Sanna Laulainen

Powerless positions, silenced voices? – critical views on health and social care management

PURPOSE The purpose of this paper is to provide background to this special issue and consider how critically oriented research can be applied to health and social care management. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Basic principles of critical management studies are introduced briefly to frame subsequent papers in this issue. FINDINGS In order to identify the wicked problems and darker sides of the care field, there is a need to study things in alternative ways through critical lenses. Giving a voice to those in less powerful positions may result in redefinition and redesign of conventional roles and agency of patients, volunteers and professionals and call into question the taken-for-granted understanding of health and social care management. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The special issue as a whole was designed to enhance critical approaches to the discussion in the field of health and social care. This editorial hopefully raises awareness of CMS and serves as an opening for further discussion on critical views in the research on management and organization in this field.

Manager’s dance: reflecting management interaction through creative movement

In management and organisation theory and practice, management is conventionally considered to be a rational and cognitive issue ignoring the bodies and emotions of managers. This experimental study aims to find out whether a method based on harnessing the whole corporeal body of a participant may elicit, express and create new and different kinds of knowledge about interaction embedded in management. Four managers and three researchers participated in two creative dance sessions with a dance pedagogue. The sessions were videotaped, and the visual material and reflections of participants were used in the interpretation. The use of creative movement ‘revealed’ unconscious dimensions of behaviour and the relevance of feelings in management interaction. In addition, the therapeutic outcomes appeared to be an essential part of the study for the participants.