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Drawing on the organizational psychology literature and social resource theory, this research aimed to investigate how attitude toward the employer (i.e. loyalty) and attitude toward the client (i.e. approach to work: professional, market-oriented and person-centered) relate to the perceived importance of socio-emotional resources in providing care to older people.

Swedish frontline care staff members participated in an electronic survey using a cross-sectional design. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine proposed direct and indirect effects of loyalty on the perceived importance of socio-emotional resources in care through three different approaches to work in care settings.

In general, the results confirmed the hypotheses. Thus, the analyses showed a positive association between employee loyalty and the perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care, which was partially mediated by the person-centered and professional approaches to work. Moreover, the analyses showed that the person-centered approach was more strongly related to the perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care than the other two approaches, lending support to the superiority of the person-centered approach in this context.

The study highlights that there exist multiple approaches to work in care settings. Also, the insights about how loyalty toward the employer relates to approach to work in care settings and the perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care are novel and of crucial importance to practitioners and the outcomes of care.

The purpose of this paper is to describe three different approaches to work in elderly care (i.e. professional, market-oriented and person-centred) and examine whether these theoretically derived approaches can be confirmed empirically. Additional aims were to examine the endorsement of these approaches and whether there were differences in the endorsement of these approaches in nursing home vs home care and municipality vs privately run care units.

Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey study of frontline care staff (n=1,342). Exploratory factor analysis was used to investigate the empirical validity of the proposed approaches to work in elderly care. A series of paired and independent samples t-tests were conducted to analyse mean differences between the proposed approaches to work.

A principal axis factoring analysis yielded three theoretically meaningful factors as proposed. These results indicated that the respondents were able to differentiate between three distinct but related approaches to work with older persons. The results also showed that the professional care approach was the highest endorsed and the market-oriented the lowest endorsed approach. No notable differences in approaches to work were observed in nursing home vs home care and municipality vs privately run care units.

This is the first study to examine multiple approaches to work in elderly care as previous research studies mainly have investigated the person-centred care approach. Current findings indicate that these approaches to work often coexist in various combinations and that the care staff adopts all these approaches but to varying degrees. The approaches differ in several important respects (e.g. legitimacy and view of the older person) and most likely affect the way care staff treats the older person and how the older person perceives their relationship with the care staff. Knowledge about these differences facilitates management of the care staff’s work situation and helps to improve the quality of care.

This study aims to think critically about collaborative working through the practical application of an ethics of care approach. The authors address the following research questions: How can the authors embed an ethics of care into academic collaboration? What are the benefits and challenges of this kind of collaborative approach? The contextual focus also incorporates a collective sense making of academic identities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors focus on the activities of the “Consumer Research with Impact for Society” collective at and around the 2021 Academy of Marketing conference. The authors draw on the insights and labour of the group in terms of individual and collaborative reflexivity, workshops and the development of a collaborative poem.

First, the authors present the “web of words” as the adopted approach to collaborative writing. Second, the authors consider the broader takeaways that have emerged from the collaboration in relation to blurring of boundaries, care in collaboration and transformations.

The overarching contribution of the paper is to introduce an Ethics of Collective Academic Care. The authors discuss three further contributions that emerged as central in its operationalisation: arts-based research, tensions and conflicts and structural issues. The application of the “web of words” approach also offers a template for an alternative means of engaging with, and representing, those involved in the research.

Health-care delivery organizations (hospitals) constitute a complex adaptive system; hence, a contingency perspective is imperative to guide the design of customized approaches to quality management in different health-care settings. Accordingly, this paper aims to propose a contingency framework to advance the understanding of the relationship between situational factors and effectiveness of quality approaches in health-care organizations (HCOs), such as hospitals in India.

Related literature was reviewed to identify existing research and theories related to quality and quality approaches, situational factors of the HCOs (hospitals) and some existing logical evidence on public and private hospitals in India. Then a contingencies framework for quality and quality approaches was conceptualized.

This paper proposes contingent determinants arise out of conceptualization of the HCOs (hospitals) from different system perspective such as rational system, natural system, open system and integrative system; uncertainty because of physicians’ behaviour, nurses’ approach and a dual line of authority; and the task environment such as patients, competition and economic pressure. These determinants represent situational constructs to the quality enhancement of any attempt at quality approaches. While these determinants have an influence on the quality and quality approaches of the HCOs (hospital), it is imperative to build any quality improvement strategy to work effectively, i.e., quality approach is dependent on determinants of the contingencies of the hospital’s environment, be it external or internal. Propositions for future research are also incorporated.

This paper proposes a conceptual model as well as research propositions that need to be validated and confirmed empirically. It advances the research and theory related to quality and quality approaches in a health-care setting. It can enable policymakers, hospital managers to analyze and gauge the appropriateness of quality approaches in a given context before implementing them and could help to improve the introverted quality approaches and quality dimensions currently followed in HCOs (hospitals).

Contingency framework is a new approach for research on the effectiveness of quality approaches in hospitals. The fundamental idea behind this framework is that effectiveness of quality approaches can be understood best by examining its contingent determinants. Thus, it has the capacity to contribute to the efforts of government and policymakers to make the quality of care affordable to all in India. Essentially, we examine the contexts and variables that determine the effectiveness of quality approaches.

The future increase of chronic diseases in the world requires new challenges in the health domain to improve patients' care from the point of view of the organizational processes, clinical pathways and technological solutions of digital health. For this reason, the present paper aims to focus on the study and application of well-known clinical practices and efficient organizational approaches through an innovative model (TALIsMAn) to support new care process redesign and digitalization for chronic patients.

In addition to specific clinical models employed to manage chronic conditions such as the Population Health Management and Chronic Care Model, we introduce a Business Process Management methodology implementation supported by a set of e-health technologies, in order to manage Care Pathways (CPs) digitalization and procedures improvement.

This study shows that telemedicine services with advanced devices and technologies are not enough to provide significant changes in the healthcare sector if other key aspects such as health processes, organizational systems, interactions between actors and responsibilities are not considered and improved. Therefore, new clinical models and organizational approaches are necessary together with a deep technological change, otherwise, theoretical benefits given by telemedicine services, which often employ advanced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and devices, may not be translated into effective enhancements. They are obtained not only through the implementation of single telemedicine services, but integrating them in a wider digital ecosystem, where clinicians are supported in different clinical steps they have to perform.

The present work defines a novel methodological framework based on organizational, clinical and technological innovation, in order to redesign the territorial care for people with chronic diseases. This innovative ecosystem applied in the Italian research project TALIsMAn is based on the concept of a continuum of care and digitalization of CPs supported by Business Process Management System and telemedicine services. The main goal is to organize the different socio-medical activities in a unique and integrated IT system that should be sustainable, scalable and replicable.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize findings from health care research with those in service research to identify key conceptualizations of the changing role of the health care customer, to identify gaps in theory, and to propose a compelling research agenda.

This study combines a meta-narrative review of health care research, and a systematic review of service research, using thematic analysis to identify key practice approaches and the changing role of the health care customer.

The review reveals different conceptualizations of the customer role within the ten key practice approaches, and identifies an increased activation of the role of the health care customer over time. This change implies a re-orientation, that is, moving away from the health care professional setting the agenda, prescribing and delivering treatment where the customer merely complies with orders, to the customer actively contributing and co-creating value with service providers and other actors in the ecosystem to the extent the health care customer desires.

This study not only identifies key practice approaches by synthesizing findings from health care research with those in service research, it also identifies how the role of the health care customer is changing and highlights effects of the changing role across the practice approaches. A research agenda to guide future health care service research is also provided.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from qualitative interviews with physiotherapists to demonstrate why even minor changes to clinical work resulting from the introduction of new interventions, are often difficult to implement. The paper seeks to illustrate how some of the obstacles to implementing change were managed by physiotherapists.

A total of 32 qualitative interviews with participating physiotherapists were conducted, 12 interviews prior to the introduction of the new system, and 20 afterwards. The interviews were coded and analysed thematically.

The findings reveal a number of perceived limitations of current management of low back pain and identify key themes around convergence with the new approach, such as willingness by physiotherapists to adopt the new approach, the perception of benefits to adopting the new approach, as well as some difficulty in adjusting to it. The authors refer to the positive and negative elements as “soft” and “hard” disruption. The adoption of the new approach is explored with reference to the “situated” dimensions of physiotherapy practice and normalisation process theory.

The study raises the need to conduct future observational research to support the interview findings.

The study describes the “situated” components of physiotherapy work, which have received limited research attention. The value of the study lies less in its ability to explain specifically why physiotherapists adopted or rejected the new system, but in describing the conditions and consequences of change that might be translated to other professions, contexts and interventions.

This study aims at presenting a normative approach in adaptation of the ethics of care approach and stakeholder theory. Therefore, it seeks to present a point‐of‐view regarding the related issues.

The study focuses on a theory‐based integration process, since it is designed on a normative basis and the current studies dealing with “ethic of care theory” still have some problems in practical terms.

It is observed that ethics of care and stakeholder theory are getting more and more interrelated due to established networks and available common points. As a subfield of feminist ethic, ethics of care can be used to clarify moral principles lying behind these relationships. From another point of view, the discussion regarding the feminization of business enterprises focuses on the idea that such discussions involving the principles lying behind feminist ethics can provide an advantage for the companies in terms of competition. In addition, ethics of care is expected to contribute to stakeholder theory to a great extent.

The related literature includes a rather limited number of studies conducted on this research topic. The available research explains some relationships on a normative basis. Therefore, the current study is expected to contribute to the expansion of such research in the field.

Despite the presence of studies in the field, there is still a limitation in putting the findings of studies into practice. Since the country where the current study is conducted still suffers from ambiguities regarding the definitions of concepts and it is very difficult to find business enterprises appreciating feminist values, although they are taught to adopt philanthropy applications, the study is limited to a normative point‐of‐view regarding the issues.

The scope of the study is expected to contribute to a great extent to the integration of feminist ethic and stakeholder theory. Similarly, it will encourage further studies on the issue.

Drawing on a performative ontology, this article extends the literature on health promotion in organizations by exploring how health promotion is performed in care work. The focus of the study is on health promotion in a context of illness and/or decline, which form the core of the studied organizational activities. The paper addresses the following question: how do care workers working in elderly care and mental health care organizations accomplish health promotion in the context of illness and/or decline?

The article develops a performative approach and analyses material-discursive practices in health promoting care work. The empirical material includes 36 semi-structured interviews with care workers, observations and organizational documents.

Two central material-discursive health promoting practices in care work are identified: confirming that celebrates service users as residents and the organizations as a home, and balancing at the limits of health promotion. The practices of balancing make the limitations of health promotion discernible and involve reconciling health promotion with that which does not neatly fit into it (illness, unachievable care aims, the institution and certain organizing). In sum, the study shows how health promotion can structure processes in care homes where illness and decline often are particularly palpable.

The paper explores health promotion in a context rarely explored in organization studies. Previous organization studies have to some extent explored health promotion and care work, but typically separately. Further, the few studies that have adopted a performative approach to material-discursive practices in the context of care work have typically primarily focused on IT. We extend previous organization studies literature by producing new insights: (1) from an important organizational context of health promotion and (2) of under-researched entanglements of human and non-human actors in care work providing a performative theory of reconciling organizational tensions.

This paper begins by discussing two contrasting approaches to health care. The first approach is that of principlism, which emphasises four universal principles: respect for autonomy; beneficence; non‐maleficence; and justice. The second approach is the ethics of care that emphasise the importance of the relationship between the cared‐for and the one caring, rather than abstract principles. The problems with both of these approaches are highlighted, before arguing that an approach based on virtue ethics is more appropriate and better suited to health care ethics. Finally, by drawing on the conclusions of research undertaken with chronically ill people, the paper explores what this approach might mean for an approach that stresses dignity as a core value in health care ethics.