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.
The retail sector in Sweden has an outstanding productivity ratio in comparison to retailsectors in other countries. In this paper we claim that the main reason to this is the HRMpractice on store level in Sweden. International research presents a grim picture of the retailworkplace. Because of fierce price competition personnel are subjected to high demands forflexibility in working hours and suffer from low salaries, poor working conditions and little orno employer provided education and training resulting in a low level of employee workmotivation, responsibility and productivity. Our research constrasts this picture and showsthat the workplace in Swedish retailing is characterized by mutually trusting and cooperativerelationships between managers and co-workers, leading to employee commitment andacceptance of responsibility. We mainly explain our conclusions that differ from those ofinternational retailing research by the principal fact that standards and values from otherSwedish work sectors are also found in the Swedish retail sector.
Vad innebär det att arbeta med ledaruppdrag inom handeln och hur kan man nå framgång som butikschef? Detta är två centrala frågor i boken Uppdrag butikschef – att leda i butik som tar ett helhetsgrepp om följande centrala aspekter på butikschefsarbete:
Boken är skriven av forskare inom företagsekonomi och socialpsykologi, verksamma vid Högskolan i Skövde, och den bygger delvis på ett aktuellt forskningsprojekt om ledarskap och medarbetarskap inom svensk handel.
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.
Purpose
The paper aims to identify and address matching problems in leader development and to propose how these problems can be dealt with.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on previous research, traditional leadership development (LD) is criticized and alternative approaches are suggested.
Findings
This research identifies two major matching problems in traditional LD – between participant and development effort and between development effort and realities of managerial work. A context-sensitive and emergent view of LD is suggested to address these matching problems.
Practical implications
The paper illustrates the need of leader development that is addressing the complex nature of managerial work in a more holistic way and to help participants to understand how such complexities can be dealt with.
Originality/value
An alternative view of leader development is identified. It matches managers’ diversities and the realities of managerial work better than traditional leader development does.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how new public management (NPM) reform from the national level is implemented as practice in a local unit within the police sector in Sweden.Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case-study approach is applied using semi-structured interviews, participant observations and analysis of documents.Findings: The paper illustrates different kinds of resistance at the organizational level. The dominant form of resistance was found to be cultural distancing. The paper demonstrates a tendency among police officers to deal with a changing and more complex work context by embracing a traditional work role.Research limitations/implications: The paper shows that reforms that add complexity may fail because of potential contradictions and the limited capacity and motivation of employees to deal with the complexity in the manner prescribed by NPM. Practical implications: The paper shows that the popular trend to adopt multi-dimensional forms of control (for instance the balanced-scorecard approach) may fail if there is a lack of consensus about what goals and measurement are important and/or there is a lack of dialogue about how the new goals should be implemented in practice.Originality/value: Research about NPM-reforms in the police sector is rare. The original contribution of this paper is to study NPM-reforms with a focus on the role of complexity in relation to resistance.
This article reports on the involvement of nurses and physicians in improvement work, with a special focus on the drivers. The purpose was to describe how the nurse and physician groups understand involvement drivers for improvement work and to explain the differences in how they understand involvement. The study was conducted at 2 Swedish hospitals, and a total of 20 nurses and 10 physicians were interviewed. The theoretical framework, developed by an interpretative approach, identifies and describes a number of involvement drivers. On clustering the drivers into larger involvement factors, the study shows clear differences and profiles in terms of the 2 groups' perception and understanding of the involvement—drivers. Each group's profile was then analyzed on the basis of concept of professional culture.
Purpose – Previous research has shown that user-oriented care predicts older persons’ satisfaction with care. What is yet to be researched is how senior management facilitates the implementation of user-oriented care. The present study set out to investigate the organizing principles and management climate characterizing successful elderly care organizations.
Design – The care organization in one highly ranked municipality was selected and compared with a more average municipality. On-site semi-structured in-depth interviews with managers as well as participatory observations at managers’ meetings were conducted in both municipalities.
Findings – The results revealed three key principles for successful elderly care: 1) organizing care from the viewpoint of the older service user, 2) recruiting and training competent and autonomous employees, 3) instilling a vision for the mission which guides operations at all levels in the organization. Furthermore, using climate theory to interpret the material, in the highly successful municipality the management climate was characterized by affective support and cognitive autonomy, in contrast to a more instrumental work climate primarily focusing on organizational structure and doing things right characterizing the more average municipality.
Value – We suggest that guiding organizing principles are intertwined with management climate and that there are multiple perspectives that must be considered by the upper management, i.e., the views of the older persons, the co-workers, and the mission. The results can guide future care quality developments and increase the understanding of the importance of organizational climate at the senior management level.
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.
This industry paper reports on how strategic use of open source in company contexts can provide effective support for addressing the fundamental challenges of lock-in, interoperability, and longevity of software and associated digital assets. The fundamental challenges and an overview of an ongoing collaborative research project are presented. Through a conceptual model for open source usage in company contexts we characterise how companies engage with open source and elaborate on how the fundamental challenges can be effectively addressed through open source usage in company contexts.
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).
In this article, we discuss important aspects of the perceived problematic relationship between self-management and standardization. The article presents data from three case studies conducted within manufacturing companies in Sweden, where the popularity of lean production has led to a renaissance for short-cycle and standardized assembly work in settings that traditionally have made use of sociotechnical production design. The data suggest that the implementation has not contributed to an increased commitment, smooth operations, and capacity for change and innovation. Despite these not so positive results, it is argued that it is possible to combine self-management principles with lean production and standardization if 1) the implementation of lean is done with a contextual sensitivity, 2) a balance is reached between the use of standards on the one hand and work enrichment on the other, and 3) a feeling of ownership as regards both implementation and production process is upheld among the product on personnel.
In this paper we discuss important aspects of the perceived problematic relationship between self-management and standardization. The paper presents data from three case-studies conducted within manufacturing companies in Sweden, where the popularity of lean production has led to a renaissance for short-cycle and standardized assembly work in settings that traditionally have made use of socio-technical production design. The main argument of the paper is that it is possible to combine self-management principles with lean production and standardization if 1) the implementation of lean is done with a contextual sensitivity, 2) if a balance is reached between the use of detailed standards on one hand and work enrichment on the other and 3) if a feeling of ownership as regards both implementation and production process is upheld among the production personnel. This in turn can be achieved if the pre-occupation with kaizen (continuous improvement) is supplemented with the implementation of the concept of heijunka (well-balanced production).
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 gives an overview of the most important studies about managerial work practices and the most important findings these studies shed on our general understanding of management as a societal phenomenon and as a field for scientific enquiry. These studies can be divided into major streams, one functionalistic and one ethnographic. Both streams identify work practices that are very different from mainstream management theory (reactive, fragmented, unsystematic, irrational, etc). While the first stream is oriented towards solutions to managers to act in a more rational manner, the second stream seeks to understand why normative management theory often is mere a rationalistic dream and a legitimizing ideology than a robust explanatory framework built on empirical results. Regardless of these limitations the chapter claims that it is possible to summarize both streams into an integrated theory about management practices that acknowledge the complexities and the multifaceted nature of management practice.
In this chapter, a general theoretical framework of the book is presented. The framework builds on various sources of literature and in particular on an organic view on economic and organizational development. Using the classical concepts of variation, selection and retention, organizational resilience is seen as the capacity of a company to over time become a selected variation in the marketplace.
Furthermore‚ the framework builds on findings from complexity theory that highlights the centrality of unforeseen events and unanticipated consequences. Such events and consequences can be both positive and negative (serendipities as well as severe challenges). The chapter ends in a new model that emphasizes the importance for a resilient organization to find an adequate balance between reliability,efficiency and change capacity.