STUDYING IT TEAM ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AS A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
Pasi Juvonen and Päivi Ovaska
Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, Pohjolankatu 23, Lappeenranta, Finland
Keywords: Learning organization, IT team entrepreneur, Cooperative, Qualitative research.
Abstract: This position paper describes settings for a study of emerge and development of a learning organization
within a Finnish University of Applied Sciences will be studied. A group of twelve students from
information technology training programme have established a cooperative where they will continue their
studies as IT team entrepreneurs. The students will utilize team learning methods and learning by doing in
their studies with support from their coaches. In the position paper we will present how emerge and
development of the cooperative will be studied during three years. Key concepts related to learning
organization will also be shortly discussed. The position paper also presents and discusses data collection
methods and research and analysis methods that are considered to be utilized during the study. Observations
from interviews within IT team entrepreneurs suggest that for several students participating to the
cooperative was based on strong motivation to try something that is totally different from traditional school.
It was also expressed in the interviews that students value learning by doing and learning as a member of a
team.
1 INTRODUCTION
Globalization has affected a structure of industry all
over the world, also in Finland. One of the
phenomena related to globalization is outsourcing
where part of the production, like information
systems development is moved to lower cost level
countries. Outsourcing has been under research
during recent fifteen years. Some of the most
common viewpoints taken to the subject have been
driving and inhibiting factors (Kakabadse and
Kakabadse 2002; Carmel 1999) and hidden costs
and transaction costs (Senn and Gefen 1999; Lacity
& Hirschheim 1993; Matloff 2005). It is obvious
that outsourcing will continue also in future and for
developed countries like Finland this means more
changes in the structure of industry. It is obvious
that when an organization outsources certain parts of
its business to lower cost level countries, it also
outsources some of its competencies in a longer run.
When projects are globally distributed the person is
hired from a location where they are easily and for
reasonable price available (Aubert et al. 2005;
Ericson and Evaristo 2006).
Within these globalization challenges, it seems
probable that some of the previous knowledge and
skills will become not so useful in a shorter time
than we expect. Some old professions will slowly
disappear and in the same time new professions will
emerge. Furthermore it is impossible to predict what
kind of new knowledge and competencies will be
needed after few years. We are preparing our young
people to professions that might not yet exist. This is
a challenge to our educational system in Finland and
with no doubt to any other educational systems in
other developed countries. Instead of concentrating
to i.e. technologies, we should shift our focus more
on meta-skills which will help to utilize and create
new knowledge (Ruohotie 2005; OECD report
2007) and meta-cognition where new knowledge is
produced, used and shared within and between
communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991;
Brown and Duguid 1991).
This position paper tries to provide an insight to
a new learning environment called Information
Technology (IT) team cooperative, which is a new
approach to learning information and
communications technology within Saimaa
University of Applied sciences. The position paper
tries to clarify how emerge and development of IT
team cooperative will be studied and analyzed in
future and what kind of data collection and analyses
332
Juvonen P. and Ovaska P..
STUDYING IT TEAM ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A LEARNING ORGANIZATION.
DOI: 10.5220/0003092003320337
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2010), pages 332-337
ISBN: 978-989-8425-30-0
Copyright
c
 2010 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

methods might be useful to describe these
development processes.
This position paper is organized as follows. Next
section introduces IT team cooperative and how it
has been earlier utilized in Finnish educational
system. Section three defines concepts learning
organization and communities of practice. In section
four, the data collection methods, the methods for
analysis and research timeline will be shortly
introduced. Section five discusses some observations
from interviews with IT team entrepreneurs. Finally,
in section six the possible future directions of the
study will be shortly discussed.
2 IT TEAM COOPERATIVE
A team cooperative is not a new learning
environment in a field of Finnish University of
Applied Sciences. Team Academy in Jyväskylä in
central part of Finland has been practicing team
learning methods with marketing students since
1993. This concept has since spread to tens of
university level schools and companies worldwide.
Team Academy tries to develop individual and team
abilities in three different areas: team
entrepreneurship, team learning, and team leadership
(Partus methods 2010).
Despite that a cooperative as a learning
environment is not a new phenomenon in a Finnish
educational system it has not been applied to
information technology training programme. So
cooperative is at this point seen as a new learning
environment.
In IT team cooperative IT students have
established a cooperative named Icaros, in which
they work together as IT team entrepreneurs. After
one year of traditional way of studying, IT team
entrepreneurs start in this cooperative. The
cooperative is a company that is totally owned by
the students. The studying methods in this learning
environment are based on organizational learning
principles, which consist of reading books (theory),
customer projects and running a company (practice)
and dialogue (community learning). This community
learning is an instrument of knowledge creation
process (Nonaka et al. 1998) by which students
process information and create and share knowledge
their produce from the information. Some of the
general studies like mathematics will be studied in a
more traditional way.
In this case twelve first year students who are
studying in information technology training
programme have established their cooperative
named Icaros during the spring 2010. In autumn
2010 they will continue their studies as IT team
entrepreneurs.
3 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
This s section shortly introduces concepts learning
organization and communities of practice (CoP) and
how they have been defined in literature.
3.1 Learning Organization
The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge is inevitably
one of the cornerstones in learning organization
literature. Senge defines a learning organization as
“an organization where people continually expand
their capacity to create the results they truly desire,
where new and expansive patterns of thinking are
nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and
where people are continually learning how to learn
together” (Senge 1990).
Based on Senge many organizations have been
paralyzed in their ability to learn. One of the most
common reasons for this situation is that most of the
employees will lose their commitment, the sense of
mission and excitement to what they are doing
(Senge 1990). To better avoid the situation described
before, Senge presents his five disciplines and how
they are combined together to create a learning
organization. The five disciplines: 1) Systems
thinking 2) Personal Mastery 3) Mental models 4)
Building shared vision 5) Team learning.
Systems thinking is defined as an ability to see
invisible fabrics, patterns of behavior and
connections between interrelated actions. It is the
ability to see the conceptual framework of “what is
happening?” and it is not easy to recognize the
system if one is part of the system that he wants to
analyze and understand. Personal mastery means
that individual is committed to become better in
whatever he is committed to do in his professional
life. With support from one’s organization an
individual commits to his personal lifelong learning.
Mental models are everyone’s hidden assumptions
that affect to how we think and act and one way to
diminish their effect is trying to make them visible.
To be able to develop as individuals and as a team,
everyone should share one’s ingrained assumptions,
generalizations and other phenomena that affect to
our way of understanding the world and our actions
as part of it. Building a shared vision deals with
“picture of the future”, where do team or group want
to go. Shared vision cannot be a vision that some
STUDYING IT TEAM ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
333

individual have, it is rather build up from personal
visions that are melted together in course of time and
with practice. Team learning is crucial because team
is has for a long time been the basic unit of learning.
Team learning deals with patterns of defensiveness
and tries to lift them to surface to get rid of them. By
practicing dialogue it is in a longer run possible to
achieve extra-ordinary results by really thinking
together (Senge 1990).
Community of practice (CoP) is a social setting
where learning takes place. It has been defined by
many authors (Lave and Wenger 1991; Brown and
Duguid 1991) as group of individuals that share
common values and beliefs. In the learning process a
learner internalizes knowledge that is discovered,
transmitted or experienced in interaction. Based on
the studies of CoP’s it has been argued that CoP’s
foster developing of expertise, knowledge,
innovation and learning.
Every organization is a product of how its
members think and interact (Senge et al 2000). A
learning organization tries to utilized learning and
knowledge creation of its members. Furthermore a
learning organization does “Continuous testing of
experience, and the transformation of the experience
into knowledge – accessible to the whole
organization, and relevant to its core purpose.”
(Senge et al. 1994). Based on these definitions
learning organization is a widely used concept. It
usually describes organizations where there have
been efforts for better cooperation and learning
though team learning methods. A community of
practice is also widely used concept. It describes a
social setting where learning takes place and
therefore it could be seen as a synonym for team or
group.
4 RESEARCH METHODS
The study has been started on February 2010 and it
will last until June 2013. Longitudinal approach was
seen as a natural choice because IT team
entrepreneurs will probably graduate during spring
2013. A three-year-time will also provide authors a
possibility to retrieve enough qualitative data. It
probably also makes possible to follow and analyze
how interventions made by coaches will affect
team’s actions.
4.1 Data Collection Methods
Data collection was started on February 2010. There
are three main data collection methods that will be
used during the study. First, all the IT team
entrepreneurs will be interviewed two times per
year. A theme based interview will cover past,
current situation and future expectations. Themes
will include i.e. discussion of strengths and
possibilities related to IT team entrepreneurship in
current situation and in future. Review of
remarkable success stories or places for
improvement are also discussed. Amount and quality
of communication within team entrepreneurs and
with other reference groups will also be evaluated.
Secondly, direct (non-participative) observation
will be used to gather data from team learning
situations. Team learning situations (dialogues) will
take place twice a week lasting usually four hours.
One of the authors will act as a coach and carry out
participative observation. Third data collection
method used during the study will be using
knowledge repositories. IT team entrepreneurs have
already granted authors access to their e-learning
platform. When they will deploy a new information
system which will act also as a knowledge
repository, authors will be able to utilize data that
will be stored there.
4.2 Methods for Data Analysis
When studying human beings and their actions in
their natural settings there are usually lots of
variables that affect the situation observed. It is
impossible to exactly record and analyze all of them.
Therefore it is natural to use qualitative methods as a
main approach to gather and analyze the data. This
does not automatically rule out use of quantitative
methods so they will be used if they are needed.
A social network analysis is an analysis method
that might provide new insights to communication
within the team. The social network analysis is
based on the network perspective. In network
perspective social structure is defined as follows:
“Social structure consists of regularities in the
patterns of relations among concrete entities; it is not
a harmony among abstract norms and values or a
classification of concrete entities by their attributes”
(Knoke and Yang 2008). In this study the social
network analysis will be used to analyze how
quantity and quality of communication within IT
team entrepreneurs will develop.
The research methods that are likely to be used
during the study are presented in table 1.
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Table 1: A summary of the research methods which are likely to be used during the study.
Method A short description Reference(s)
Action
Research
Action research examines the phenomena in its natural settings. Action
research as a method has emerged from different traditions and it covers
several different approaches, i.e. practioners research, action science,
participatory rural appraisal, teacher research, participatory action research
and feminist participatory action research.
Herr and Anderson
2005.
Case study
Case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its
real-life context. Case study research means single and / or multiple case
studies, that can include either quantitative or qualitative evidence, even both.
It usually relies on multiple sources of evidence and benefits from the prior
development of theories.
Eisenhardt 1989;
Yin 1994.
Ethnography
Ethnography as a reflexive approach permits to refocus and makes changes as
the research progresses and in situations where answers to question influence
the direction of furthers questions. This is typical to qualitative research
approach where theory no predominant theory is used but rather data speaks
for itself.
Myers and Tan
2002.
Grounded
theory
Grounded theory is a research method that has its origins in social sciences.
Grounded theory is an inductive research method where research starts with
almost no a priori knowledge about the subject studied. Theory emerges from
the data during the data is being analyzed.
Glaser, B.G. and
Strauss, A. 1967;
Strauss, A. and
Corbin, J. 1997.
Critical incident technology (CIT) is a qualitative
analysis method that helps researcher to dig in to
critical positive and negative incidents that have
happened to interviewees based on their own
expressions (Symon and Cassell 1998). With CIT it
will be possible to capture the most (i.e. 5 – 10%)
critical positive and negative that have happened and
possibly separate them for further analysis. By
especially concentrating to critical incidents CIT
might also provide interviewee a possibility to
reflect their personal development and learning
experiences as a team member.
Case study method helps a researcher to answer
two important questions: “how” and “why”. It is a
research approach that is very common in social
sciences. It is typical for the case study method that
characteristics of phenomena are presented and
compared. By case study method researcher is able
to utilize triangulation so build explanations to
phenomena based on data from multiple sources
(Yin 1994). In this study it will be essential to
understand what is happening, how it happens and
why it is happening so the case study methods is
essential research approach for the study.
Furthermore, if it will be possible to compare
different teams also the cross-case analysis will be
used.
Grounded theory (GT) is a qualitative research
method that is very common in social sciences
studies. The grounded theory analysis starts with
open coding where interesting phenomenon are
marked from the data and categorized. In second
phase, axial coding connections between categories
are recognized and further developed. In third phase,
selective coding the core category is selected and it
will be described in a theoretical sense (Straus and
Corbin 1990). In GT theory emerges from the data,
so it will not be essential to have a priori framework
for the phenomena under investigation. In other
words data will “speak for itself” and researcher has
to confirm the interpretations from other researchers
and practioners (Klein and Myers 1999).
In addition, both authors work as teachers in the
same training programme where IT team
entrepreneurs study. It is probable that there will be
also unofficial sources of data that will help
triangulation of data and validity of perceptions.
Frequent discussion with peer researcher will also
help to validate research findings and lead to better
inner validity of the study.
5 OBSERVATION ON
MOTIVATION OF STUDENTS
The first round of theme-based interviews with IT
team entrepreneurs was carried out between mid of
March and end of April 2010. Students were asked
i.e. to reflect their motivation to become IT team
entrepreneurs. Some of the quotations are included
here:
STUDYING IT TEAM ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
335

- "I see team entrepreneurship as an approach of
versatile way to learn and especially to learn by
doing in different kind of projects. You are able to
affect a lot what kind of projects you will be involved
with by being active."
- "I have lot of expectations from team learning. I
feel that positive pressure from
others will help me to gain my learning objectives."
- "I don't like that learning is bond to some
predefined schedule. I am more interested in
learning by doing and I hope we will be able to gain
challenging projects."
- "I feel that I have done my time in a traditional
school. I see this as a change for something
different."
- "Team learning motivates me. I am able to do
better when I am part of the team."
We can observe from interviews that these
students seem to be quite frustrated how the
traditional school operates. They seem to be looking
for new approach to learning and they value practice
based learning and taking care of their own
schedules related to learning. Several students also
expressed that they prefer learning within team.
During the study it will be interesting to find out
how these twelve students will perform with the “old
style” courses and how could the possible change in
their performance be explained.
6 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
In this position paper we have described how
emerge and development of IT cooperative, called
Icaros, will be studied as an organizational learning
environment in Saimaa University of Applied
Sciences.
During recent years new methods and tools for
learning have been deployed in our information
technology training programme little by little. The
past development could be described as incremental
learning. For these twelve students that have
established cooperative Icaros and will continue
their studies as IT team entrepreneurs, past few
months has been time of radical learning. It has
been time of radical learning also for their coaches
and other personnel in information technology
training programme. The radical learning usually
means also that learners who participate to this
learning process will also abandon something old i.e.
method and practices. In other words it is a change
process that will affect to all individuals that are
somehow connected to it.
There will be several future directions where this
study might go. They all might provide useful
insights. Firstly, there are no much experiences
about utilizing cooperative in studying information
technology. A longitudinal description of emerge
and development process of the cooperative Icaros
will be carried out. That might provide a framework
for further studies related to same subject.
Secondly, there are not much scientific studies of
utilizing cooperative as a learning environment
overall. There are lots of possibilities to analyze i.e.
the use of different team learning methods and
learning by doing through different theoretical
frameworks.
Thirdly, dialogue that students utilize in their
community learning might also provide us new
insights about knowledge creation and knowledge
sharing within this kind of learning environment.
By utilizing critical incident technology it might
be possible to identify some critical incidents for
closer investigation. Phenomena that might be useful
to study in more detail could be i.e. process of
getting first customer, first severe crisis among IT
team entrepreneurs and deployment of first
information systems.
To summarize, there will be numerous
possibilities how to study emerge and development
of the IT team entrepreneurs. We hope that we will
be sensitive enough to be able to grasp to interesting
phenomena that will be provided to us. In the same
time the team develops, it will be interesting to
follow how this development process affects to
teachers who are directly or indirectly connected to
it. This will be an interesting learning process both
for the students and for the teachers.
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