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This paper aims to investigate the conditions under which learning and innovation occur within nursing homes by focusing on how the dynamics of the distribution and transformation of ideas and knowledge may be viewed as a prerequisite for innovation in both formal, planned learning situations and informal, everyday practices.

Data was produced via fieldwork, which included participant observations, conversations and research interviews with staff and managers at a Norwegian nursing home. The paper is inspired by situated learning theories and communities of practice, as the social context emerges as the site where learning and innovation are cultivated.

The nursing home sustains learning at the centre of its enterprise through managers’ and staff’s participation in planned learning situations and thereby highlights a focus on learning in their everyday practices. The conditions for the interplay between planned learning situations and everyday learning workplace practices are identified as the effort to create a joint enterprise and reflexive practices.

The Global North is ageing. Consequently, there is an increasing need for facilities and adequately trained professionals to support an ageing population. Addressing these challenges will require an increased focus on developing supportive learning environments and furthering our knowledge about the interconnections between learning processes and innovation.

This paper contributes knowledge regarding nursing homes as professionally exciting places to work alongside conditions that allow for learning and innovation to be cultivated and thereby increase the quality of elderly healthcare services provided.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model and some practical considerations for breakdown-driven organizational research.

The analysis is based on a two-case narrative from two studies of innovation in public welfare organizations. Inspired by Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, the paper abductively builds a model for reflective practice when research plans break down.

A breakdown-driven approach to organizational research can open up to new insights about both the empirical field and organizational research methodology. In the present paper, breakdowns serve as pivotal points for reflective practice that not only offer new perspectives on innovation, but also the paper makes use of innovation theory to inform research methodology.

This paper advocates more narrative self-reflecting research that reveals processes of confusion and uncertainty. These narratives are worth sharing as research in its own right as they hold the power to intensify the researcher’s perceptual and reflective skills.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how vocational teachers’ everyday practices can constitute innovative learning spaces that help students to experience engagement and commitment towards education and thus increase their possibilities for completing their studies despite notable difficulties.

Based on two ethnographic field studies, we analyse vocational teaching situations in which teachers and students engage in daily remaking of the vocational educational training practice. It is argued that these everyday situations can be understood as innovative transformation of participation and practice.

The exploration of teachers’ practicing new learning spaces sheds light on innovation potential embedded in everyday educational practices. The paper thus challenges the celebration of radical innovation and argues that innovation emerges from everyday activities in which teachers succeed to balance continuities and discontinuities. Studying innovation as a balance between change and stability thus involves emerging, negotiated processes of learning and participation in everyday practices where people talk, interact and conduct their work and studies.

Based on the analysis, we argue that students’ engagement in education can be enhanced by transforming the educational settings on various parameters such as buildings, artefacts, emotions and experiences. Thus, innovation should be recognised as emerging everyday activities in which frontline workers like vocational teachers are drivers for innovation.

Innovative everyday activities are often invisible; however, we suggest that they can be studied and thus become visible by use of the analytic term: “boundary-pushing“.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the idea of getting lost during field studies as a point of departure for reframing the initial research question.

The paper presents field notes and reflections to illustrate the process of tracing innovation in the field by means of a theoretical concept – “knot-working” as proposed by Engeström (2008). By paying attention to seemingly irrelevant empirical data and experiences of being lost, the author infuses another theoretical concept – “not-knowing” as proposed by Lather (2007).

By questioning research questions, it becomes possible to challenge conventional assumptions in the field under study as well as assumptions underlying existing theory. It is argued that good research questions evolve iteratively throughout a study and might be even more valuable than answers (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). The paper illustrates how not-knowing can serve as a methodological perspective from where ordinary held assumptions can be reconsidered, thus paving the way for novel research questions that can enhance established theory.

The paper questions the initial research question: “How is the elderly care sector affected by innovation imperatives,” and ends up posing the reverse question: How are innovation imperatives affected – or how could they be affected – by the notion of care.

The authors assess the informativeness for stock markets of proven reserves of oil and gas, and embedded CO₂ in those reserves.

Based on a two-step regression approach, the authors attempt to test the relationship between proven reserves, CO₂ embedded in those reserves and the stock market value controlling for the selection bias (i.e. the decision of managers to disclose environmental information about embedded CO₂).

Results, based on a sample of the US and Canadian firms are the following. Proven reserves increase the firm’s value, while embedded CO₂ reduces the stock market value substantially. Furthermore, the decision of managers to disclose information about embedded CO₂ is positively related to analyst following, share price volatility, firm size, and institutional ownership.

The current study assesses the long-term incidence of embedded CO₂ (in oil and gas proven reserves) on firms’ stock market value, while most studies are focusing on yearly CO₂ emissions.

Meaning-centered education situates meaning at the center of teaching and learning (Kovbasyuk & Blessinger, 2013). By incorporating learning objectives from additional learning domains – namely the affective domain – meaning-centered learning should enhance students’ personal and professional identities, as they reinforce existing knowledge through the continuous conscious acquisition of knowledge across learning domains. For this study, instructors integrated the human resource development (HRD) constructs of Level 1 and Level 2 evaluations into an online doctoral strategic planning course to achieve three goals: (A) increase student engagement, (B) assess affective domain learning outcomes, and (C) practice innovative teaching to reinforce creative meaning-centered learning. Infusing an online curriculum with affective learning domain outcomes and weekly formative assessment activities allowed instructors to monitor and address affective attributes. Results suggest that the implementation of Level 1 and Level 2 evaluations as weekly formative assessments increased student engagement. Extended analysis promoted a deeper understanding of the roles that emotions and attitudes play in online learning. Affective learning outcomes were attained as these additional weekly exercises promoted meaning-centered collaboration with students while decreasing the power-related distance between learners and instructors.