Project forms of organizing are theorized to rely upon horizontal as opposed to vertical lines of authority, but few have examined how this shift affects progression-how people advance in an ...organization. We argue that progression without hierarchy unfolds when people assume lateral authority over project tasks without managing people. With a longitudinal study of a mature, collectively managed open source software project, we predict the individual behaviors that enable progression to lateral authority roles at two different stages. Although technical contributions are initially important, coordination work is more critical at a subsequent stage. We then explore how lateral authority roles affect subsequent behavior-after gaining authority, individuals spend significantly more time coordinating project work. Our research shows how people progress to the center as opposed to up a hierarchy, and how progression differs by stage and specifies the theoretical relationship between lateral authority roles and the coordination of project work.
How can we teach Jewish history in a modern and effective way? In Hamburg, Germany, a school project called Geschichtomat tries to find an answer to that question. With the help of digital media, ...students explore their Jewish neighbourhood. This one-of-a-kind German program permits students to experience the Jewish past and present life in their hometown. During the project, students explore their neighbourhood to understand its historical figures, places, and events. This way they engage with Jewish life. Under the supervision of experts in the disciplines of history and media education, the students will: research, perform interviews with cultural authorities and contemporary witnesses, visit museums and archives, shoot and cut films, edit photos and write accompanying texts. Finally, their contributions are uploaded to the geschichtomat.de website. Little by little a digital map of Jewish life from the perspective of teenagers will take shape.
El volumen que han coordinado las profesoras Carmen Franco-Vázquez, Carol Guillanders y Marta Neira-Rodríguez, nos ofrece una serie de aportaciones elaboradas por profesionales de distintas áreas de ...conocimiento, como didáctica de la expresión musical, artística, lengua y literatura o filología gallega, con diferentes formaciones. Se trata en su mayoría de miembros del grupo de investigación LITER21. Por tanto, la interdisciplinariedad sería la esencia de estos trabajos en los que coopera personal de varias universidades.El volumen que han coordinado las profesoras Carmen Franco-Vázquez, Carol Guillanders y Marta Neira-Rodríguez, nos ofrece una serie de aportaciones elaboradas por profesionales de distintas áreas de conocimiento, como didáctica de la expresión musical, artística, lengua y literatura o filología gallega, con diferentes formaciones. Se trata en su mayoría de miembros del grupo de investigación LITER21. Por tanto, la interdisciplinariedad sería la esencia de estos trabajos en los que coopera personal de varias universidades.
Artiklen belyser med Aalborg Universitet som case, hvordan den specielle danske variant af problembaseret læring (PBL) har ændret sig fra 1970’erne og frem til i dag. Som alternativ til ...undervisnings- og indlæringsformen på de ’traditionelle’ universiteter handler PBL i Danmark om problemorientet projektarbejde, hvor de studerende gennem et helt semester arbejder med et selvvalgt problem. Denne PBL-Diskurs rummer dog allerede fra starten udfordringer ift. hvad et problem er, og hvad kriterierne personlig og samfundsmæssig relevans indebærer. Artiklen peger på, at de ikke efterfølgende bliver afklaret eller løst. Tværtimod sker der en udvanding af, hvad et probem er, og en indsnævring af, hvad relevanskriterierne indebærer, så PBL-Diskursen i dag i højere grad drejer sig om målfokuseret indlæring end om problembaseret læring. ENGLISH ABSTRACT Different conceptions of problem orientation – challenges in project pedagogyWith Aalborg University as a case, the article sheds light on how the special Danish variant of problem-based learning (PBL) has changed from the 1970s until today. As an alternative to the form of teaching and learning at the ‘traditional’ universities, PBL in Denmark is about problem-oriented project work, where the students work on a self-chosen problem for an entire semester. However, this problem-oriented project work discourse is already from the outset a challenge in terms of defining what a problem is, and what the relevance criteria entail. This article argues that these challenges have not subsequently been neither clarified nor resolved. On the contrary, what a problem is has been diluted, and what personal and societal relevance entails has been narrowed. Consequently, today the problem-oriented project work discourse is more about goal-oriented learning than problem-based learning.
A pedagogic experiment in the Spanish context is shared, which allowed student teachers to explore very different texts from the canonical books typically used in English language education with ...student teachers, namely a spectrum of Native American children’s literature with the aim of critical literacy and intercultural citizenship.
PurposeThis study examines how the collective construction of career sustainability takes place through a career community of interim managers.Design/methodology/approachWe draw on 31 interviews with ...interim managers who are part of a career community in the form of a professional association of interim managers in France.FindingsThe findings show the importance of career communities as a vehicle through which to create a sustainable career. More specifically, we show that occupational career communities provide mutual and reciprocal career support, collective being and belonging through sense-making as well as collective learning leading to the collective creation of a sustainable career.Originality/valueWe add to the literature on sustainable careers by providing a collective community-level analysis and make a theoretical contribution by using the concept of career communities in shedding light on the career sustainability of interim managers. In the light of the increase in non-standard forms of employment, career communities might become an interesting vehicle for career management and development.
While project work can be motivating, stimulating and creative, it can also be frustrating, ambiguous and stressful. Situations of project overload, i.e. situations in which fragmentation, ...disturbances and disruptions are reoccurring, are common in project-based organizations running many parallel projects. This paper reports findings from an extensive interview study on how project managers and project members working in parallel projects handle project overload by changing their work routines. The results show 1) that project work in practice is organized by using narrowing strategies and 2) that narrowing strategies run the risk of excluding the vital historical and organizational context. The findings have implications for project theory and project practice.
•Project managers and project members avoid project overload by changing work routines.•Multi-project work is organized in day-to-day practice by using narrowing strategies.•Examples of narrowing strategies are support-phone, time-slots and task-lists.•Narrowing strategies run the risk of excluding the much needed historical and organizational context.
This study focuses on individuals working under transient and mobile conditions and the specific competences that they develop to deal with such work conditions. The article examines a specific type ...of knowledge worker, namely, the mobile project worker who is employed by a technical consultancy but who performs work on various client projects together with members from client organizations. The overall aim of this article is to improve our understanding of the differences among people’s abilities to handle fluid and flexible work conditions. We elaborate on the notion of “liminality” to denote a particular element of flexible work conditions, which consists of continuous movement among assignments and of simultaneous engagement with several organizations. Based on qualitative and interpretative research involving a combination of interviews, diaries, and workshops, this article identifies three levels of specific “liminality competence” that mobile project workers develop to deal with liminality at work.
This paper examines supervisors at a reform university where most supervision concerns undergraduate and Master's project work. Drawing on Grant's (2018. 'Assembling Ourselves Differently? Contesting ...the Dominant Imaginary of Doctoral Supervision'. Parallax 24 (3): 356-370) understanding of being a supervisor as an ongoing process of assembling oneself, it focuses on the role of this institutional framework as an 'outside' element in this assembling process. I argue that it shapes the conditions of that assembling through the changing conceptions and temporalities of supervision . While supervisors continue to aspire to the original conception of supervision as a distinct pedagogical mode that is - even for undergraduates - akin to apprenticeship, palpable quickening and demands for instruction-like supervision endanger this conception. This temporal compression, together with the prevalence of short-term cyclicality of projects and co-negotiation of multiple longer-term temporal frames of becoming a supervisor, makes for a temporally multi-layered and particularly intense supervisory practice.
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