Developing Career Adaptability and Innovative Capabilities Through Learning and Working in Norway and the United Kingdom

Alan Brown ()

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2015, vol. 6, issue 2, 402-419

Abstract: This article examines the processes of working, learning, innovation and adaptability from an individual perspective by considering evidence from a study of 31 individuals’ experience of working and learning in Norway and the UK. They were highly skilled and had demonstrated their career adaptability by making a series of successful transitions in applying their knowledge, skills and competences in a variety of employment contexts. The key question was whether the processes underpinning the development of their career adaptability also meant they were likely to be proactive and participate in activities leading to innovation. The findings were that the processes of learning through challenging work and knowledge updating could also provide a platform for individuals to think about different ways of thinking, practising, reviewing and revising ways of working. However, such development often depended upon individual initiative and role change, while formal learning provision often addressed development of skills, knowledge and understanding which underpinned the development of innovative capabilities rather than seeking to promote them in more systematic ways. So the effectiveness of these processes in facilitating development of innovative capabilities at a system’s level could be questioned, and the challenge in supporting the development of innovative capabilities is reconciling the development of particular sets of skills, knowledge, understanding and ways of thinking, being and doing, with developing dispositions which go beyond these particular developments in responding to new challenges: curiosity, resourcefulness (including learning from others), resilience, ability to support the learning of others, taking responsibility for self-development and reflexiveness. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Career adaptability; Innovative capabilities; Challenging work; Knowledge updating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s13132-014-0215-6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:6:y:2015:i:2:p:402-419

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13132

DOI: 10.1007/s13132-014-0215-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Knowledge Economy is currently edited by Elias G. Carayannis

More articles in Journal of the Knowledge Economy from Springer, Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().