Co-workership in institutions for higher education: A qualitative comparative study of Norwegian and Hawaiian knowledge workers
Master thesis
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Date
2015Metadata
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- Institutt for psykologi [3143]
Abstract
Co-workership is a term that has been filled with different meanings. Up to date co-workership has been considered a Nordic concept with no direct meaning in the English language, or in international research and practice (Kilhammar, 2011). The majority of the research on the concept has been carried out in Sweden (Tengblad, 2010). Co-workership may have a connection to productivity and work related health. Thereby, the concept is of relevance to study. The purpose of this study is to find the meaning of co-workership in institutions for higher education, and to compare co-workership between knowledge workers in Norway and Hawaii. Five employees from the Norwegian university of science and technology, four employees from Hawaii Pacific University, and one employee from the East-West Center in Honolulu were interviewed, applying a semi-structured protocol. Using thematic analysis, the interviews were analyzed and the following themes were identified as defining of co-workership; tasks, relations and power structure. As a normative meaning of co-workership the themes responsibility, professional respect, and cooperation were identified. The meaning of co-workership appeared to be similar in the two samples. However, there was a tendency of focusing more on relations, cooperation and professional respect in the Hawaiian sample. Whereas the Norwegian sample focused more on task and responsibility. These differences are interpreted as values imbedded in the different societies.