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Based on the Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Survey 1999 in Finland (N = 2,385), this study aimed at identifying characteristics related to heavy drinking in 14‐year‐olds. The characteristics were studied for association with drinking style (abstinence, occasional drinking, recurring drinking, recurring drunkenness). Two‐thirds of the 14‐year‐olds drank alcohol; 10 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls reported recurring drunkenness. Factors showing strongest associations with increased drinking were smoking, lack of parental control and high weekly allowance. Drinking among 14‐year‐olds has developed into being a common behaviour. Early adolescent drinking seems associated with a multitude of background and lifestyle factors, all of which may be helpful in identifying drinkers, although not particularly heavy drinkers. The efforts aimed originally at identifying heavy drinkers will probably yield a rather heterogeneous group with regard to their drinking habits. However, all drinking may be considered problematic, e.g. from the legal point of view. As the factors associated with occasional drinking and heavy drinking were the same, no support can be given to the assumption that there exist any specific “risk factors” for heavy drinkingat this early age.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how factors associated with a sense of community in the workplace are connected with organizational commitment and the quality of services among frontline managers and middle managers in social and health care services in Finland.

A questionnaire designed specifically for this research was sent to 241 lower-level and middle-level managers in social and health care services in central Finland. A total of 136 managers completed the questionnaire (response rate 56 per cent). The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analyses.

The study showed that feeling a sense of belonging, mutual trust and appreciation, and open interaction among colleagues were connected to organizational commitment for frontline managers and middle managers in social and health care services in Finland. Correspondingly, an open flow of information in the organization, job meaningfulness and appreciation received from managers’ superiors were connected to the quality of services.

This study provides information on the factors that influence social and health care managers’ organizational commitment and on items connected to their experience of the quality of services.

The purpose of this study was to describe factors that support and prevent managers' work wellbeing by reviewing international studies and interviewing Finnish social- and healthcare managers.

Twenty-two studies were identified in the systematic literature search. Seven social care and healthcare managers were recruited to participate in thematic interviews. Data were analyzed by using content analysis.

Supportive and preventive factors for managers' work wellbeing were identified in the literature review, including managerial position, decision latitude, job control, social support and ethical culture at the workplace. The interviews further suggested that the supportive and preventive factors affecting social and healthcare managers' work wellbeing could be divided into five broad categories: (1) Individual factors, (2) Social factors, (3) Professional support from one's own manager, (4) Work-related factors and (5) Organizational factors.

We conducted a systematic literature search together with expert interviews to find the factors most crucial to managers' work wellbeing. These findings can assist social and healthcare organizations and policymakers to pay attention to these factors as well as in policies guiding them.

The purpose of this paper is to compare teachers' wellbeing in different types of schools (elementary, lower secondary and unified school) and to analyze how gender, type of employment, working hours and time served as a teacher affected teachers' wellbeing and perceptions of questions concerning leadership practices and work organization in school.

The holistic school wellbeing evaluation tool was used to study the wellbeing of 1,294 Finnish teachers. The questions covered four categories of wellbeing: school conditions, social relationships, means for self‐fulfillment and health status. Quantitative methodology was used for analysis.

The general picture was that teachers' wellbeing was highest in elementary schools and lowest in lower secondary schools. The wellbeing of a male teacher, a teacher who had fixed‐term employment and a teacher who worked part‐time was higher than that of a female teacher, a permanent teacher and a full‐time teacher. Single questions concerning work organization and leadership practices followed mainly the same lines. Teachers in unified schools had the lowest ratings when questions relating to obtaining help from the principal, or the possibility of receiving further education and equal treatment were asked.

More attention needs to be paid to permanent teachers employed over a long time with regards to enhancing their wellbeing. In the unifying process of schools, equal treatment, obtaining the principal's help for the teachers and the likelihood of updating education are especially important aspects.

The paper presents a theory‐based evaluation of teachers' wellbeing as well as focal points for school development both from the wellbeing and administrative points of view.

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that foster or prevent sense of belonging among frontline and middle managers in social and health-care services in Finland.

The data have been collected among social and health-care managers (n = 135; 64 per cent nursing managers) through two open-ended questions in a questionnaire concerning sense of community. The results of the open-ended questions have been analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Among managers, six categories of factors that foster sense of belonging (open interaction, effective conversation culture, support and encouragement, common values, a shared vision of the work and its objectives and structure of leadership) and five categories of factors that prevent sense of belonging (negative work atmosphere, lack of common time, structural solutions in the organization, problems that occur in the organizational level and problems related to leadership and management) have been identified.

The resulting information can be used to develop sense of belonging among managers at all levels of organization (horizontal and vertical).

Paying attention to the quantity and quality of interaction and to structural solutions in the organization can affect the sense of belonging among frontline managers and middle managers.

The purpose of this study is to examine components of good personnel management and how they come true in accounts of social and health care managers.

The data were obtained by means of a postal survey sent to middle‐line managers in positions above the first‐line management level in the responsibility area of Tampere University Hospital. The questionnaire was sent to 703 managers; 433 sent in responses indicating a response rate of 62 percent.

Middle‐line managers considered themselves as interactive, responsibility‐sharing and understanding leaders, but found shortcomings in the leadership style of their superiors. Only 18 percent of the middle‐line managers received feedback and only 42 percent received support from their superiors when needed. There were significant differences between genders, activity sectors and professional backgrounds in the responders' accounts concerning personnel management practices.

The results of this study reliably describe how middle‐line managers consider things to be, not necessarily how things are in reality.

The findings confirm the assumption that the importance of personnel management is still not perfectly understood in the upper management levels of the social and health care sector. At the same time the self‐evaluations of middle‐line managers implied an ambition towards better personnel management.

This study identifies components of good personnel management from literature and uses them as the basis for analysing the data.

The background reports covering the ongoing reforms in Finnish social service and health care noted that people managing in this field were presented with certain challenges. These included such human resource management challenges as support for the implementation of new work practices, employee commitment, motivation and maintaining wellbeing at work. The purpose of this paper, as part of investigating some of these human resource challenges, is to investigate the occurrence of shared leadership among middle‐level managers in social service and health care, based on self‐evaluations of the managers' own leadership.

Questionnaires were sent to 703 middle‐level managers (managers above first‐line management level) in social service and health care in municipalities and municipal federations within the area of responsibility of a university hospital. There were 433 responses indicating a response rate of 62 per cent. The data from the questionnaires were assessed using quantitative methods in the form of distributions, cross‐tabulations and regression analysis.

Shared leadership was mainly practised by those female managers without a medical doctor's professional background in large organizations of primary health care and social service administration. There was no connection between a manager's age and work experience and the occurrence of shared leadership practices.

As evaluated by middle‐level managers, the social service and health care organizations under survey contained the seeds of change, ranging from individual leadership to shared leadership. Such change may promote innovation, work motivation and the readiness for development among employees.

This study explored the little researched phenomenon of shared leadership and its occurrence among middle‐level managers in Finnish social and health care.

The aim of this paper is to examine leadership styles among middle‐level managers in social and health care using the leadership role definitions developed by Robert Quinn et al..

The data were obtained by means of a postal survey sent to middle‐line managers in social and health care services in municipalities and municipal federations within the responsibility area of one university hospital in Finland. The survey was sent to 703 managers, the response rate was 62 percent. Leadership styles differences were measured according to gender, professional background, activity sector, age, work experience and unit size. To determine statistical significance, t‐test was used.

Leadership roles of middle‐level managers were evenly distributed on a relatively high level. Statistically significant differences found in leadership styles were related to gender, professional background, activity sector and unit size. Leadership styles stressed intra‐organizational activities, while extra‐organizational roles received less attention.

Using Quinn's model to describe leadership roles provides one view of the type of leadership style adopted by social and health care managers in a situation involving several ongoing reforms including those addressing management practices. Previously, Quinn's model has been widely employed to depict leadership roles in business management but rarely to model management in social and health care as in this paper.

School is an institution that provides an opportunity to improve children’s equity and wellbeing and to bridge the potential disadvantage related to ethnic- or language-minority backgrounds. Information sharing between immigrant homes and school can enhance school achievement, support positive identity formation and provide early support when needed. In this paper, the perspectives of immigrant parents, school welfare personnel and school-going adolescents are analysed in order to understand how they see their respective roles in information flows between home and school. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The data consist of qualitative group and individual interviews of 34 representatives of school personnel, 13 immigrant parents and 81 young people who have experienced immigration, in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland.

Despite general goodwill, school personnel may fail to secure the flow of information. Due to structural power imbalance, school personnel are often incapable of engaging the parents in dialogical discourse. Young people of immigrant background in turn try to manipulate the information flow in order to protect their family and ethnic group and to cope with pressures from parents. The patterns of information flows in school as a social field reproduce immigrant homes as subaltern. Adolescents act in a strategically important juncture of information flows between immigrant home and school, which indicates that home-school interaction is actually a triad.

Awareness building among school personnel is vital for equity and wellbeing of children of immigrant families.

This triangulated analysis of patterned information flows in school as a social field provides a fresh perspective to those working with children of immigrant families.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the factors associated with sense of community at work are connected with job satisfaction among the front-line managers and middle managers in social and health-care services in Finland.

A questionnaire prepared for this study was sent to 241 social and health-care managers (front line and middle managers) in Finland. A total of 136 of managers responded to the survey (response rate was 56 per cent). Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.

Alongside job meaningfulness, open communication and good flow of information within the organization, sense of security provided by close relationships at work and managers’ own superiors’ appreciation of their leadership skills all are related to managers’ job satisfaction.

The study adds to our understanding of factors which are connected to the job satisfaction among social and health-care managers’. The findings of this study can be used in the development of leadership to support managers in coping at work.