Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study focuses on expertise under changing circumstances.The purpose is to understand how professionals narratively make sense of expertise and how confusing role transitions impact interpretations of expertise.The study presents "renewal" as a struggle for professional recognition.The intention is to show how corporate competence management and development discourses impact the definition of expertise.Professionals have to negotiate the value of their experience and adjust to prevailing ways of presenting expertise.The meaning of expertise has expanded during the last decade from plain information processing capacity to advanced knowledge structures, and further, to contextual and intuitive knowing.In human resource development literature, expertise has become synonymous with experiential learning, competence and reflective practice.Therefore, the theoretical analysis and critique in this study is pointed to discourse that constructs a socially correct interpretation of how expertise is understood and who are justified in declaring themselves as experts.The study illustrates in what kind of circumstances and with what kinds of consequences professionals adapt to the prevailing expertise discourse.The analysis is based on empirical data that consists of interviews, group discussions and journals of nine information technology experts (males and females) who were working in an international data-communications company.Participants had heterogeneous educational and working experiences and several years of professional experience, and all were about to change their job roles in a significant way.The study applied a narrative and life history approach.First, episodic stories, their structure and the mode of telling were analyzed.Then individual stories were read as part of the historical and social context.Participants narratively constructed themselves as competent and adaptable actors.The fact that work was in a constant flux was complained about only if it prevented learning.The need for personal renewal was not questioned.Instead, participants talked about themselves with the vocabulary of "self-management, life-long learning, creative problem solving and opportunity catching."According to the scripts adopted from the developmental discourse, one's own career was seen as a growth of expertise that progressed layer-by-layer, from one wave to another or in an outward spiral.Transitions and the acquisition of new responsibilities were seen as a necessary part of expertise.HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO Kasvatustieteen laitos
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Helsingin Yliopisto, Työsuojelurahasto
OpenAlex ID: W613917586