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This article highlights the significance of professional and disciplinary spaces in the shaping of Learning Outcomes (Los) in higher education. It is based on empirical studies of three programmes (engineering, the humanities and medicine) at two Norwegian universities. The results demonstrate both similarities and differences in the dynamics of learning outcomes formation. In the humanities and engineering they were translated into learning objectives, closing in on course rationalisation and portfolio coherence. Whilst the focus in the humanities remained internal in orientation, in engineering, internal processes of implementation merged with quality assurance and external development processes mediated by the engineering profession. In medicine, the introduction and implementation of learning outcomes were mediated by prior experiences with problem-based learning practices. During that process, learning outcomes became oriented towards professional identity and conformity to international quality standards. In that sense, learning outcomes could function as regulatory mechanisms sheltering medical education from outside interference rather than as a tool for structuring learning. Within the framework of learning outcomes, professional compliance with external scrutiny through the display of standards has become more important, but also more linked to the university as an organisational actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with the 'Work environment hypothesis,' role stressors have been proposed as important antecedents of bullying in the workplace. Only a few longitudinal studies on the relationship between role stressors and bullying exist, however, and earlier studies have largely been cross-sectional. The aim of the present prospective study was to determine whether role stressors at baseline predict new cases of workplace bullying at follow-up. A total of 2,835 Norwegian employees participated at both baseline and follow-up, with an interval of two years between the measurements. The study supports the hypotheses that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, contribute to subsequent new reports of workplace bullying. However, there was a weak reverse effect: reporting being bullied at work at baseline predicted reporting increased levels of role ambiguity and role conflict at follow-up. Even though the results may indicate a circular relationship between the variables at hand, the weak reverse relationship seems to have little practical impact compared to the stronger relationship from role stressors to bullying. Hence, the results mainly support the hypotheses stating that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, predict subsequent exposure to workplace bullying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s, Norway was among those countries most reluctant to embrace the ongoing process of currency and trade liberalisation. Both trade liberalisation, the establishment of the European Payments Union (EPU) and the plans for the reintroduction of currency convertibility were met with ambiguity. This ambiguity contrasts both the general image of Norway's traditional liberal foreign economic policy and the expected approach of a small open economy. This article argues that the origins of ambiguity were deeply rooted in the political economy of post-war Norway, and a result of the meeting between grand domestic ambitions, external constraints derived from this set of ambitions and, importantly, the set of prevailing economic beliefs that influenced both domestic policy and international orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between work and family is changing. A question is raised about whether practice measures up to changed thinking concerning the interface between working life and family life. A study titled ‘Daily transitions between home, child day-care centre and workplace’ throws light on the Norwegian situation. This project takes its point of departure from what happens at the start and at the end of a workday seen from the perspective of parents with children attending day-care, staff in their day-care centres and leaders in enterprises which are the workplace of one of the parents. The article builds mainly on the interviews with company managers. It is suggested that the workplaces send ambiguous messages about their conception of the relationship between work and family and about equal opportunity issues and that this creates problems — for individuals, particularly women, and for families and workplaces. Some possibilities for improvement of the situation in the world of work are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]