Thomas Andersson

When Complexity Meets Culture: New Public Management and the Swedish Police

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.

Normative identity processes in managers' personal development training

Purpose – The article aims to analyze how personal development training influences managers’ identity processes.Design/methodology/approach – The article, taking an interpretive-critical approach, ...

Struggles of managerial being and becoming : Experiences from managers' personal development training

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the struggles of managerial identity in relation to the process of becoming/being a manager, and the personal conflicts involved within this pr ...

The medical leadership challenge in healthcare is an identity challenge

PURPOSE The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the identity challenges that physicians with medical leadership positions face. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Four qualitative case studies were performed to address the fact that identity is processual, relational and situational. Physicians with managerial roles were interviewed, as well as their peers, supervisors and subordinates. Furthermore, observations were made to understand how different identities are displayed in action. FINDINGS This study illustrates that medical leadership implies identity struggles when physicians have manager positions, because of the different characteristics of the social identities of managers and physicians. Major differences are related between physicians as autonomous individuals in a system and managers as subordinates to the organizational system. There are psychological mechanisms that evoke the physician identity more often than the managerial identity among physicians who are managers, which explains why physicians who are managers tend to remain foremost physicians. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS The implications of the findings, that there are major identity challenges by being both a physician and manager, suggest that managerial physicians might not be the best prerequisite for medical leadership, but instead, cooperative relationships between physicians and non-physician managers might be a less difficult way to support medical leadership. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Acknowledging and addressing identity challenges can be important both in creating structures in organizations and designing the training for managers in healthcare (both physicians and non-physicians) to support medical leadership. ORIGINALITY/VALUE Medical leadership is most often related to organizational structure and/or leadership skills, but this paper discusses identity requirements and challenges related to medical leadership.

Managing retail chain profitability based on local competitive conditions: preliminary analysis

Abstract:Purpose – The purpose of this study is to describe the determinants of profitability in terms of the strategic profitability model (the Du Pont model), depicting the “route” to high profit ...

Multiprofessional Cooperation and Accountability Pressures

Abstract This article examines how multiprofessional healthcare teams, working as a post-New Public Management (post-NPM) reform, respond to accountability pressure resulting from the implementation of NPM reforms. The team members use three strategies to respond to this pressure: responsibility avoiding that results in conflict; responsibility ignoring that results in parallel work and responsibility sharing that results in cooperation. Depending on how the professionals respond to different contextual factors, the choice of strategies can either foster or inhibit cooperation in multiprofessional teams. Achieving holistic patient care is threatened when accountability pressure increases for teams that have not yet developed their internal routines of cooperation.

From Northern Europe to Russia and Asia, and vice versa: traffic flow analysis - current situation and development trends

European manufacturers have enlarged their manufacturing networks to Asia. Also, the growing demand in Asia as well as in Russia creates challenge for supply chain solutions. This research presents survey research results, targeted on the largest manufacturers and retailers in Finland and Sweden. We estimate how transportation modal split (road, sea, railway and air) will evolve in the future, and how traffic flows will develop between Europe, Russia, and Asian countries. We also present an estimation of the future transportation costs development. In the analysis phase, it is also considered how large volumes could be shifted to favour railway connection.

Does patient‐centred care mean risk aversion and risk ignoring?: Unintended consequences of NPM reforms

Purpose – This article aims to describe and analyze the results of efforts to improve patient-centered care (PCC) in psychiatric healthcare.Design/methodology/approach – Using the methodology of a ...

Healthcare quality improvement work: a professional employee perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze conditions that influence how employees engage in healthcare quality improvement (QI) work. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative case study based on interviews ( n=27) and observations ( n=10). Findings The main conditions that influence how employees engage in healthcare QI work are professions, work structures and working relationships. These conditions can both prevent and facilitate healthcare QI. Professions and work structures may cement existing institutional logics and thus prevent employees from engaging in healthcare QI work. However, attempts to align QI with professional logics, together with work structures that empower employees, can make these conditions increase employee engagement, which can be accomplished through positive working relationships that foster institutional work, which bridge different competing institutional logics, making it possible to overcome barriers that professions and work structures may constitute. Practical implications Understanding the conditions that influence how employees engage in healthcare QI work will make initiatives more likely to succeed. Originality/value Healthcare QI has mainly been studied from an implementer perspective, and employees have either been neglected or seen as passive resisters. Weak employee perspectives make healthcare QI research incomplete. In our research, healthcare QI work is studied closely at the actor level to understand healthcare QI from an employee perspective.

Followership: An Important Social Resource for Organizational Resilience

This chapter concerns the importance of social resources in general and constructive followership in particular as prerequisites for organizational resilience. Based on a longitudinal case study of a subcontractor in the automotive industry, the chapter describes how organizational resilience can be created based on the engagement by workers resulting from distributed leadership and the development of followership. The spirit of the company supported community and constructive relationships within the organizations and toward other actors. The key contribution is that social resources are important for creating organizational resilience, which is of particular importance in industries with an emphasis on “hard” competitive advantages as products and technology.