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1 – 10 of 10Bengt Gustavsson and Harald S. Harung
Previous research suggests that there are a number of distinct stages ofpsychological development of an individual, and that the level ofdevelopment has a direct bearing on a…
Abstract
Previous research suggests that there are a number of distinct stages of psychological development of an individual, and that the level of development has a direct bearing on a person′s perception of reality and his ability to perform – professionally and socially. Since organizations consist of people, it can be expected that there will be similar phases of organizational development, and that this level of collective consciousness determines the quality of life and level of performance of an organization. Traditionally, it has been questionable whether or not a significant individual or organizational development can be achieved in practice. Gives evidence that it is possible to operationalize the transformation of both individual and collective consciousness, using appropriate mental techniques in order to satisfy the very purpose of organizational learning: the capacity for continued growth.
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Lars-Johan Åge and Bengt Gustavsson
The purpose of this study is to conceptualize and analyse novice researchers experiences of the Glaserian grounded theory methodology.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to conceptualize and analyse novice researchers experiences of the Glaserian grounded theory methodology.
Design/methodology/approach
The gorunded theory analytical procedures were applied.
Findings
The paper suggests that the creative freedom inherited in the Glaserian grounded theory approach empowers novice researchers, and many students reported positive emotions related to this freedom. At the same time, this freedom can represent a difficulty. Several students thought the tabula rasa instruction was something of a paradox, and the instructions within the methodology to “be without preconceptions”, “let the theory emerge”, and “find the social process” was difficult for most students to understand. However, some students found that they could counteract this difficulty via a systematic coding process and by working in pairs that enabled them to conduct an analytical dialogue.
Originality/value
This is the first study that investigates the way that novice researchers experience the Glaserian grounded theory methodology.
Epistemology of organizations denotes how we can gain knowledge of organizations. A critical, postmodernistic analysis suggests that the only knowledge we can gain from our…
Abstract
Epistemology of organizations denotes how we can gain knowledge of organizations. A critical, postmodernistic analysis suggests that the only knowledge we can gain from our traditional concepts of organization is emptiness. A proposed solution is to increase the understanding of individual and group consciousness. Individual consciousness is categorized in materialistic, dualistic and transcendent views, and group consciousness in interactive – defined in terms of its content and dependence on spatial and symbolic interaction – and collective, dependent on a subliminal transcendent consciousness. The last category is further divided into logically deduced and experiential sub‐categories. It is argued that the present understanding of organizations is based on interactive consciousness and needs to move beyond that level in order to progress. An alternative transcendent epistemology of organizations is introduced, based on transcendent experience, and a model of organization based on the transcendent epistemology is suggested. This model features a transcendent transition – transcition – as a basis for organizational change, and two cases are analyzed. It is concluded that a new paradigm based on a new science of consciousness is needed in order to do justice to the vast potential of human consciousness.
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Bengt Gustavsson and Lars-Johan Åge
This study aims to formulate recommendations for business-to-business (B2B) researchers, with the potential to increase the extent to which B2B research is relevant to managers…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to formulate recommendations for business-to-business (B2B) researchers, with the potential to increase the extent to which B2B research is relevant to managers.
Design/methodology/approach
These recommendations are derived from and inspired by the grounded theory methodology.
Findings
In this article, we argue that conceptualizations which are potentially relevant to managers are those that discover new perspectives, simplify complexity, enable managers to take action and have an instant grab. To accomplish this as researchers, the authors emphasize fostering a beginner’s mind, creating umbrella models, increasing the level of abstraction of concepts and finding the core process in data.
Originality/value
In this article, we translate the basic principles within the grounded theory methodology into more general recommendations that can be used by B2B researchers.
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Åsa Wreder, Maria Gustavsson and Bengt Klefsjö
The purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe how a large organization has successfully worked to achieve sustainable health; compare the work of the large organization with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe how a large organization has successfully worked to achieve sustainable health; compare the work of the large organization with methodologies used by smaller successful organizations; and then to create a model for how managers of larger organizations can work to create sustainable health.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data were gathered through interviews with managers at different organizational levels and workshops with employees, within a case study in a large bank which received the award “Sweden's best workplace”. The data were also compared to results from earlier case studies of three smaller organizations that have received the same award.
Findings
The results of the studies show coinciding results as to the importance of management commitment and methodologies, such as employee involvement, delegation, goal deployment and coaching, to create a health‐promoting work environment. This indicates that larger organizations do not need any specific methodologies.
Practical implications
Based on the experiences from four successful organizations, managers should mainly consider doing the following: start measuring and evaluating the consequences of sickness absence in their organization; and adopt a management strategy based on humanistic core values that are supported by methodologies and tools.
Originality/value
The paper adds understanding about how managers of large organizations could work practically to overcome management problems in today's working life and support the work and organizational factors earlier described in the literature to create a health‐promoting work environment that stimulates the development of sustainable health.
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Organizations use innovations and respond to external pressures, creating a transition to the sociotechnical system. In their transitions, they interact with the environment and…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizations use innovations and respond to external pressures, creating a transition to the sociotechnical system. In their transitions, they interact with the environment and undergo adaptation-selection. The extant literature used a multilevel perspective (MLP) with a structural view and examined dynamics and transitions (phenomena) in a noninterventionistic setting. This study aims to examine the dynamics and phenomena with a microstructural or functional view and expand the MLP; this paper uses neo-institutionalism and human values as part of the functional view. Moreover, when the authors examine the phenomena in an interventionistic setting, they can obtain certain unique dynamics and their influence on the phenomena.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors need to examine the phenomena in its setting, so this paper selected a case study, Indian electricity generation. For diverse heuristic and analytic views, it selected two Indian states.
Findings
The findings from the functional view showed that organizations exhibit certain traits of neo-institutionalism and human values, which mediate their responses (behavior) to external pressures. Additionally, due to the interventionist state, their dynamics use shaping instead of selection logic for innovations, which decides the transition pathway selection (technology adoption). It further decided the extent to which innovations cumulate as stable designs. As a result, the responses and the transition provide benefits in the short term while invariably failing in the long term.
Research limitations/implications
By selecting cases with higher investments in renewable energies and combustible fuels, the authors can expand the functional view to include user typologies such as producers, intermediaries and citizen groups and obtain further insights into transitions.
Practical implications
The study highlights the generation dynamics specific to Indian electricity generation and its transition pathways. The study’s outcome provides insights to researchers and practitioners in formulating policy changes and transforming electricity generation.
Originality/value
The study uses a functional view comprising neo-institutionalism and human values and expands the sociotechnical transition theory. In addition, selecting an interventionist setting provided insights into dynamics specific to organizational behavior and associated services. Finally, the obtained insights offer suggestions for technology development to better manage transitions with adaptation-selection.
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Karin Schön, Bjarne Bergquist and Bengt Klefsjö
The purpose of this paper is to present a study of how Six Sigma influences job satisfaction among employees at three large companies with manufacturing units in Sweden that have…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a study of how Six Sigma influences job satisfaction among employees at three large companies with manufacturing units in Sweden that have used different implementation strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was performed using a survey distributed to those affected by the implementation at the three company sites, including those not directly involved in any Six Sigma activities.
Findings
Employees participating in Six Sigma feel positive changes in many aspects of job satisfaction. The Black Belts (BBs) felt, on the average, positive changes in almost all the tested areas. The largest changes are related to personal and new skill development, influence on work duties and enjoying the work. BBs also feel more recognition from management. Employees not involved in the Six Sigma projects do, on average, also feel positively influenced by Six Sigma, but the tendency is not as clear.
Research limitations/implications
The results constitute a platform for further studies on the relation between Six Sigma applications and job satisfaction due to the different approaches used in the three studied plants.
Practical implications
The positive results should help alleviate concerns of job satisfaction due to implementation of Six Sigma.
Originality/value
The paper fills a knowledge gap concerning the effect of Six Sigma on employees' well being and job satisfaction.
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Marco António Ferreira Rodrigues Nogueira dos Santos, Hans Tygesen, Henrik Eriksson and Johan Herlitz
Despite their efficacy, some recommended therapies are underused. The purpose of this paper is to describe clinical decision support system (CDSS) development and its impact on…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite their efficacy, some recommended therapies are underused. The purpose of this paper is to describe clinical decision support system (CDSS) development and its impact on clinical guideline adherence.
Design/methodology/approach
A new CDSS was developed and introduced in a cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) in 2003, which provided physicians with patient-tailored reminders and permitted data export from electronic patient records into a national quality registry. To evaluate CDSS effects in the CICU, process indicators were compared to a control group using registry data. All CICUs were in the same region and only patients with acute coronary syndrome were included.
Findings
CDSS introduction was associated with increases in guideline adherence, which ranged from 16 to 35 per cent, depending on the therapy. Statistically significant associations between guideline adherence and CDSS use remained over the five-year period after its introduction. During the same period, no relapses occurred in the intervention CICU.
Practical implications
Guideline adherence and healthcare quality can be enhanced using CDSS. This study suggests that practitioners should turn to CDSS to improve healthcare quality.
Originality/value
This paper describes and evaluates an intervention that successfully increased guideline adherence, which improved healthcare quality when the intervention CICU was compared to the control group.
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This paper seeks to advance research into entrepreneurial uncertainty. Few researchers have attended to the endogenous means by which entrepreneurial teams account for uncertainty…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to advance research into entrepreneurial uncertainty. Few researchers have attended to the endogenous means by which entrepreneurial teams account for uncertainty in context. This article begins to unpack the concept of uncertainty as an entrepreneurs’ phenomenon by investigating entrepreneurial teams’ situated ways of verbally attending to and accounting for uncertainty in their routine work.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on the ethnomethodological traditions of Conversation Analysis and interaction order to analyze naturally occurring interactions that have been recorded by entrepreneurial teams in context. It considers entrepreneurial uncertainty as a matter that teammates draw upon and orient to in the process of their naturally occurring workplace interactions.
Findings
First, it suggests that the endogenous means by which entrepreneurs recognize, account for, and respond to uncertainties is identifiable in a team’s naturally occurring conversations. It transforms entrepreneurial uncertainty as a matter of cognition into a matter of practice that is observable in the structure and order of authentic interaction. Second, it reveals the “epistemic engine” that entrepreneurial teams use to demonstrate greater or lesser levels of knowing and to move to closure that is not marked by the full elimination of uncertainties but by the establishment of a shared sense of not knowing.
Practical implications
By adhering to the detailed interactional focus of Conversation Analysis, this article emphasizes the value that the structure and order of entrepreneurial conversations can offer to research on entrepreneurship as practice. It points to future research on matters of effectuation and expertise that will be relevant to scholars and educators of entrepreneurship. It also helps to bridge the gap between scholarly research and entrepreneurial work as experienced by practitioners.
Originality/value
This article shows the mundane verbal means by which entrepreneurs account for uncertainties in their everyday work. It reframes entrepreneurial uncertainty, transforming it from a matter of cognition to an accomplishment of practice. It suggests that entrepreneurial uncertainty is a practical matter that is recognized by and accounted for in the conversations of entrepreneurial teams in context.
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