It ain't over when the Fat Lady Sings : Project-based learning in a public cultural organization

Abstract

This thesis aims to explain how project-based learning (PBL) is managed in a public sector cultural organization, by providing insight of the action behind the scenes in what has become Norway’s largest cultural establishment, the Norwegian Opera and Ballet (DNO&B). The case study approach and qualitative method have been used to gather the empirical material. Due to previous research on PBL, it was expected that complex and knowledge-intensive opera productions consisting of interdisciplinary workers, is strong on creativity, but that DNO&B is weak on retaining and reusing knowledge created in such work. However, empirical findings show that tacit knowledge is reused in upcoming productions. As production activity is deeply rooted in doing, using and interacting mode of learning, tacit knowledge appears to be more easily transmitted compared to explicit knowledge. Still, there is no sign of convergence between learning gained in productions and the wider organizational context, which imply that a barrier to innovation within DNO&B may be an absence of capacity for organizational wide learning. The findings also indicate that the mechanisms used to retain learning from projects do not necessarily depend upon industry characteristics.

Key words: Project-based learning, DNO&B, Innovation.