The purpose of this paper is to introduce an organisation intervention method in school and day care context, present the results of the intervention and give some preliminary ideas of my research based on the whole project. The background for the study is the globalisation and integrating Europe as phenomena giving new demands to societies; demands that make several countries to adjust and change their economical and societal structures and change the societal division of labour (increasingly following New Public Management doctrine). The societal change can be seen through emergence of new organisational forms and new ways of organising work (e.g. purchaser-provider split). From the employees point of view the emergence of new organisations with blurred and mixed boundaries can affect employees (in my case e. g. teachers) in many ways: creating fragmented, insecure and individual work activity etc. I am interested in the position of discourse and my aim is to approach this complex change with following research questions: 1. Can a connection between discourse and change in societal division of labour be conceptualised? Does discourse create new social practices in the change process? 2. What discourse types can be found in current process of the change in societal division of labour in Finland? 3. What is the meaning and sense of discourses from the employees’ point of view in case organisations? Can a movement of meaning be traced? Can conflicting argumentation be found? The research case I present in this paper is the City of Tampere, Finland’s third largest city with over 200 000 inhabitants. The empirical part of the study is concentrated on intervention in day care and elementary school. The aim of the intervention was to collect experience of purchaser-provider split pilot and increasing cooperation (according to the new process thinking) with schools in day care centres. The data was gathered in forms of interviews and an intervention between 2006 and 2007. The framework of my study is cultural historical activity theory that is based on Karl Marx’s materialistic view of historically developed human consciousness. Human activity is mediated, objective and social in the nature. Cultural historical activity theoretical research studies activity and development taking in to account its broader cultural and historical context strengthening the importance of studying phenomena in situations of change. One of the main principles is the dialectical method of studying development, which is dynamic and changing in the nature.

My interest in this paper is two layered: present the intervention and its results and also give preliminary ideas of wider perspective connected to my study. The data consists of interviews (employees, administration, elected officials) and intervention sessions (employees, administration, elected officials, trade union representatives). The intervention method Hybrid Laboratory was based on Change Laboratory method which roots are in Activity Theory and Expansive Learning. It stresses the importance of collective, from down to up proceeding development and systemic view of activity, an Activity System being the unit of analysis. Hybrid laboratory was developed from Change Laboratory to take into account the decision making aspect and expansive participation. As I am interested in analysing the talk, in wider perspective my aim is to use Critical Discourse Analytical tools to analyse the data. Using CDA in Activity Theoretical framework is a demanding challenge.

The intervention showed the importance of participatory down-top development in the process of change. The result was three critical points : • strengthen citizens’ participation to understand the responsibilities and decision making in the new model • strengthen the dialogue between provider and purchaser; personnel’s position, contracting, evaluation • cooperation and responsibilities between occupational groups (collective bargaining contract, law) My hypothesis is that in new forms of organisations work activity can turn to be fragmented and more insecure. I identified three discourse types: customer orientation, economic and accountability discourse. Here is one excerpt from the data: “That kind of flexibility has appeared. Neither exact information can’t be asked… children’s parents’ holidays and nothing. Sometimes it feels that help! As nothing can be asked anymore, that when they will be picked up or when they come or when they are on holiday, that we are like scouts, always pulled different directions.”