This project, which is partly written as a fictive story, is the final project for the Master's degree in Leaning Processes, with a specialization in Management and Organizational Psychology (LOOP) from Aalborg University. The purpose the project is to uncover the learning processes and notions of learning between teachers, students and their respective organizations, and the different needs that occur in their different settings. In order to investigate this theme, I’ve formulated the following question:
How is the applicability of the NCO’s AP (Executive Education at an Academy of Applied Science) for The Queens Guard?
Through the Actor Network Theory I have studied the subject thoroughly by clarifying the actors, the actants and the black boxes. For structure, I have used Situational Analysis (SA), which is proven to be a powerful way to investigate a question from all major perspectives. My method have been abductive, which I found easy to apply within critical realism.
Through the work of the three phases of SA, I first worked with messy maps and situational maps, where I discovered that the military system is full of artifacts, in which everything from education, power, to experience are explicitly expressed, while academics are not expressed at all neither verbally nor in artifacts. In the next phase, I examined the social arenas, where I found that the educational programs develop the NCO’s linguistic competences which gave them tools to lead and develop the competences of the constables, as the constables competencies are best developed through a democratic management style based on trust and cooperation across organizations. The upgrade of the NCO’s linguistic competencies therefore comes in handy, as the constables has to service increasingly complex military equipment.
In the third phase, I compared the linguistic competencies to the technological complexity, and it became clear that a contemporary military operation environment is so complex that it requires a different way of operating. There is therefore an increasingly need for reflectivity among the NCO’s, as their tasks have become more explicitly linguistic. The executive programs at an AP do not contribute to measurable skills, and the development of the NCO’s is thus difficult to demonstrate.
As a conclusion, I can say that:
On the basis of the study, I have found that AP increases the linguistic competencies of the NCO’s and that they thereby achieve a larger area of management from which they contribute to challenging and developing employees, colleagues and managers. I can also conclude that understanding follows the vocabulary and since verbal development is an essential part of the competences developed, it develops the NCO’s reflexivity. I therefore assume that the line of AP direction is less important as it is the general vocabulary level that is being increased and that the reflections therefor as a consequence are developed along. In relation to the competences needed at The Queens Guards, it is clear that the increased technology, as well as the increasingly complex operation environment, places the NCO’s in dilemmas and paradoxes, which requires a greater focus on reflexivity, technological learning and knowledge sharing. The AP does not adequately fulfill the needs and therefore only partially fulfills the need.
1. Specifically I have found several competences applied through AP, although it was difficult due to the fact that there were no visual artifacts of the AP just as the verbal artifacts were almost non-existing to support the findings. However, it was perceptible that linguistic competences of the NCO’s were increased. They were therefore able to participate in dialogues across hierarchies, as well as enabled to collaborate cross-organizational more smoothly. The increased linguistic competence strengthens both the indirect and the direct quality of the communication in the organization.

2. AP covers a need to support and develop a greater degree of independence and sense of responsibility of the constable group. The need is due to an increasing need of specialization based on increased use of technology in the Armed Forces. The more reflective behavior of the NCO’s supports both a more trust-based management style, but also a democratic form of management that supports that.

3. The vocabulary submitted by the AP (primarily in management) is more inaccurate than in other disciplines within AP. Therefore they do not fully contribute to a more coordinated understanding of management and management behavior at a linguistic level. The AP also did not fully support an increased need for explicit learning and understanding of technological understanding, knowledge sharing and reflection.