Browsing by Author "Laitinen, Kiti"

The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the notions and experiences ageing employees have about the development of expertise as well as collaboration with fellow experts. The research questions were firstly, how does expertise develop, secondly, for what purposes are shared expertise and networking used at work, and thirdly, how do ageing and experience manifest themselves at expert work? This topic is relevant, because the changes in information work and the more complicated work environments require development from employees in their own as well as in cooperative work. According to previous studies a shared, aim-specific course of action develops collective acquisition of information, which in turn results in growing collective expertise. However, ageing has not been sufficiently recognised or profited from in the previous studies about the development of expertise. This provides a motive for this study. The theoretical framework of the study focuses on examining the development of shared expertise from the viewpoint of building information by combining cognitive, unshared expertise and the kind of expertise that arises from sociocultural theory. The data were gathered through thematic interviews with ten employees between 50 and 64 years of age. With the help of content analysis the answers were divided into three categories: the development of expertise, cooperation and networking, and age and experience at expert work. In addition to these, the theme of changes in expertise arose from the data. In accordance with theoretical framework, the results highlighted the fact that expertise was not seen merely as an unshared characteristic, but instead its development required interaction with others. Usually this development coincided with a change that caused a push forward. Aim-specific actorship, networking, and the sharing of skill and information helped the experts to reach better results. Expertise was seen as something developing through age and experience, but varying ages proved to be an advantage when different strengths and experiences could be profited from as a part of shared expertise. As a conclusion it is advisable to support, share, and make use of the skills and knowledge of people of varying ages more than before in order to develop shared expertise.