Charlotta Levay

Policies to foster quality improvement registries: lessons from the Swedish case

Multi‐institutional quality improvement registries (QI registries) are a promising approach to quality improvement. They are also used for clinical research, public quality reporting and other valuable purposes. The aim of this study was to identify elements and outcomes of national policies to promote registries in Sweden and to compare them with recent policies in the USA.

Obesity in organizational context

This article argues that obesity is an overlooked topic that deserves to be investigated in organizational studies, in line with the recent interest in embodiment. Obesity plays a pervasive role in everyday organizational life as a source of discrimination, legitimization of power differentials and widespread anxiety even for the non-obese. Obesity is also a thoroughly organized phenomenon. It is increasingly construed as a medical and societal problem and the target of massive efforts to curb the ‘obesity epidemic’. These include workplace health initiatives that offer opportunities for empirical access to otherwise elusive phenomena related to obesity. To substantiate its claims, the article relates research from several fields, notably critical obesity research and empirical studies of embodiment in organizations. It points at intriguing combinations of ubiquitous social influence and failed campaigns, of subjugation and resistance, and of prejudice and critical reflection. Finally, the article indicates directions for future research, which could fruitfully apply and further develop the late-Foucauldian themes of governmentality and technologies of the self.

The interplay of text, meaning and practice: methodological considerations on discourse analysis in medical education

The study of discourses (i.e. verbal interactions or written accounts) is increasingly used in social sciences to gain insight into issues connected to discourse, such as meanings, behaviours and actions. This paper situates discourse analysis in medical education, based on a framework developed in organisational discourse analysis and widely deployed in other social science disciplines.