Recent studies have examined how technological developments are transforming both work and learning processes, for instance, the emergence of virtual workplaces (Willermark & Islind, 2023), the influence of technology design on vocational practice (Sadroge et al., 2024), and the digitalisation of work processes (Pargmann et al., 2023). These studies share a concern with how technologies function within workplaces and reconfigure learning opportunities (Cairns, 2022). Alongside this ‘functional-technical’ lens, a growing body of research adopts a more practice-oriented view, highlighting how technological artefacts are embedded in learning as part of the sociomaterial texture of work (Gherardi, 2020, p. 103/104). From this perspective, technologies are actors contributing to the relational and epistemic conditions of workplace learning. In our paper, we highlight the potential of a sociomaterial approach to educational research on technology in the workplace (Fenwick et al 2012; Orlikowski 2007). Addressing the question, How do technologies function as boundary objects to mediate workplace learning?, this paper contributes to that emerging field by examining how technologies can mediate learning across boundaries in workplaces. It does so through the sociomaterial lens of boundary objects: artefacts that inhabit multiple social worlds and enable coordination without full consensus (Star & Griesemer, 1989; Star, 2010). While the boundary object concept has gained traction in education research, there remains a need to explore how such artefacts function empirically in vocational and workplace settings (Shan, 2020, 2023; Viktorelius & Larsson, 2025).
We address the general inquiry into “who is acting” through two studies. The first focuses on a VR training system used in a Swiss apprenticeship programme for electricians (Kraus et al., 2025). The VR headset operates as a pedagogical artefact that both trainers and apprentices engage with, albeit with different aims. For trainers, it is a structured instructional tool; for apprentices, it offers immersive, exploratory practice. This interpretive flexibility, the ability of different groups to use and assign meaning to the same artefact, is a core property of boundary objects. The VR headset also enables what Star (2010) calls “coordination without consensus.” Trainers and apprentices need not share a unified interpretation to collaborate effectively. The technology further mediates responsibility and control, with trainers acting as gatekeepers who grant or withhold access based on their assessment of the apprentice’s readiness, thereby negotiating pedagogical authority through the artefact itself.
The second case examines a Danish retail setting where a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA) structures task coordination and oversight. While managers use the PDA to standardise workflows, some early-career employees engage with it as a means of expanding roles and learning. The early-career employees, feeling stuck in repetitive tasks, negotiated access to new responsibilities involving the PDA, including inventory and peer mentoring. The device thus functioned as a boundary object spanning distinct social worlds (Star & Griesemer, 1989; Star & Strauss, 1999), enabling coordination without shared interpretation. Though embedded in hierarchical routines, the PDA afforded moments of negotiated autonomy and learning.
Across both cases, we explore how technologies mediate learning and collaboration across educational and workplace boundaries in vocational training. By bringing these empirical insights into dialogue with the sociomaterial approach and boundary object theory, the paper contributes to debates on the changing conditions of workplace learning in technologically mediated environments. We argue that understanding learning at the intersection of education, work, and technology requires taking objects seriously, not just as instructional tools, but as co-constitutive elements of workplace learning. This aligns with the broader call to move away from an anthropocentric worldview, which is also discussed as one dimension of the “poly crises” addressed in the call for papers. It theorises learning as situated, negotiated, and materially mediated.

This paper combines insights from two independent studies conducted in Switzerland and Denmark that are suitable for answering the question “who is acting?” and demonstrate the role of boundary objects in enabling learning at the workplace. The first study (1) is a social space study combining qualitative and quantitative empirical approaches within an apprenticeship framework for electricians. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with in-company trainers (N=11) and their trainees (N=16) to gather the views of each group on how educational spaces for competence development are created using VR headsets. Additionally, a questionnaire for the apprentices was conducted (N = 35, response rate 45%). The questionnaire contained 17 closed-ended questions and was designed to evaluate different aspects of the user experience. The interviews have been transcribed and analysed using a structured content analysis to reconstruct how both groups relate to the emergence of spaces for competence development when using a VR headset in the workplace. The results of the questionnaires have been used to complement the trainees' views on the emergence of spaces of competence development with their reported user experience. The sociomaterial approach of social space provides excellent links to the theory of boundary objects, which is how VR headsets appear in this context. The second study (2) draws on an exploratory single case study conducted within a Danish non-specialised food retail company as part of a larger EU research project. The study used semi-structured biographical interviews through two rounds with early-career employees and managers (round 1 n=14, round 2 n= 10) and developed Learning Biography Vignettes (LBVs) to examine how young adults experience and negotiate learning opportunities at work. Guided by a workplace learning perspective, the LBVs traced how learning trajectories intersect with organisational routines, technologies, and life course structures across domains such as employment, education, and everyday responsibilities. The abductive analysis combined thematic coding with pragmatist workplace learning theory, focusing on how learning emerges, or is constrained, through encounters with tools and expectations embedded in work practice. This methodological approach supports a sociomaterial understanding of how technologies like the PDA mediate learning and responsibility, aligning with our broader inquiry into how artefacts function as boundary objects across institutional and professional boundaries in workplace learning. (1) he research was funded by the Digitalization Initiative of the Zurich Higher Education Institutions (DIZH). (2) This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under grant agreement no. 693989.

In sum, we argue that technologies in workplace learning are actors in workplace learning. More specifically, they are sociomaterial boundary objects because they: - Allow access from multiple points of access - Possess interpretive flexibility across learner and expert perspectives - Support coordination without full consensus across institutional or hierarchical boundaries - Mediate complex relationships among different actors in the learning process. Across both cases, we show how technologies mediate learning by linking actors and practices across distinct social worlds (Star & Strauss, 1999). In the VR case, the headset enables apprentices to access professional tasks independently, reducing stress and dependence on trainers. Trainers, in turn, experience both relief and loss of pedagogical presence, negotiating when and how to grant access. In the PDA case, young retail workers reconfigure their roles by engaging with a device introduced for control and standardisation. In both cases, technologies become sites of interaction where agency, responsibility, and learning are not given but worked out in practice. These findings exemplify what Star (2010) terms “coordination without consensus”: technologies enable productive collaboration despite divergent goals and interpretations. Learning does not require full alignment of views but unfolds through sociomaterial negotiation. The VR headset simulates workplace tasks within a pedagogical setting, while the PDA anchors local decisions within a broader organisational structure. Both function as boundary objects, connecting pedagogical, institutional, and professional domains. Addressing the question “who is acting?”, we suggest that learners, trainers, managers, and technologies are all implicated. Technologies not only support instruction but also actively participate in shaping access, control, and meaning. Understanding learning in this light requires a shift toward theorising it as materially mediated, relationally structured, and contextually negotiated across institutional boundaries. Boundary objects are embedded in relational practices that enable meaning and responsibility to be negotiated rather than imposed.

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