This thesis assumed the necessity of organizations having to be flexible in respect to mastering variation and unexpected circumstances. Organizations’ ability to alter the number of workers, or to vary the intensity of workers’ workload in a smooth way, is generally a prerequisite for flexibility. In addition to being able to change, organizations must also have the capacity to obtain development through change. The need for organizational flexibility places high demands onto the individual, and she/he must balance own needs in proportion to the needs of the organization. Organizations’ strive for flexibility is often achieved at the expense of the individuals’ working conditions. An individual experience Positive Organizational Change (POC) when she/he calculates that change offers a good cause, both with regard to benefits for the organization and for the individual her-/himself. The optimal way of attaining POC in workers’ experience is through involvement and participation. Such actions normally bring understanding and reliance to the relation between the individual and the organization, and are related to sustained job-related mental health. Based on work-life learning theories, the individual actively reflects on her/his experiences from organizational change. The proposed notion of this thesis was that the individual develops change competence when experiencing organizational change. Thus, the overall objective of the thesis was to study contributory factors behind the developing of change competence. Another objective was to study change competence in relation to conditions for sustaining job-related mental health during organizational change. The above complexity was studied in connection with a large scale merger that took place within the Försäkringskassan. A longitudinal approach was used in order to explore premises of the development of change competence as well as prerequisites for job-related mental health over time. A questionnaire was answered by a selection of employees close in time before, during and after the merger. Aiming to explore how the individual develop change competence, an extreme group approach was used identifying individuals with extremely high and low values of change competence.

The results showed that change competence development can be predicted by personal premises (e.g. gender, educational level, hierarchical position) and change-related premises (e.g. readiness for change, earlier change experiences and turnover intentions). Studying main effects over time for each of the extreme-group in relation to the prerequisites for job-related mental health over time resulted in the discovery of a correlation between change competence and the prerequisites. The extreme-groups that reported low mean value or negative change competence development also reported the experience of poor prerequisites for job-related mental health in the psychological work environment over time. The reversed situation applies to individuals that report high mean value or positive change competence development. The results are dicussed in relation to aspects of the oganizational structure, learning, resistance, psychological contract, and resilience.

Kvalitetssäkring av VFU inom Personal- och Arbetslivsprogrammet, Högskolan Kristianstad  

PA-programmet är en yrkesförberedande utbildning. Majoriteten av studenterna anställs efter examen på HR-avdelningar i organisationer. I HSVs senaste kvalitetsutvärderingssystem ligger fokus på resultat, d.v.s. hur väl utbildningar lever upp till examensmålen i HL samt examensbeskrivningarna. Utgångspunkten är att alla utbildningar skall hålla hög kvalitet, men hur hög kvalitet skall uppnås är upp till varje lärosäte att avgöra. HKRs vision är att utbilda Sveriges mest anställningsbara studenter och har valt att ha en relativt hög andel VFU i samtliga professionsutbildningar. VFU är således en väg att uppnå både HL mål med grundutbildning och att göra studenterna mer anställningsbara.

Av erfarenhet kan vi konstatera att anställningsbarhet vid examen inte har en gemensam innebörd för utbildningsanordnare, studenter eller blivande arbetsgivare. HLs mål framhäver vikten av att grundutbildning skall ända upp i en potentiell förmåga eller kapacitet för livslångt lärande. Studenternas fokus under VFUn är, examinationsuppgifter till trots, att inhämta basic skills för att omedelbart kunna utöva professionen på fältet här och nu. Från blivande arbetsgivare hörs inte sällan kritik mot att studenter i allmänhet har brist på basic skills vid examen. VFUn blir utifrån arbetsgivarens horisont att bidra med att ge basic skills. Utmaningen för utbildningsanordnaren blir således att balansera och försöka tillfredsställa de olika intressenternas behov. I ett pågående utvecklingsprojekt inom PA-programmet, i samarbete med VFU-organisationerna på fältet, försöker vi nu arbeta fram gemensamma kvalitetssäkringsindikatorer som pekar mot att VFU-perioderna leder till anställningsbarhet både utifrån HLs mål och utifrån studenternas och VFU-organisationernas behov.

I föreliggande rapport presenteras resultatet av en metautvärdering av vetenskapliga artiklar som problematiserar examinationsformen Klinisk slutexamination. Förenklat syftar den kliniska slutexaminationen till att mäta och säkra att studenten förmår integrera teori med praktik. Syftet med metautvärderingen är att pröva idén om något motsvarande klinisk slutexamination är tillämpbart på Högskolans övriga professionsutbildningar. Mot bakgrund av behovet hos Högskolan Kristianstad som utbildningsanordnare att kunna påvisa att studenten förmått integrera teori med praktik under utbildningen, placeras studiet av den kliniska slutexaminationen i ett kvalitetssäkringssammanhang. Målet är att kunna dra slutsatser om ifall Klinisk slutexamination är ett angreppssätt och en metod som kan borga för hög kvalitet, d.v.s. säkerställa att utbildningarna utvecklar anställningsbara studenter.

This presentation will reflect on experiences from the perspective of two education developers in an ongoing teacher development project within the Nurse Education Program at Kristianstad University, Sweden. When we entered the project the nurse education management had already decided to translate and implement the philosophy and framework of person-centred care into a person-centred education environment (McCormack & McCance, 2016). Our contribution was to host a number of workshops aiming at facilitating the change process among the nurse teaching staff. The framework urged us to pay attention to teachers prerequisites (for example interpersonal skills, commitment, beliefs and values and knowing ‘self’), the educational environment (for example shared decision making systems, effective staff relationships, supportive organizational systems) and processes (working with teachers beliefs and values of how to design education, being engaged, having sympathetic presence). The intended student outcomes are experience of relevant content, deeper involvement, feelings of well-being and a flourishing culture.

As the basis for three workshops, Scharmers’ (2005) Theory U was used to guide the process, implying that change ought to start in a psychological safe zone. Also appreciative inquiry was a principle behind workshop design implying identifying what is already working. The experience so far will be presented, discussed and comments are highly appreciated.