“Projectification”: New Challenges for Learning in Interprofessional Coproduction

• In Event: Coproduction Practices: Reconfiguring Professional Knowledge and Work

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
This paper focuses on one manifestation of the globalised knowledge economy in the UK’s Creative & Cultural (C&C) sector: the impact of “projectification” as the organizing principle for work. It highlights ways that projectification is positioning large companies, Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) and freelance workers to work as co-producers of products and services. It also identifies the implications of this form of co-productive work for the development of expertise, future research, and UK policy for economic development.

Perspectives/theoretical framework
The paper draws on Midler’s (1995) work on “projectification”, Deuze’s (2007) explanation of processes of de-layering and sub-contracting in the Media Industry, and Crevoisier & Jeannerat’s (2010) ‘knowledge dynamics’. These conceptual resources will: (i) reveal how hybridized co-productive forms of work and hence knowledge are being created in the UK’s C&C sector; (ii) illuminate implications for the UK government’s policies for economic growth; and, (iii) raise questions for programmes of professional formation.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The empirical content is drawn from a qualitative case study of SMEs in Birmingham’s C&C sector, complemented by quantitative data about the C&C labour market in general and in Birmingham. Government policies are creating Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to develop local ‘clusters’ of firms, but these clusters are predicated on supply chains rather than co-production. The case study evidence shows ‘learning tensions’ that exist for SMEs as they attempt to participate in LEPS to secure available forms of financial support, and use networks to secure contracts for co-productive work nationally and transnationally.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials
Interviews were conducted over a 9-month period with leading representatives from: (i) the private and public sector organisations who are working together in LEPs and C&C generated networks; (ii) members of SMEs and freelancers who are working in distributed interprofessional project teams. Non-participant observation of project work was also used to understand their engagement with co-workers and the nature of co-productive activity.


Results and/or substantiated conclusions
The evidence revealed that SMEs and freelancers do not appreciate the knowledge they generate in co-productive project work: tight deadlines militate against this happening. Instead SMEs and freelancers only begin to appreciate the nature of their interprofessional learning and expertise when they either remember ‘what they did and how they did it’ or use networks to formulate ideas that can be ‘pitched’ to potential funders for new projects. These issues set new challenges for educational institutions and professional bodies to support interprofessional activity not currently recognized.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The paper moves analysis of co-productive learning beyond Barr et al.’s notion of professions ‘learning from one another’s governance structures’/’educational arrangements’;’ Hutchins’ notion of ‘distributed cognition’, and Engeström’s notion of ‘knots’. These conceptions assume the funding for the interprofessional activity. In contrast, this paper takes account of: (i) the link between entrepreneurial, epistemic and creative activity; and, (ii) the conjoined working and learning practices interprofessional teams employ to realise their goals.

Author

• David Guile, Institute of Education - London