This thesis explores how managers’ interpretations of leadership influence workplace learning (WPL) within the framework of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). Adopting a pragmatic perspective, leadership is understood as a situated, interpretative practice that emerges through action and its consequences in real work settings. The research design was sequential, beginning with a systematic literature review (Study I) that identified key insights and research gaps, followed by two empirical studies. Study II was conducted in two industrial companies with distinct organizational contexts, providing insights into how managers perceive their conditions for enacting leadership that supports WPL. Study III focused on a state-owned organization with a specific social mandate to support individuals with reduced work capacity, which enabled an analysis of how inclusive leadership can develop over time and become embedded in organizational routines. The findings show that leadership influences WPL through relational practices such as attentive listening, negotiations of meaning within the scope of work, and role‑modeling behaviors, which interact with organizational conditions and evolve through continuous interpretation and action. The thesis extends Tynjälä’s model of workplace learning by illustrating how managerial support, the enactment of work, and potential WPL outcomes interact with organizational affordances. Furthermore, Inclusive Leadership theory is used as an analytical framework to illuminate how participation and psychological safety can become sustainable when they are continuously reinforced through leadership practices and supported by an enabling organization. The thesis contributes to WIL research by introducing the manager as a central actor in how WPL is negotiated and co-constructed in working life. This broadens WIL’s traditional focus on educational settings and demonstrates how leadership can create conditions for WPL, and how WPL can be supported through inclusive leadership in organizational practice.
Fredrik Hillberg Jarl (Thu,) studied this question.