developing strategies that explicitly integrates product and service innovation and education
and training. One way to achieve this goal is to support the extension of schemes that offer
companies a combination of human and financial resources to develop a more innovative
approach to product and service development, and offer adult entrants to or adult
‘switchers’ in the labour market opportunities to develop the forms of vocational practice
that will support both their employability in the global economy (Guile, forthcoming). Such
schemes are, therefore, paradigmatic examples of the interface between individual and
organizational contributions to workplace learning.
Drawing on research undertaken through the auspices of the European Union EQUAL
Programme The Last Mile Project (TLM)1. The paper analyses a work placement scheme
that has been established to create the conditions to incubate new designs in the jewelry
sector in Birmingham. The paper begins with a discussion of the theoretical framework it
has employed to analyse individual and organizational contributions to workplace learning
in this scheme. It then moves on to identify the specific strategies and tactics used by: (i)
the different organisations involved with the scheme to facilitate the incubation of the new
designs; (ii) an aspiring jewelry designer to create a new product range for the company.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this conceptual framework for
the field of workplace learning.
2. Learning, work and work placements
2.1. From workplace learning to learning to create new products and services
The field of workplace learning has developed exponentially over the last two decades as
writers have either reformulated existing concepts or generated new concepts to analyse
learning at work in a wide variety of different settings. Broadly speaking, a number of
different theoretical approaches can be identified. One is the post-Lave and Wenger socio-
cultural and social practice tradition, represented by writers such as Billett and Fuller and
Unwin. Billett (2003) has developed the notion of ‘participation’ in Lave and Wenger’s
work by formulating the concepts ‘agentic activity’, ‘participatory practices’ and
‘invitational qualities’ to analyse the way in which individuals’ continually ‘remake’ aspects
of vocational practice. In contrast, Fuller and Unwin (2003b) have broadened the concept
of participation by formulating the concepts ‘expansive’ and ‘restrictive’ environments in
order to differentiate carefully between the way in which different types of organizational
environments do or do not facilitate individuals to learn in apprenticeship schemes in
modern work settings. Another approach is the social-cognitive tradition represented by
Eraut. He has drawn on Reber’s ideas about the structure of ‘memory’ and Polanyi’s ideas
1 TLM looks at inclusion in the creative industries in the following regions in the UK: Cumbria,
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Slough, with special reference to the black and
minority ethnic population. TLM focuses on aspirant and recent entrants’ experiences of access and
learning and development in the creative industries, as well as on the experience of intermediary
agencies such as City Councils, who coordinate programmes for those entrants.