberto
author_sort Amenduni, Francesca
collection PubMed
description Industries are currently experiencing several kinds of disruptive changes, including digital transformation and environmental and health emergencies. Despite intense discussion about disruptive changes in companies, the impact of such changes on workplace learning is still underexplored. In this study, we investigated the impact of disruptive changes on informal learning practices according to the perspectives of employers, employees and adult educators. Informal learning was operationalised along a continuum between organised informal learning (led by an instructor and intentional) and everyday informal learning (led by contextual factors, accidental, and unintentional). Fifty-five companies’ representatives (average age = 43.2 years; SD = 11) from three European countries (Finland, Switzerland, and Italy) and four industrial fields (bioeconomy, tourism, textile and building sectors) were interviewed. The interviews were further triangulated with questionnaires collected by employees from the same companies (N = 141; average age = 40.2 years, SD = 17.8). Questionnaire data were used to collect detailed information on individual informal workplace learning (IWL) strategies and digital technologies adopted in organised informal learning. The interview data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. A coding scheme was developed with five macro-categories organised into 23 sub-categories. Occurrence and co-occurrence analysis were performed to identify which individual and organisational factors and approaches support most learning, according to interviewees. Interviewees reported the possibility of interacting with colleagues and being autonomous as the main sources of everyday informal learning processes. Employees from the same companies reported model learning, vicarious feedback, and applying someone’s own ideas as the most frequent IWL strategies. Organised informal learning was mainly based on knowledge transfer, which reflects passive cognitive engagement by employees. Specifically, digital technologies in organised informal learning were poorly used for supporting reflection, constructive processes, and collaborative knowledge construction. The results suggest that participants believed that higher forms of cognitive engagement are possible only within face-to-face organised informal training or in everyday informal learning. Possible explanations of the results and practical implications are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-91781932022-06-10 Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies Amenduni, Francesca Ryymin, Essi Maetoloa, Katja Cattaneo, Alberto Front Psychol Psychology Industries are currently experiencing several kinds of disruptive changes, including digital transformation and environmental and health emergencies. Despite intense discussion about disruptive changes in companies, the impact of such changes on workplace learning is still underexplored. In this study, we investigated the impact of disruptive changes on informal learning practices according to the perspectives of employers, employees and adult educators. Informal learning was operationalised along a continuum between organised informal learning (led by an instructor and intentional) and everyday informal learning (led by contextual factors, accidental, and unintentional). Fifty-five companies’ representatives (average age = 43.2 years; SD = 11) from three European countries (Finland, Switzerland, and Italy) and four industrial fields (bioeconomy, tourism, textile and building sectors) were interviewed. The interviews were further triangulated with questionnaires collected by employees from the same companies (N = 141; average age = 40.2 years, SD = 17.8). Questionnaire data were used to collect detailed information on individual informal workplace learning (IWL) strategies and digital technologies adopted in organised informal learning. The interview data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. A coding scheme was developed with five macro-categories organised into 23 sub-categories. Occurrence and co-occurrence analysis were performed to identify which individual and organisational factors and approaches support most learning, according to interviewees. Interviewees reported the possibility of interacting with colleagues and being autonomous as the main sources of everyday informal learning processes. Employees from the same companies reported model learning, vicarious feedback, and applying someone’s own ideas as the most frequent IWL strategies. Organised informal learning was mainly based on knowledge transfer, which reflects passive cognitive engagement by employees. Specifically, digital technologies in organised informal learning were poorly used for supporting reflection, constructive processes, and collaborative knowledge construction. The results suggest that participants believed that higher forms of cognitive engagement are possible only within face-to-face organised informal training or in everyday informal learning. Possible explanations of the results and practical implications are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9178193/ /pubmed/35693506 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889850 Text en Copyright © 2022 Amenduni, Ryymin, Maetoloa and Cattaneo. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Amenduni, Francesca
Ryymin, Essi
Maetoloa, Katja
Cattaneo, Alberto
Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title_full Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title_fullStr Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title_full_unstemmed Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title_short Facing Disruptive Changes With Informal Workplace Learning Strategies: The Experience of European Companies
title_sort facing disruptive changes with informal workplace learning strategies: the experience of european companies
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9178193/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35693506
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889850
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