InnoOmnia – a knowledge community of vocational education and entrepreneurship
Keywords:
working life orientation, vocational education, knowledge community, enthusiasm, entrepreneurshipAbstract
Working life orientation and entrepreneurial thinking are pivotal in today’s vocational education. Through a case study, we discuss the multi-actor knowledge community of InnoOmnia in Espoo, Finland. By breaking traditional silos, education transforms into co-learning, where entrepreneurs, students, educators, and other parties can all contribute equally. However, the transition is not painless. Based on rich qualitative text and image data, we identify tensions pertaining to community boundaries, operational culture, structure, and leadership. There is no single shared view of a community, but rather, every participant seems to hold an individualised interpretation of InnoOmnia. Diverging expectations result in inter-actor conflict. Our analysis suggests that by default, an innovative, entrepreneurial community inevitably contains criticising and destructive forces. In terms of community support, enthusiasm and joy of work emerge as particularly meaningful forces. Further research focusing on work enthusiasm and tolerance of conflict in knowledge communities could advance vocational education substantially.
