“Taidokas vuorovaikuttaja treenaa osaamistaan” – vuorovaikutusosaamisen kehittämisen diskurssit koulutuspalvelujen kuvauksissa

Abstract

Public discourse in the media about the future demands and requirements of working life on individuals often highlights the ever-increasing importance of interactional skills. Keeping in mind such common and generally-accepted observations, the aim of this study is to explore what might be the suggested points of departure for developing said interactional skills and what kind of discourses might be linked to their development. The materials used in this study consist of service descriptions drawn from the websites of companies that provide training in interactional skills. The sites were identified and selected by using the Google search engine and analysed by using selected discourse-analytic tools. The findings suggest that the service descriptions reflect 1) individual and acquisition-based, and 2) social and participation-based ways of learning and developing interactional skills. In the prior, the significance of standardized tools (e.g. DiSC™) are highlighted. Also, in service of productization, the developing of interactional skills may be linguistically compiled into a ‘sellable package’ that the clients can then acquire by participating in the training by the service provider. In the latter, the training by the service providers is framed as enabling learners’ participation and increasing self-awareness. Additionally, the descriptions of services often draw on scientific, spiritual and self-development discourses to serve the purpose of legitimization. This article problematizes especially the individual and acquisition-based views portrayed in the materials as potentially restrictive for developing interactional skills.

Keywords

• diskurssikartoitus
• diskurssianalyysi
• työelämän vuorovaikutusosaami- nen
• vuorovaikutustaidot
• vuorovaikutuksen tuotteistaminen