Denise Shelley Newnham

Reflections on the use of DWR in Intercultural Collaboration

This article is a reflection on a Developmental Work Research project focused on the introduction of information and communication technology in schools in Africa. The longstanding project incited us to examine developmental research partnership as a joint mediated activity that takes place in a developing country. The data include several workshops, Change Laboratories (CLs) in three schools, and ethnography from these schools. By tracing the bottom-up approach of CLs, and to capture the complexity of the effects of related activities represented in the partnership, we were led to focus on dialogue where the dialectic of local and global forces evolve.

The Change Laboratory–An Instrument for Agency Building and Expansive Learning

This chapter presents an overview of the Change Laboratory method. The instruments and process of a Change Laboratory intervention will be explained as well as the dynamic socio-cognitive processes that take place in it. The chapter also describes the origin of the method and its variants.

Meeting the New Challenges of Learning at Work

This chapter begins with a discussion on the new challenges in ways of mastering work activities and learning at work. The increasing need to master fundamental transformations of activities will be highlighted.

Preparing and Carrying out Change Laboratory Sessions

The purpose of the Change Laboratory sessions is to help the participants to collaboratively take the expansive learning actions that are necessary for carrying out a cycle of expansive learning. The interventionist can guide the implementation of the actions by defining tasks for the Change Laboratory group.

Preparing a Change Laboratory Intervention

The planning of a Change Laboratory intervention can be divided into three levels and phases on the basis of the specificity of the decisions to be made. The task of the most general level is to construct, in a dialogue with the representatives of the client organization, an initial shared idea of the object of the intervention and to negotiate the mandate for carrying out the intervention.

A Boundary Crossing Change Laboratory in an Automation Systems Firm

The corporate management of Metso Automation began a strategic change in 2000, which involved focusing on sustained collaboration with the customers in the proactive maintenance of their machinery and the development of their production processes.

A Change Laboratory in the Central Surgical Unit of Oulu University Hospital

The Oulu University Hospital is the central hospital in a special-health-care district that covers the northern part of Finland with approximately 729,000 inhabitants. The university hospital is responsible for the provision of highly specialized health care services such as open-heart surgery, neurosurgery and radiation therapy in the district.

A Change Laboratory in a School in Botswana

The Government of Botswana hosted the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) in 2005 in Gaborone. One of the subthemes of the forum discussed was education, the content of which was based on an expert group report called the Stellenbosch declaration: “ICT in Education: make it work.” The declaration made a number of recommendations.

The Theoretical Basis of the Change Laboratory Method

The Change Laboratory method cannot be fully understood without paying attention to the specific dialectical view of change and development of human activities behind it.

Comparison of the Three Case Examples

In the following, the three case examples are compared. The comparison is divided into two parts. First, the cases are compared from the point of view of the practical realization of the interventions and then from the perspective of the theory on which the Change Laboratory is based.