Doctoral thesis: Will, initiative and room for employees’ further education

Maria Forss' doctoral thesis studies further education for nurses in a Finnish health care organisation. According to current research further education is of importance for organisations as a strategic tool in meeting, leading and creating changes. Previous research has mainly focused on pedagogical solutions or teaching, where further education is seen as a neutral aspect. Forss' thesis contributes to the existing research with a rhetorical power perspective where further education is not only seen as something positive.

"Further education can be actions with potential for normative control, and thus be biased and emotive", says Maria Forss, lecturer in education, teaching and further education for students at the department of health and welfare at Arcada.

According to Forss and her study, employees often feel alienated in the decision processes concerning further education - at the same time as they are expected to pursue their own development. When it comes to an employee's further education, it is up to the employee himself to have an entrepreneurial mind-set and a strong interest to actually further educate themselves. Also the way of measuring employees' knowledge can increase inequality among the employees and lead to increased hierarchal structures.

Forss' thesis is a comprehensive case study based on 31 interviews with 23 informants, and on two different non-participant observations. The thesis can be categorised as a critical organisational study of staff development with a focus on further education. According to Forss, there is potential in the dialogue between management and employees' perspectives, but management and employee expectations for further education can only be met if there is will, initiative and room for them.

M.Sc. (Health) Maria Forss defends her doctoral thesis in Management and Organisation "Fortbildning är mer "fort" än "bildning". En kritisk granskning av fortbildning för sjukskötaren" (written in Swedish) on Monday 13 October.

Time: 13 October 2014, at 13
Place: Room 309, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Senior Researcher Kaija Collin, University of Jyväskylä
Custos: Professor Emeritus Karl-Erik Sveiby, Hanken School of Economics

A copy of the thesis can be downloaded at: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/136022