The topic of human agency in transforming towards sustainable future and circular economy (CE) has gained increasing attention, as sustainability transitions do not appear merely through macro-level decisions and strategy planning but through micro level individual efforts, practices and interactions in real life work contexts (Alkki et al. 2025). Learning and human agency thus constitutes a central mechanism through which organizational change becomes possible (Koistinen et al., 2022; Subramanian & Suresh, 2022) and it has also found to fuel transition to the circular economy(Teerikangas et al. 2023. Within private corporate sectors learning has traditionally been conceptualized primarily through human resource (HR) theories as human capital that can be strategically managed to enhance competitiveness and productivity (e.g. Swanson, 2022). This perspective has tended to emphasize formal education, training programs, and planned competence development initiatives. At the same time, there is extensive research showing that the majority of adult learning takes place informally in everyday work through problem-solving, interaction, experimentation and participation in everyday work practices (e.g. Yeo, 2008). Despite this, such learning often remains invisible and underutilized, particularly in corporate contexts (De Grip, 2024).

Brandi and Iannone (2020) conceptualize learning at workplace contexts through two dominant theoretical traditions: an HR approach and a workplace learning (WPL) approach. The HR approach views learning mainly instrumentally, as a means to achieve organizational goals and performance outcomes. WPL approach instead is grounded in socio-cultural and practice-based perspectives that emphasize learning as a meaningful, situated, and relational human process embedded in everyday work. In corporate contexts, the HR approach has been dominant leading to a relative narrow conception of learning that does not fully address the complex and systemic learning challenges such as sustainability transitions.

Theoretically this study integrates Brandi and Iannone’s (2020) HR–WPL framework with a subject-centred sociocultural conception of professional agency (Eteläpelto et al., 2013). Subject-centered socio-cultural approach views professional agency first and foremost as individuals’ actions to influence and shape their work and learning, emerging from the dynamic interplay between personal goals, professional identity, and the social-cultural conditions of the workplace. This perspective emphasizes the nature of agency more as intentional actions and affecting matters rather than individual characteristics or dispositions (Hökkä et al., 2023; Goller & Paloniemi, 2022). This approach also highlight the importance of professional subjects and their identities as a crucial foundation for agentic actions. Professional identity is understood as a dynamic, multifaceted, and socially negotiated construction that integrates individuals’ values, commitments, competencies, and sense of professional self at work (Eteläpelto et al., 2013). Subject-centered sociocultural perspective aligns closely with the WPL tradition emphasised in Brandi and Iannone’s synthesis, as it conceptualises agency not as a stable individual trait but as intentional action emerging from the interplay between individuals’ identities, goals, and the socio-material conditions of work. At the same time, it enables an analysis of how organisational structures and HR-driven learning arrangements are experienced, interpreted, and acted upon by subjects in concrete work practices.

In this study we focus on the learning challenges that companies face in the transition towards the circular economy and on the role of top managers in leading learning within these transformations. Specifically, we examine top managers’ professional agency in leading learning at work. We ask how they understand learning in relation to sustainability transitions, how they perceive their professional agency in leading learning and innovation, and which structural, cultural, and systemic factors enable or constrain their agency.

The study was conducted as a qualitative interview study employing a design-empowered methodological approach and visual elicitation techniques. Visual elicitation encompasses a range of techniques (Roger & Blomgren, 2019) that integrate images or other visual triggers into interviews to deepen reflection and meaning-making. This can prompt interviewees to articulate beliefs, values, and interpretations that might remain implicit in conventional interviews (Richard & Lahman, 2015). The empirical data were collected between 2024 and 2025 through in-depth interviews with eight top managers from five large Finnish industrial companies operating globally. The companies were selected based on their active forerunner positions in circular economy and sustainability related transformations. The interviewees held strategically significant roles, including CEO, Vice President, Director, and senior leaders responsible for R&D, sustainability, digitalization, and innovation programs. The semi-structured interviews lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and were conducted either face-to-face at company headquarters or online. In addition to conventional verbal interview questions we employed the “Tray” method, which consists of visual and auditory triggers designed to support reflection and sensemaking. These triggers included conceptual system diagrams, artistic audiovisual animations depicting dynamics of systemic change, and soundscapes representing the characteristics of complex transformations. Interviewees were also asked to create their own drawings and visual representations. The use of visual and auditory metaphors was intended to support managers’ identity work and articulation of professional agency by making implicit assumptions about learning, leadership, and systemic change visible. These triggers enabled interviewees to move beyond habitual managerial discourse, fostering deeper reflection on tensions, contradictions, and alternative ways of understanding learning and systemic changes. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and complemented by field memos. Data analysis followed abductive logic combining iterative movement between empirical observations and theoretical concepts with thematic analysis (Brown & Clarke, 2006). The analysis focused particularly on how managers talk about learning and leading change, how they described their professional agency and its restrictions and resources when leading the change and how HR-oriented and WPL based understandings of learning coexist, overlap, or conflict in their accounts.

The findings indicate that managers recognize learning as a critical element of circular economy transitions. They all emphasised the central role of learning in the current changes. The most central challenge in the transition to a circular ecosystem was described as being people themselves and their ways of working. Managers described the need to create a new kind of “mindset” across the entire organisation. This mindset was characterised by stepping out of one’s own silos and comfort zones, sharing knowledge, and engaging in networking. However, their understanding of learning remains largely framed by HR-oriented conceptions emphasizing formal training, recruitment, and planned competence development. Learning embedded in everyday work practices, collaboration, interaction and problem-solving was rarely articulated or intentionally managed, even though their accounts regarding the learning needs stressed particularly this kind of collaborative everyday learning. The findings also highlight the central role of managers’ professional agency in mediating between learning and systemic transformation. Managers strongly identify themselves as change agents, yet their agency is simultaneously constrained by business pressures, power relations, and tensions between openness and the protection of own core competences. Professional agency emerges not as an individual trait, but as situated and relational action shaped by organizational, sectoral and global conditions. Theoretically, the study contributes to learning research by arguing for a shift from human capital to human agency in leading learning in corporation sector. This means the integration of workplace learning (WPL) theories with the HR approach. This involves an expansion of the underlying view of the human being: employees are not merely capital, but they are individuals with their own unique histories, identities and competences. Practically, this implies the need to raise the awareness of managers to understand and lead work environments that support not only skills development, but also sensemaking, engagement, identities and collective learning.

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