Digital Stories Representing Agency Enhancement at Work

Abstract

This case study about agency enhancement at work in a business organization is based on narrative inquiry. After a staff development project lasting 2½ years, the employees produced digital stories concerning their meaningful moments at work. Through social interactional narrative analysis, multimodal transcription, and text analysis, we examined how agency was enhanced according the narratives. Agency enhancement involved the incoherency between present cognitive models, attitudes, and practices of work compared with inner or outer expectations. Employees used lifelong experiences in their digital stories, which provided a rich source of data, including the visuals and transcripts, offering a unique vantage point for narrative analysis. These digital stories revealed the sociocultural, transformative, and situational modalities of agency enhancement as well as the relationship between epistemic selves and sociocultural bindings in the reforming of agency.

An Integrative Approach to Emotional Agency at Work

“…Overall, the findings suggest that the enactment of professional agency is not a matter of purely rational actions, but rather something that is strongly imbued with emotions. The studies demonstrate in particular how emotions influence professional agency, highlighting the importance of perceiving, understanding, and utilizing emotions in agentic actions (see also Hakanurmi et al, 2021). However, they do not elaborate how agency (considered as exerting influence) is actually directed at emotions.…”

“…In recent years the concept of professional agency has become widely used in learning and working life studies (Hakanurmi et al, 2021;Priestley et al, 2015;Smith, 2011;Imants & Van der Wall, 2020;Tynjälä, 2013). Despite a broadly shared understanding of its importance in working life, professional agency has many differing conceptualizations, some of which we shall elaborate below.…”

“…Organizations have been forced to change, and personnel have been required to learn continuously during their careers. In recognition of these organizational and individual challenges, professional agency has emerged as a prominent construct for understanding and enhancing change and learning in organizations (Eteläpelto et al, 2013;Billett & Noble, 2017;Bishop, 2017;Goller & Paloniemi, 2022;Goller et al, 2019;Hakanurmi et al, 2021;Tynjälä, 2013;Wallin et al, 2022). From an individual perspective, the importance of agency has been highlighted, insofar as individuals are required to learn continuously, take on new responsibilities, construct their professional identities and career pathways, be innovative, and find novel solutions to everyday challenges at work (e.g.…”

University teachers’ digital stories of sustainable development: A method of learning to teach

“…Life unfolds as a narrative, with multiple interlinking storylines (Harré et al, 2009). Narratives also serve to enhance future agency by offering renewed identity, values and agency (Hakanurmi et al, 2021). One of the most modern forms of narratives is digital stories: autobiographical mini-documentaries lasting between one and three minutes during which the storyteller combines his or her personal experiences and worldview with scientific theories, sociocultural values and practices (Hakanurmi, 2017).…”

“…This study presumes that digital storytelling supports education for sustainable development by inspiring discussion and reflection on one's own values, experiences and positioning in a multidisciplinary context (Hakanurmi et al, 2021;Jamissen & Moulton, 2017).…”