Browsing by Subject "työympäristön muutos"

Aims of the study: This master thesis was part of the Finnish Tax administration's work environment change project carrying out the move from cellular office to multi-space office. The aim was to study the change of work environment and the implementation of new working practices in terms of the change of activity and as a learning opportunity. The hypothesis was that the transformation to a multi-space office may open expansive learning opportunities, if that change implicates and reflects the change of work more widely in the workplace and society. Prerequisite for this is that the change of the work environment is not seen narrowly as a change of physical space. Work environments have been studied for many years from physical, ergonomic, technological and social interactions perspectives, whereas learning opportunities in the move towards multi-space work environment have not been addressed. Theoretical framework of the study was based on the activity theory and a theory of expansive learning. The main questions of the study were 1. What kind of conceptions do employees have on the change of activity in the move to multi-space work environment? 2. What kind of opportunities for expansive learning do these conceptions represent? Method: Qualitative research applied phenomenographic and activity-theoretical methodologies. Research data comprised of eleven interviews with the Tax administration's employees. The employees' conceptions on the change of the subject, object, tools, rules, community and the division of labor were analyzed. By analyzing these conceptions it was possible to investigate the learning opportunities in the transformation. Results and conclusions: The analysis revealed developmentally different employees' conceptions on the change of activity when moving to the multi-space office at the Tax administration. Based on these conceptions three learning visions of varying expansiveness could be identified. The weak learning vision describes the change of the work environment merely as the change of physical space. The enabling learning vision means that the change of the work environment has spontaneously influenced both people's mental images about their work and work community's actions. Employees have recognized the opportunity for change and they have ability to collectively develop their activity. The most interesting finding is the developmental learning vision, which implies seeing the move to multi-space office as a part of an overall change of work. Learning opportunities emerge when employees have understood the object of the work as dynamic and open for change. Learning opportunities may also occur when the change of the instruments is associated with the new virtual environment including digital tools and remote work. About collective learning tells also the fact that the knowledge sharing practices have been developed in work community. To conclude, it was possible to scrutinize the expansiveness of the developmental learning vision as temporal expansion, as spatial expansion when work environment becomes virtual and multi-sited, as expansion of responsibility and morality when the distant work molds division of labor and increases independency, and as developmental expansion in terms of the work community's new knowledge sharing practices. In the history of Tax administration, the multi-space office represents one office model among the previous ones; however, when combined with the digitalization and virtualization of work, it gives the work community the possibility and