The emergence of learners’ transformative agency in a Change Laboratory intervention

Abstract

Changes and transformations in organisations are traditionally initiated by the management. This approach does not, however, encourage the agency of all the members in an organisation to engage in cooperative development of the activity. This paper presents an analysis of the development of participants’ transformative agency in a Change Laboratory (CL) intervention. In a CL, the participants analyse conflicts and disturbances in their local activity and search for ways to transform current work practices. In the analysis, we identified six types of expressions of transformative agency which evolved over the course of the laboratory sessions and across the topical contents of those sessions. Furthermore, we examined to what extent the expressions of agency produced by the participants reflected individual and collective agency. Our key argument based on the research findings is that transformative agency goes beyond the individual and the situational here-and-now actions. It is produced and maintained in collective change efforts and evolves over time.