Frode Heldal

Success on the Internet-optimizing relationships through the corporate site

Efficient communications are necessary to maintain and build sustainable customer relationships. This paper shows how the communications can be optimized through the corporate site. The authors discuss three fields of knowledge-usability, human computer interaction (HCI) and branding-and demonstrate how each field alone is insufficient but taken together they can enlighten all perspectives of communication through the Internet. By measuring the relationships between user (customer) and site (firm), they show how usability, cultural background and group affiliation influence general perception. Based on these findings, the authors have developed a model, which incorporates usability, HCI and branding, to offer optimal communication through the corporate site.

Multidisciplinary collaboration as a loosely coupled system: Integrating and blocking professional boundaries with objects

In this paper, the concept of loosely coupled systems is applied to describe multidisciplinary collaboration in healthcare. It is further argued that tools employed in collaborative activities may be regarded as object components of such a system. Drawing on observational studies and interviews of a group of health professionals from different disciplines collaborating on breast cancer, it is argued that differences in use of such objects may either inhibit or encourage cross-boundary collaboration. This effect is influenced by how the meanings of these objects vary between participants in the collaborative interaction. Meaning variation allows for more integration across boundaries, while meaning immutability may block the same boundaries. This finding is important for multidisciplinary contexts, adding new knowledge to the important quest for integrating relationships across professional boundaries.

Team Leadership in a High-Risk Organization The Role of Contextual Factors

Some small groups perform their tasks in high-risk settings, where team leadership is crucial for the ability to deal with danger. However, we still know little about how the high-risk context may affect this ability. In this article, we draw on a single-case study to investigate team leadership in a high-risk organization. Present theories depict a rather static view on team context, which we argue do not comply with the complexity and dynamic environment of a high-risk organization. We show that in such an environment contextual factors can be of great importance to the internal dynamics of small groups at a different level and matter than previously thought. We argue that effective team leadership hinges upon how team leaders interpret and make sense of contextual factors. We believe that viewing team leadership in this light will contribute to a new understanding of the small group in relation to its surroundings.

Norwegian healthcare professionals' perceptions of patient knowledge and involvement as basis for decision making in hematology.

This thesis is about how health professionals at hospitals collaborate across professional boundaries. Societal and political reforms demand for more transparency and efficiency in health care work, yet history tells us that the professional practitioner resists external accounting. They are not used to open up their professional boundaries for neither insight nor outsight, and too much pressure may risk to strengthen the boundary instead of soften it. Due to the rising complexity in many of these services, there is a growing attention towards how management and patients can account the professionals’ work. This is often combined with the notion that teams comprised of different professions have a great potential in terms of efficiency. Due to these two aspiring developments – claims of interdisciplinarity and accountability – health professionals need to work with an outwardly rather than inwardly focus. In other words, health professionals need to construct, build and sustain relations and relationships that extend across their professional boundaries. In this thesis, I pursue the empirical quest of how health professionals do this by employing contributions from two theoretical strands. The first strand is that of team/group development and social relationships. I elaborate here on the meaning of sociality and different models of integration in a relationship. The other strand I draw upon insights from, is Science and Technology Studies; and in particular the notion of objects as mediators of social relationships. The concept of boundary object is elaborated upon and argued to be an important asset in cross-boundary collaboration. Drawing on this theoretical elaboration, added with findings from the papers, I introduce the concept of cross-boundary relationships. A cross-boundary relationship is a relationship that is tightly integrated across the professional boundary. The cross-boundary relationship emerges when health professionals are able to see interactions across the boundary as meaningful, mutually influence and share decisions across the boundary, and finally interpret the boundary itself as an implicit part of the relationship. Boundary objects and social relationships are argued to be an important part of this becoming. The main contribution of this thesis is to show how health professionals can collaborate cohesively across their professional boundaries. Previous research tend to focus on the work professionals exert to upheld their boundaries, or merely describe interprofessional collaboration at a conceptual level. I show the value in focusing on cross-boundary collaboration rather than boundary work, and model how such collaboration in a practical setting may look like. The concept of crossboundary relationship encompasses this idea.

Using Body Sounds as a Coaching Tool to Promote Individual Growth in Brazil

This chapter investigates the potential for using arts-based methods in coaching, more specifically the use of body sounds and body conscience related to music. We will build on a coaching case in Brazil to develop and explain a perspective on coaching based on body stimuli rather than the traditional coaching based on conversation. Final reflections point to (i) identity and sociality development in relation to coaching and (ii) the potential of body percussion interventions in coaching and mentoring to achieve joint learning and development. We argue that this may help practitioners to better integrate ludic, artistic, and physical perspectives of their life and work, therefore acquiring new responsive and more open perspectives. We argue that body sounds may be a fruitful amendment to traditional coaching, but with the attention to the method being adjusted to differences in open-mindedness.

Learning Entrepreneurship by Hand Clapping: ABM in use in Entrepreneurship Education

This chapter presents a new way of teaching entrepreneurship, by the way of arts-based methods. It involves an exercise consisting of making a song in teams based solely on body sounds, to elicit reflections, discussions and experiences related to the entrepreneurial contention of explore vs. exploit. The exercise has been performed several times in both Norway and Brazil, and we show here some preliminary results with regard to student and teacher experiences. The results indicate that students learn important points related to explore vs. exploit, in a different way than normal classroom settings may offer. Results also indicate that the exercise offers a kind of learning that may be deeper and more extensive, however, with some challenges related to the translation of physical experiences to theoretical categories. Finally, results indicate that the exercise transcends cultural barriers. Although with some need for local adaptation, both nationalities acknowledged and appreciated the exercise as fun and influential, as a different way of learning through discovering and using their own body.

Abstract book - 9th NOVO Symposium, Quality in health care

book 9th NOVO Symposium, Quality in health care DTU Orbit (10/11/2019) Abstract book 9th NOVO Symposium, Quality in health careConclusions: • Both the ErgoVSM and VSM tools seem mostly to result in intervention proposals causing improved or no change in the work environment without impaired performance. • Based on Swedish data only the use of ErgoVSM may result in some improvement of the work environment compared with VSM. Such an effect is weakly supported by the Icelandic data and not by the Danish data. Thus, only under some conditions the ErgoVSM tool may be used in favour of the VSM tool. • Most proposals were assessed to cause ergonomic improvements at system level (‘job content’ and ‘work situation’). This is in contrast to intervention proposals investigated in the ergonomic intervention literature mainly focusing task level and the individual (cf. Westgaard and Winkel, 2011).