Innovativeness and Engagement at Work! A Mixed Method Study on Workplace Pedagogy as a Driver of Strategic Innovativeness (TYSTI)

The TYSTI project examines the strategic innovativeness, learning, and well-being of adults in Finnish working life, as well as workplace pedagogy that supports these aspects, using a mixed-methods research strategy and a large dataset (survey, n=1858; interviews, n=50). Based on the findings, a pedagogical toolkit will be developed to help organizations enhance their employees’ strategic innovativeness. The project addresses the need to promote research, development, and innovation (RDI) activities in Finland. The project has three objectives:

1. To produce knowledge grounded in international research literature and in the experiences of the Finnish working-age adult population on the relationships between workplace pedagogy, well-being at work, and strategic innovativeness, and to develop a description of innovation profiles among the Finnish working population.
2. To identify, through qualitative data collected from a case organisation, key areas and practices of workplace pedagogy that promote both the well-being of employees and strategic innovation activity, while also making visible organisational practices that challenge well-being and distance employees from innovation and development work.
3. To develop pedagogically purposeful operating models and tools that support well-being and strategic renewal in an intensifying working life.

Through this project, it becomes possible to understand RDI activities, learning, and well-being in Finnish working life as an integrated whole at the workplace level. The project responds to a practical need to develop pedagogical practices in workplaces that promote employees’ strategic innovativeness, learning, and well-being simultaneously. In this way, the innovation potential of the adult population can be realized through everyday learning at work and increased well-being