Development, Coaching. She has a background as a practitioner in school (teacher, principal, etc).

There are so many people to thank as my PhD work nears its end. This work process and its final product are the results of inspiring and enriching interactions with diverse individuals and communities. My thanks go to all who have been a part of the process in various waysto you who have encouraged me and sustained my energy and capacity! I want, nevertheless, to pinpoint some of the interactions that I believe have had particular significance for my work and for my becoming a researcher by expressing my heartfelt thanks to: My main supervisor, Eli Ottesen, and my co-supervisor, Rune Krumsvik, for your unyielding moral support and brave efforts to keep me on track. Eli, you have been a constant inspiration and an always-guiding force in my work. Thank you for your dedicated readings of numerous drafts, your insightful and critical comments on my work, and your interesting discussions and collaborative writings. Having you as my main supervisor and mentor has been an honour! Rune, I am grateful for our Skype meetings, your readings and comments on the manuscripts, and the constructive ways in which you have supported me, challenged me, and helped me to move forward in my work. The Research Group for Studies on Workplace Learning in the Knowledge Society (FALK), for approving my application and funding my PhD work. My thanks go to all the participants in the group for their inspiring seminars and workshops. In particular, I want to thank Monica Nerland and Hege Hermansen. Monica, thank you for leading the group in such a professional way and for commenting on the articles. You have helped me significantly in refining my writings. Hege, thank you for our fruitful discussions and our joint endeavor in writing our extended abstract. The participants in the two projects being studied, who kindly allowed me to observe their activities. You made this PhD project possible.

Leadership is recognised in both policy and research as a key enabler of innovation in schools. Numerous researchers have focused on how school leaders formally narrate their experiences of leading innovations including their observations of effect; however, modest attention has been paid to the processes through which leaders engage in innovative work. This study focuses on the work of project teams running Norwegian school projects that aim to advance teaching and enhance student learning using information and communication technologies. By employing cultural-historical activity theory, leadership is examined as enactment that is consequential to the directions of the work. The findings demonstrate that the locus of agentive actions change from moment to moment within sequences of interactions. Thus, leadership in this kind of work is not under the control of any of the actors involved or any specific individual: the centre does not hold. The study contributes to understanding leadership in innovative work by demonstrating how leadership is an outcome in emergent multi-voiced work processes. Moreover, the study indicates that the ‘making of newness’ involves innovative work at collective and individual levels, and suggests that projects conducted between loosely coupled partners would profit from adopting routines for the management of interactions.

No abstract

Developing collective professional capacity in schools is viewed as important for improving schools. Furthermore, principals are seen as being in a key position to promote the development of collective capacity. Although an array of studies report on what principals can do to support capacity development, such as by facilitating collective professional discussions among their staff, less attention has been drawn to how principals can engage in and lead such discussions. In this article we present and use a conceptual model for leading professional group discussions to examine leadership of professional group discussions performed by principals in a Norwegian National School Leadership Program. The findings show that the principals' focus is on fostering an open process by involving all participants in a way that gives all members a chance to provide their opinions and to have their thoughts heard. The principals pay less attention to the types of actions considered essential to keep discussions on track and carry them forward, including making further plans for actions. Because group discussions can lay the groundwork for building professional capacity and real improvement in schools, more awareness is needed for principals so that they can develop the skills needed for leading professional discussions.