1. The role of career adaptability and flexible expertise in developing individual innovative behaviour
 Alan Brown
  Paper given at Seminar 4 of ESRC Seminar Series:
Organizational innovation, people management and sustained performance
University of Warwick
18th September 2013
Professor Alan Brown
Institute for Employment Research
Coventry, CV4 7AL, England

2. Lutterworth: home of individual innovative behaviour Frank Whittle and John Wycliffe
Jet engine: flexible expertise (1930s): classic Science & Technology Innovation (STI)
Morning star of the reformation: translation of bible into English (1380): career adaptability - need to adapt to changing worlds: classic Doing, Using, Interacting (DUI) mode of Innovation

3. Jensen et al. (2007) how individuals perform their roles and tasks and learn to improve their performance is important for innovation
Focus on how far individual carer adaptability and flexible expertise link to innovative capabilities which can be deployed across multiple employment contexts
Flexible expertise: technically-based learning and experience- based learning develop and interact across the life-course
Career adaptability: manage transitions and perform effectively in a variety of contexts across the life-course

4. Role of learning in developing career adaptability at work
learning through challenging work (including mastering the practical, cognitive, relational and emotional demands linked with particular work roles and work processes);
updating a substantive knowledge base (or mastering a new additional substantive knowledge base);
learning through (and beyond) interactions at work;
being self-directed and self-reflexive (Bimrose et al., 2011).
Role of above four dimensions in developing innovative capabilities in individuals?
16 individuals from Norway; 15 from UK
EWCS 2005 figures: discretionary learning forms of work organisation much more prevalent in Norway covering 55.6% of employees, as against 30.3% in the UK.

5. Norwegian interviewees: Clinical roles to division chief physician
Technical maritime post to self-employed software consultant
Teacher to technical engineer oil and gas projects
Internal promotions to project manager in oil supply industry
Development manager to technical post in oil and gas supply
Delivery manager to project manager in oil supply firm
Engineering jobs to senior technical manager in oil and gas supply
Technical jobs to oil industry quality & safety manager
Hospital clinician to chief physician, epidemiologist, researcher
Nursing roles to psychiatric emergency head nurse
Clinical roles to special physical therapist in a pain clinic
Anaesthesia nurse to research coordinator
Offshore engineer roles around world to head of drilling technology
Engineering construction roles to building oil platforms abroad
ICT roles including consultant to senior ICT engineer
Engineering roles to country manager in large oil industry group
Engineering roles to technical service coordinator in oil industry.

6. UK interviewees: nurse specialist to lecturer in cancer nursing
Environmental chemist in R & D to head of health & safety
Learning and development posts to learning and life coach
Personnel management to learning and development coach
Engineering posts to project manager in manufacturing
Law, finance and accountancy to Chief Executive UK Regulator
Management & technology consultant to Assistant TV Producer
Business management and HE posts to management consultant
Clinical roles to consultant in palliative medicine
Marketing & IT; midwife; commissioning children’s services
radiographer, specialist sonographer to HE lecturer Ultrasound
librarian, portfolio worker, health information specialist to consultant
materials scientist, technical consultant to innovation consultant
quality control, systems design, research to professor in TEL
head of HR for four banks to providing pension trustee services.

7. Role of learning through challenging work in developing innovative capabilities
work of interviewees often had an imperative for learning and development because
field of work changing rapidly (software development; specialist technical posts in the oil and gas industry; clinical research roles; technology enhanced learning; sonography)
and/or considerable challenges intrinsic to the role (project management; psychiatric emergency head nurse; special physical therapist in a pain clinic: division chief physician; consultants; researchers; coaches etc.).
many tasks are inherently complex and non-routine
variety of possible organisational solutions
some open-ended approaches to problem-solving
even where there were procedural scripts for some tasks, discretion in how other tasks were approached, including how individuals approached their own learning and development

8. Role of learning through challenging work in developing innovative capabilities 2
adaptable individuals have learned mastery of a knowledge base (including appropriate ways of thinking and practising) can be transferred and may be used as a basis for innovative practice in another area of work
defence industry to civil service example: as well as mastering the practical and cognitive demands of new field of work, also needed to address the relational and emotional demands linked to her particular work role and work processes
lean production innovation: channelling of group interaction into disciplined processes of problem solving but limited numbers of employees have opportunities for continuing discretionary learning
single ‘change agent coach’ – others used bounded techniques
degree of challenge in work leading to innovation: pain clinic
experienced-based learning coupled with mastery of new approaches to work as a platform for innovative behaviour

9. Role of knowledge updating in developing innovative capabilities
mastery of initial knowledge base: learned particular ways of thinking and practising; also identity development
knowledge base often required considerable updating: partly through work activities and partly through career development activities away from work (including substantive programmes of learning and development)
knowledge updating processes often involved the melding of experience-based and technical learning; new ways of thinking and practising; network development; identity development; sense- making; contextual awareness; judgement; innovation etc.

10. Role of interactions at work in developing innovative capabilities
innovation strategies can be mainly based on learning by doing, using and interacting (DUI)
work relationships, interactions and learning influence opportunities for the development of work-relevant skills, knowledge and understanding (Brown, 2009), in ways which may extend the innovative capabilities of individuals and groups
rich interactions provide opportunities for substantive development and are a key component of learning-rich jobs, where you can learn from interacting with patients, colleagues, customers, clients etc.
networks, communities, coaching, recontextualisation

11. Role of becoming more self-directed and self-reflexive in developing innovative capabilities
value of rich learning environments but also personal agency
variation in self-awareness about goals, aspirations, motivation, personality, inter-personal skills and resilience
differ in appreciation of learning opportunities and contextual understanding, and ability to develop relationships and networks to support their learning and development
capabilities for critical analysis, critical reflection, visualisation and organisation and the ability to switch between context and generalisation help individuals’ learning and act as building blocks for development of their innovative capabilities.

12. Conclusion
job rotation, team working and quality control some success (Japanese model) in incremental innovation, but ‘in Europe these forms do not necessarily stimulate endogenous innovation. It seems as if they need to be combined with some degree of discretion in order to do so’ (Arundel et al p. 28)
bottleneck to improving the innovative capabilities in the UK could be ‘the widespread presence of working environments that are unable to provide a fertile environment for innovation…… the next step for European policy is to encourage the adoption of ‘pro-innovation’ organisational practice, particularly in countries with poor innovative performance’ (pp. 28 – 29)
need pro-innovation working practices but what are they?

13. Pro-innovation practices
Learning through challenging work (including mastering the practical, cognitive, relational and emotional demands);
updating a substantive knowledge base (or mastering a new additional substantive knowledge base);
learning through (and beyond) interactions at work;
being self-directed and self-reflexive.
Imagination as an amplifier of learning for solving problems, imagine futures, and seeing the perspective of others.
Disciplined enquiry: comprising investigation, experimentation and critical reasoning.
Linking the rational & empirical with the emotional & intuitive.
Combining concentration, practice, organization, focus and discipline with feelings, sense-making and identity development.