Förändringsdynamik : utveckling, lärande och drivkrafter för förändring

Sammanfattning: This dissertation is concerned with change and development processes in small manufacturing firms. An important premise in this dissertation is that the workplace can be considered as a significant learning environment, and the issue to be focused here is the changes that occur within this learning enviromnent. Specifically, the purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the changes in the employee's learning environment over a period of time. More precisely it is closely related to the following three questions: (1) What development initiatives, in terms of work organization, production and training activities, have been carried out in the studied companies? (2) What external and internal driving forces for change are discernible within the companies? (3) What changes occurred in the shop floor workers' condition for learning during the study period and what has been the influence of development initiatives on the changes that occurred?Within the theoretical framework, two different approaches have been developed and employed for analysing the empirical data. One approach emphasises various conditions for learning at work and the other, based on organizational theory, is concerned with changes in organizations.The field work has been carried out in terms of a multiple case study comprising of four small manufacturing firms studied over a period of five years. Furthermore, a multi-methodological approach for collecting data has been employed involving interviews, questionnaires, as well as observation and document studies.The results of the study can be summarized in four main findings. First, the results reveal that change and development in the studied companies occur in a process between mutually interacting driving forces within the organization and in its environment. Here the result indicates that external driving forces play the primary role for initiating change, while internal driving forces have a crucial bearing for the nature of change that takes place. Second, the results indicate that the nature of interplay between external and internal driving forces, which can be conducted in several different ways, influences the developmental initiatives that are carried out. Third, the results show that extensive and integrated development initiatives are of major importance concerning the employee's possibilities for learning at work. Bringing about integration both within and between diverse development initiatives is a particularly importence for promoting"good" conditions for learning at work. Fourth, not only planned development ininitiatives but also unplanned emergent developmental activities effect the shop floor worker's conditions for learning at work. These emergent activities activities seem particularly important in situations which are characterized by various types of contradictions.