Högskolan i Skövde

Leader-member exchange (LMX) is the foremost relational approach to leadership. Building upon the LMX theory, this study aimed to examine the associations between three types of relationship appraisals in the workplace: leader-member (leader LMX), member-leader (member LMX), and member-member relationships (collegial climate), and their impact on employee work attitudes (i.e., employee job satisfaction and commitment). Questionnaire data were obtained from a sample of retail managers (n = 113) and retail workers (n = 555) in the Swedish retail sector. Mediation analyses confirmed the novel hypotheses that member LMX and collegial climate fully mediate the association between leader LMX and employee job satisfaction. However, in predicting employee commitment, the only significant mediator was member LMX. This study not only contributes to the existing LMX theory and research but also adds to the expanding body of knowledge in the field of positive organizational scholarship exploring the significance of positive workplace relationships in shaping employee attitudes.

Sweden has the reputation of being one of the most progressive countries in the world concerning work-life development and industrial democracy. In this article, an analytical overview of the development in these areas is provided, which includes the antecedents, major events, actor positioning and also the broad-term outcomes. Two major reform movements are described: one aiming to create a radically different work-life where workers control their own work with a power balance between labour and capital, and one a reformist movement aiming to create a degree of co-determination and a more engaging work-life without any major changes in power relations. The case shows that the radical movement was not able to generate radical change and that the reformistic movement achieved only partial success. The outcome over time has been a decreased interest in work-life development where co-determination practices are heavily institutionalized but perhaps do not provide better conditions for workers than in many other advanced industrial countries with a lesser degree of formal co-determination. 

Co-workership is a Scandinavian working life concept that is based on post-bureaucratic organizing, the cornerstones of which are decentralization and a vision of responsible individual autonomy and participation. Research has shown positive results from implementing/developing co-workership in organizations; however, in terms of the post-bureaucratic character of the concept, it might be more challenging to retain positive results than to succeed with short-term development and implementation. This study aimed to describe and analyse the retention of co-workership. A qualitative case study based on interviews and observations was conducted at an elderly care unit that had attracted a lot of attention for its organizational development, largely due to co-workership. The present study focused on retention of the active co-workership that the former development had resulted in. Four main challenges were identified as central to co-workership retention. The paper contributes to the scientific community concerning retention of organizational development efforts, particularly by emphasizing the concept of co-workership retention, which is crucial for producing excellent operational performance over extended periods of time.

This paper describes and explains how balancing organizational structures can build traits for organizational resilience. Organizational resilience is a holistic and complex concept. In this paper, we move beyond focusing on sudden and disruptive events in favour of anticipating the unexpected in daily organizing. Organizational resilience is understood here as building traits of risk awareness, preference for cooperation, agility and improvisation and is analysed by means of a longitudinal qualitative case study. The paper contributes to the field by showing how balancing organizational structures can foster organizational resilience traits. We show that power distribution and normative control can create preparedness for unexpected events and foster action orientation at the same time as supporting organizational alignment. 

This chapter presents a three-dimensional resource-based model of organizational resilience. The first dimension is financial resources, i.e. economic assets, earnings capacity and intangibilities. The second dimension is technical resources which include products, services, production and supply chains as well as know-how in areas such as innovation, information systems, management of human resources and commerce. The third and final dimension is social resources which relate to various kinds of relations to stakeholders: employees, customers, suppliers, owners, creditors, etc. The importance of a constructive followership is stressed. In the end of the chapter, it is discussed how these three dimensions interact with each other. Therefore it is a need of taking a holistic perspective in decision-making and the ability to act swift, agile and imaginatively for preventing crises and to exploit opportunities.

The chapter summarizes the BP-Deepwater Horizon accident 2010 in the Mexican Gulf, which caused 11 deaths and the largest oil spill in history. The chapter builds on secondary sources and a resilience analysis is made using the theoretical framework developed in the book. It is described what the main causes of the accident were and the events that took place before, under and after the

accident. The resilience analysis clearly shows that maintaining time limits and budget was made at the expense of reliability and safety, and that unnecessary risks were taken in order to improve project economy. The end results were one of the most costly human made disasters in the history (over 50 billion USD).