Conversational Differences as Either Resources or Constraints for Agency and Creativity

Author(s):

Panu Forsman(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES C 05, Art and Creativity in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-09

11:00-12:30

Room:

A-105

Chair:

Dennis Beach

Contribution

Our contemporary work environment poses changes and challenges to organisations and individuals while leading us towards fluxing uncertainty. Employees rarely spend their time with one product or service (Puccio & Cabra 2010) while the world is becoming more and more complex (Runco 2004) and the once-in-a-life-time transition from school to work has changed into a continuous identity negotiation process (Beach 2003) transforming linear life towards liminal. According to Giddens (2007) at least half of the jobs require high-level cognitive and personal skills while Florida (2004) notes that largest part of work force consists from creative professionals and creative core. Requirements posed on organisations and individuals do need knowledge of affects like these as tactics and practices of modern world are inadequate in our post- or late-modern times. This paper focuses on creative professionals, from whom practical creativity is demanded in their everyday work and in this case even increasingly as the organisation in question is in midst of reform demanding engagement from all employees in identity negotiation, renegotiation and knowledge propagation.

The theoretical underpinnings of my study consist of the social and individual duality of agency in a world of social structures and physical realities. The key terms are primary and corporate agency (Archer 2003) and systemic creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) rising from small everyday creativity to the big eminent creativity (Kozbelt, Beghetto & Runco 2010). Creativity understood through novelty, value and appropriateness (Piffer 2012). Agency offers a meditating category for the exploration of the action in the organisation and means for explaining the differences in possibilities and restrictions in participation, results and information transition within organisation. Agency is seen partly intertwined with creativity and thus relevant in transformation, intentional reproduction and differentiation of novel and valuable ideas.

This paper is a part of a larger ethnographic study building to be a compiled PhD-dissertation. Study context is a HR-department of a Finnish Health Care District where the ethnographic data was collected during years 2009-2010 with observations, shadowing and interviews (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007). Ethnography is applied to go deep inside the organisation and its everyday life seeking elaborate understanding of everyday actions and practices. Here findings of ethnographic analysis are complemented with conversation analysis of audio recording transcripts from staff meetings representing negotiation situations demanding agency and creativity (ten Have 2004; Hutchby & Wooffit 2008). Through this different conversational resources and constraints are identified and reflected with ethnographic findings. Research question: “What are the conversational resources for and constraints on agency intertwined with creativity?”

The preliminary findings show differences with-in the organisation suggesting that possibilities and restrictions need to be addressed to gain the control of restructuring process, to obtain the differing knowledge from all organisational levels, and to empower agentic and creative action needed in collective reconstruction and renegotiation situations. Differences in work tradition, culture and conversational tendencies seem to act as either opening or closing doors in making negotiation processes either inhibited and thus unsuccessful, or collaborative and conversational with an insightful side to challenges presented to the teams.

Method

Ethnographic analysis is used to penetrate into the everyday life of the department revealed differences in the communal traditions and practices. Researcher was not participatory observer in a sense, but was able to engage interaction, inquiry and conversation if needed during observation period. In data collection observations, shadowing and interviews were utilised leading to data consisting from field notes, jottings, research journal, and audio and video recordings. (see Hammersley & Atkinson 2007.) Based on the ethnographic analysis two distinctive groups were identified and selected for further investigation. Through implication of conversation analysis a more elaborate examination aiming at revealing properties of conversation affecting on manifested agency and creativity was conducted (see ten Have 2004). These conversational components are reflected with the findings rising from the observation period. Staff meetings of both groups were recorded and transcripts of recordings were subjected to conversation analysis.

Expected Outcomes

In the beginning of the observation period some were enthusiastic, some doubtful, and some clearly resisting. As it happened, compliant workers had to be present, but not engaged. It became obvious that the divide wasn’t random revealing two sub-groups, dialogic and mechanic. Dialogic team employs direct and free ‘transition relevance spaces’ (TRS) while Mechanic unit lacks TRS realisations. Managers implicate modern leadership offering both TRS types with no difference in managerial practice per se. TRS realisations manifest a resource for collective agency fostering individual and collective creativity while the lack of realisations constraints agency troubling the interaction. There are also other conversational connections serving as resource through trusting conversational atmosphere implicating shorter breaks, enthusiastic speech and active turn taking serving TRS realisation. Cautious and minimalistic responses, even when the manager directs effort into activation of conversation, illustrate constraints. Conversation analysis offer resources and constraints that can be used to recognise the problem and elaborate understanding implicating need to control conversational traditions in change situations demanding activity. Especially the empowerment of group with fewer realisations is important. With this knowledge further investigation can be directed into developing practices helping to harness the full potential of all level employees in change situations.

References

Archer, M. 2003. Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: University Press. Beach, K. 2003. Consequential Transitions: A Developmental View of Knowledge Proragation Through Social Organizations. In T. Tuomi- Gröhn & Y. Engeström (eds.) Between School and Work. Oxford: Pergamon. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1996. Creativity. Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. NY: Harper. Florida, R. 2004. Rise of the creative class: and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everydaylife. NY: Basic Books. Giddens, A. 2007. Europe in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. 2007. Ethnography. Principles in practice. Third edition. NY: Routledge. ten Have, P. 2004. Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide. London: Sage. Hutchby, I & Wooffit, R. 2008. Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and application. 2nd edition.Cambridge: Polity Kozbelt, A., Beghetto, R. A. & Runco M. A. 2010. Theories of creativity. In James C. Kaufman & Robert J. Sternberg (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. NY: Cambridge. Piffer, D. 2012. Can creativity be measured? An attempt to clarify the notion of creativity and general directions for future research. Thinking Skills and Creativity 7, 258-264.Puccio, G. & Cabra, J. 2010. Organizational creativity. In J. Kaufman & R. Sternberg (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity pp. 145- 173. NY: Cambridge. Runco, M. A. 2004. Creativity. Annual reviews of Psychology pp. 657-687. Sawyer, K. R. 2006. Explaining creativity. Oxford University Press.

Author Information

Panu Forsman (presenting / submitting)

University of Jyväskylä

Department of Education

Jyväskylä

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