**Abstract**

This chapter explores educational practices to increase work relevance in lifelong learning education programmes. The outlet of the analysis is the development of skills for change, and to lay the grounds for innovativeness and entrepreneurial behaviour in future organizations. For the Higher Education Institutions (HEI's), there are different pathways to shape and improve on their relevance to education for the work life. We examine how higher education institutions can consolidate their position in the future by agile attention to the development of the necessary skills that promote innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour. The primary argument is a need for a dynamic co-evolving relationship between the work environment and the fine tuning of educational content and educational practices in order to bridge the gap from curriculum to work context, and the probability of a meaningful application of educational content at work. The qualitative data is collected through interviews with students and their colleagues and superiors within two different organizations in Norway. From the analysis, we suggest a conceptual model providing further details of these "relational interdependences" between educational and work factors and outline some basic underlying factors in the work environment that help shape the relevance of skills needed in work life.

**Keywords:** work relevance of education, lifelong learning, knowledge production, organizational change processes, knowledge economy

## **1. Introduction**

In recent decades, the concept of relevance has attracted quite a bit of policy attention. The majority of the intellectual traditions studying "educational **relevance**" focus on the intrinsic factors and characteristics of the educational curricula within Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This chapter explores how work organizational factors also contribute to help shape the relevance of adult higher education, a topic we believe is vastly neglected in the extant literature.

In this chapter, we will derive ways of suggesting an enhancement of the relevance of higher education for a rapidly evolving work life.

Several key policy documents help to underscore the political significance of the work life relevance of higher education in general and, in particular, the need for effective higher education lifelong learning schemes. In the report, "Promoting the relevance of higher education" [1], commissioned by the European Commission, the authors formulated three main objectives for higher education used as a measure of relevance, adding *sustainable employment* and *personal development*, which is about individual, sustainable employment and active citizenship. In the white paper from 12th March 2021, the Norwegian government states that higher education needs to meet the needs of both present and future work life [2]. This white paper further states that this is about developing and utilizing new solutions that are sustainable, and also support the advancement of the scope and quality in lifelong learning. It is about what and how students should learn, and that this includes not only factual knowledge, but also generic skills, such as skills for a better collaboration in work life, for continuous self-learning and for managing the technological and managerial processes of change that are now the norm in organizational life due to the rapid digitalization of the societies. In addition, they point out that there is also a question about how and to what extent the HEIs support the students, both during and after their studies, by preparing them for their return as future employees/students for lifelong learning purposes.

This preparation is about enabling the students to assume a degree of relevance of their education.

In this book chapter, the focus is on the various types of the involvement of the students in curriculum activities, with an added focus firstly on their ability to tie new knowledge to their experiences from work life, and secondly to prepare for an understanding of how they may utilize new knowledge in their work life.

We therefore propose that in order to utilize the knowledge the students/ employees draw from the more "generic" courses in adult HEI programmes, we need to not only focus on the university, but also to look more carefully and closely at the employing organization's characteristics, and to the factors leading to a "meaningful" utilization of certain types of new knowledge and skills. Hence, this discussion naturally leads to the following research question:

#### *What are the factors that enable the facilitation of educational relevance in organizations?*

In order to help answer this, there is also a need to explore the theory and previous research on "educational relevance", on what constitutes relevance for the students and for the organizations. Likewise, how to teach a curriculum to make it relevant, and how to facilitate for the students to acquire this knowledge in such a way that they are able to utilize it, is what is required of the HEI, both now and in the future, as the number of adult students returning to campus is increasing [3].

## **2. Methodological approach**

The empirical method applied is that of a comparative case study. Two different approaches to meeting the requirements of adult students' need for work-relevant education have been investigated, a Health Manager Education (bachelor's degree programme) and a Knowledge Management study programme (half year programme) both offered at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences,

#### *The Future of Education: Strengthening the Relevance of Lifelong Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110328*

Norway. The reason we chose these two case studies is that it allows us to more carefully examine the impacts on the relevance of two educational approaches within the same country, the same county and the same higher education institution, but in two different work life settings, thus keeping constant some of the important factors that could have an effect on the findings from the two case studies.

Qualitative data has been collected through interviews using a semi-structured interview guide [4–6], with the respondents divided into three categories: the main respondents, which are the students/employees, the secondary respondents, which are their managers and the tertiary respondents, which are co-workers and/or subordinates. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data (the transcriptions) was analysed using NVIVO using a *hermeneutic* approach [7] (p. 45). The approach was in line with *content analysis* and *latent analysis* [8] (p. 9) rather than "manifest analysis" as we this time needed to go beneath the surface and interpret the meaning of the statements [8] (p. 9). We started out finding themes and from the data we labelled codes, and collected the codes in documents. The analysis and discussions will unveil a suggested model for enhanced work relevance for adult students. Lastly, we will present our conclusions and avenues for future research.

## **3. The new context of academia and its relevance**

Academia is no longer an "ivory tower" (p. 313) [9], but instead an organic part of a system to support the development of innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability in an ever-developing knowledge-based society and work life. The literature describes the relationships between the various systemic "partners", and while governmental white papers are providing guidelines as to how academia should adapt within this system and provide a relevant education for an ever-evolving work life, the literature describes the importance of the cooperation between work life and academia.

Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff [10] developed the triple helix model, depicting how the universities, with funding from the government, could provide education and research for the industry to produce goods for a profit. In traditional academic curricula at universities (and other higher education institutions), the organizations and students may influence the curriculum to a lesser extent, as the courses are to be more generic to suit several different organizations.

Carayannis and Campbell [11] developed what is called the "Mode 3" (p. 202) of knowledge production, and introduced both a quadruple and quintuple helix. The quadruple connects civil society into the helix, and by adding the natural environments of society and economy into the equation as socio-economic opportunities that bring in sustainable development and climate change issues. Within the helices, the political system influences the research and development system (R&D), the science and technology system (S&T), the economic system and the educational system. With the emergence of digitalization and digitalized work forms in organizations, the markets change rapidly, and what may have been a minor local market may now be a global market due to new ways of marketing, for instance, through social media [12]. Consequently, to even a greater extent than before, markets may impact on organizations. It is therefore important for academia/higher education to equip organizations to not only handle, but even create, most of the opportunities that arise. In the Nordic countries, academic adult education has contributed towards developing individual competencies and a high-quality education, as well as lifelong learning

[13]. This allows for the development of democratic processes, which together with an "investment in human capital" and "constant innovation in the public sector", contributes towards "sustainable entrepreneurship" [13] (p. 13). Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) rely on higher education regarding research and development, with the roles of higher education within these helices being to supply basic and applied research. Within the quadruple helix model, there is a strong focus on co-opetition, co-evolution and co-specialization [14]. This has been enhanced by the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), which blurred the lines among the physical, digital and biological spheres [15]. According to Schwab [15], there is also a responsibility that lies with the academic institutions (as one of several stakeholders) to take part in the work on understanding emergent trends in order to shape the future. Indeed, the future of education itself has had a major development due to the evolving technologies enabled by the 4IR, such as Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Learning Management Systems [16]. However, there are still some 4IR technologies that are not widely exploited by the educational sector, such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality [17, 18].

In Norway, the government has initiated support for the higher education institutions, such as universities, to enhance work relevance [2]. Nevertheless, the influence is not only *from* the political system, as the political system has received input from the organizations, the markets, the higher education systems and other stakeholders. When the markets, stakeholders and/or the technological development "require" innovations, this may put a pressure on the political system, which in turn will influence the R&D/S&T system and thus the higher education system. Indeed, our research shows the incremental and iterative development that is a result of a political system, employer organization and higher education institution cooperation and collaboration on developing an education that would cater to the changes initiated from the government [19]. The Mode 3 thinking with the systemic approach to learning and developing does recognize that the learning partners include customers, suppliers, competitors and other companies, in addition to the universities. Even public innovation within the service provision has documented innovation processes, like within the development of services and systems interaction, and in how they provide their services.

From being an institution of knowledge production and education, academic institutions have become academic entrepreneurs in a coalition with industry and other organizations. Academia has produced "academic spin-offs" (p. 7), such as firms that exploit scientific research results, newly developed technologies and other inventions [20]. These are noticeable within several different application areas, for instance, in biotechnology and industrial software. The trend of entrepreneurship education developing a more collaborative, student-centred approach to teaching and learning has spread into other disciplines [20]. Based on an entrepreneurial mind-set, Kolb's [21] theory on experiential learning and Dewey's [22] "learning by doing" and building on previous experience, the impact has spread to other study programmes.

However, Kaloudis et al. [20] point out the importance of combining both traditional and student-centred pedagogical approaches. This will support developing the reflective processes needed to "learn through an experimental approach, which is central to the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set" (p. 92). This mind-set is important for supporting lifelong learning [20]. This may imply an opportunity for returning students through their work life. Also, emerging trends within innovation research are features such as co-learning and co-production [20, *The Future of Education: Strengthening the Relevance of Lifelong Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110328*

23], which imply that this needs to be introduced and practiced within the frames of a university.

Nonetheless, as the white paper [2] also states, there is not only the transfer of knowledge *from* the university *to* the industry/organization, as the employees are the experts in their own field who have insight into processes not accessible to the university. Some of the time, the industry/organizations need "learning partners who can help them find, digest and make use of relevant knowledge" and "who can help them come up with new ways of identifying and tackling challenges and opportunities" (p.103).

For example, The World Economic Forum claims that some organizations recognize the shift towards a more changing work life due to the digitalization and vast opportunities this has provided [24]. Some of the organizations interpret the rapid changes to mean less of a need for education, but a higher need for the particular generic skills necessary for the management of innovation and organizational change processes. Bolli and Renolds [25] argue that these are skills that are best taught at institutions of higher education and should hence strengthen the position of the universities.

## **4. The role of academia's contribution in the knowledge economy**

Powell and Snellman [26] define the knowledge economy as "production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technological and scientific advance, as well as equally rapid obsolescence" (p. 199). They further state that "the key component of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources, combined with efforts to integrate improvements in every stage of the production process, from the R&D lab to the factory floor to the interface with customers" (p. 199). This implies an interest towards learning and knowledge development, distribution and management, and therefore an enhanced focus on how to support this.

Indeed, Keep and Mayhew [27] claim that solving problems and working in teams are just as important as theoretical knowledge and technical capabilities. Analytical thinking that supports analysing information to address work-related problems and issues, selecting and utilizing methods and procedures appropriate for learning and teaching within the organization, decision-making and creative and alternative thinking regarding developing novel solutions to work-related problems are becoming increasingly important.

According to Janssen [28], "innovative work behaviour"(p. 287) is about applying novel ideas in a work environment, as it is also about enhancing work performance and finding new ways of working, utilizing technology in new ways and adopting new technology and new skills [29].

In the Norwegian white paper "Education for Change" [2], it is suggested to have a tighter coupling between higher education and work life, in order to improve the understanding from work life as to what they may expect from students, and for higher education to comprehend not only the present and pressing needs of the work life, but also the future needs.

However, according to Bolli and Renold [25], it is of fundamental importance to ask where it is best to learn a specific skill, that is at work training or in an organized course setting at HEIs or other private providers. In their study, they investigated

#### *Pedagogy, Learning, and Creativity*

what types of skills HEIs have as an advantage in teaching, as opposed to learning them in a work training setting.

In the next section, we will address the literature that has investigated how and to what extent the opportunities for facilitating for innovative behaviour and support organizational changes are developed in higher education.
