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The study represents a theory-based leadership approach in exploring the subordinate's perceptions of leadership behaviors in relation to age, gender and type of work environment. The aim was (1) to compare subordinates' ratings of their respective leaders' leadership behaviors based on of the leaders' age and gender, controlling for type of work environment and (2) to analyze the relationship between the subordinates' ratings of their leaders' leadership behaviors and their ratings of the outcome of these leadership behaviors.

Data were collected using the Developmental Leadership Questionnaire (DLQ) from a sample of Swedish leadership course participants (n = 10,869) and their respective subordinates (n = 97,943). The DLQ measures leadership behaviors designed to reflect the following leadership styles: developmental leadership, conventional-positive leadership, conventional-negative leadership and destructive leadership.

Results showed that older leaders (51 years or older) were rated less favorably than younger (29 years or younger) and mid-aged leaders. Female leaders received more positive ratings than male leaders. A 3-way analysis-of-variance showed strong main effects for age, gender, and type of work environment and no significant interaction effects. A significant model with high equivalents of R² coefficients (Cox and Snell, 1989; Nagelkerke, 1991) was obtained in a logistic regression analysis. Developmental leadership and conventional-positive leadership made significant positive contributions to the subordinates' ratings of the outcome of their leaders' leadership behaviors. Destructive leadership behaviors contributed negatively to the outcome ratings.

Weaknesses include the cross-sectional study design. The large sample size is a strength, and the results have novel implications for leadership theory related to subordinates' view on leadership.

Counter-stereotype age and gender findings may have implications for organizational decisions and processes regarding selection of managers. Development programs are suggested for all categories but for older, male leaders with a focus on reducing their use of leadership behaviors perceived negatively by their subordinates, whereas younger female leaders should be encouraged to continue to develop their positive leadership behaviors.

The theory-based approach on subordinates' perceptions of leadership behaviors with a simultaneous focus on age, gender and type of work environment, based on a large-scale data set, is new.

Although ecosystems have been researched extensively over the past decade, we know little about how they should be organised. Focusing on a knowledge ecosystem comprising a university and a regional strategic network (RSN), this paper aims to describe and discuss the mechanisms for knowledge development in knowledge ecosystems.

This paper studies the integration of a university into a Swedish RSN. Data were collected through interviews with representatives of the university, the RSN and all firms comprising the RSN. A qualitative content analysis helped to detect mechanisms for knowledge development.

Two reinforcing mechanisms for knowledge development in the knowledge ecosystem are identified: structure and openness, which relate to insight and outlook, respectively. The findings also indicate a knowledge division, with the university representing the transfer of knowledge capabilities as a linear process, whereas the content-related knowledge is collaborative.

This paper contributes to research on knowledge ecosystems by describing how their organisation is based on a number of contradictions (structure and openness, insight and outlook, linearity and collaboration) to accomplish the development of knowledge capabilities and content-related knowledge.

While digital transformation holds immense promise, organizations often fail to realize its benefits. This study aims to address how policies for digital transformation benefits realization are translated into practice.

The authors apply a qualitative, comparative case study of two large, public-sector health care organizations in Sweden. Through document and interview data, the authors analyze the process of translation.

The study finds that practice variation is primarily caused by two types of decoupling: policy-practice and means-ends. Contrary to previous studies, coercion in policy compliance is not found to decrease practice variation.

The limitations primarily stem from the empirical selection of two large public health-care organizations in Sweden, affecting the study’s generalizability. Reducing practice variation is more effectively achieved through goal alignment than coercion, leading to implications for the design of governance and control.

Policymakers should, instead of focusing on control-related compliance, work to align organizational objectives and policies to decrease practice variation for successful benefits realization.

The study contributes to better benefits realization of digital transformation initiatives in health care. As such, the authors contribute to a better functioning and more transformative health care in times of increased demand and decreased supply of health-care services.

The study challenges conventional wisdom by identifying that coercion is less effective than goal alignment in reducing practice variation, thereby enhancing the understanding of policy implementation dynamics in health-care settings.

This paper aims to focus on academic library managers’ learning practices in the context of cooperative work supported by computational artefacts. Academic library managers’ everyday work is mainly cooperative. Their cooperation is supported predominantly by computational artefacts. Learning how to use the computational artefacts efficiently and effectively involves understanding the changes in everyday work that affect managers and, therefore, it requires deep understanding of their cooperative work practices.

Focused ethnography was conducted through participant observations, interviews and document analysis. Ten managers from a university library in Sweden participated in the research. A thematic method was used to analyse the empirical material. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and work-integrated learning was used as the conceptual lens.

Five learning practices were identified: collaboration, communication, coordination, decision-making processes and computational artefacts’ use. The findings show that learning is embedded in managers’ cooperative work practices, which do not necessarily include sufficient training time. Furthermore, learning was intertwined with cooperating and was situational. Managers learned by reflecting together on their own experiences and through joint cooperation and information sharing while using the computational artefacts.

The main contribution lies in providing insights into how academic library managers learn and cooperate in their everyday work, emphasizing the role of computational artefacts, the importance of the work context and the collective nature of learning. It also highlights the need for continual workplace learning in contemporary knowledge work environments. Thus, the research generates contributions to the informatics field by extending the understanding of managers’ work-integrated learning in their everyday cooperative work practices supported by computational artefacts’ use. It also contributes to the intersection of CSCW and work-integrated learning.

While existing literature extensively explores manufacturing firms expanding into services, little is known about the modes of servitisation, the means by which they carry it out. This paper concentrates on acquisitions as a mode of servitisation. Post-acquisition integration is when the potential of an acquisition is realised. The paper therefore aims to categorise types of integrations following the acquisition of servitised firms and discusses their consequences for servitisation.

The empirical part of the paper is based on two case studies, each involving the acquisition of servitised firms. Both acquirers changed their integration approach over time.

The paper conceptualises three types of integrations: rhetorical, insulated and transformative integrations, indicating whether and how the acquirer becomes servitised following the integration. These highlight the analysis of integration based on business models and customer orientation in relation to servitisation.

This paper contributes to research on servitisation by emphasising acquisitions as a mode of servitisation and conceptualising three integration types related to business models and customer orientations. Furthermore, the paper highlights how an acquirer's servitisation leads to new offerings targeting new customers, as opposed to strengthening existing relationships.

This perspective article responds to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) as a significant opportunity for growth among family businesses, highlighting the need for future research to attain a clear picture of the next generation of family business successors.

This is a literature review of current technology adoption within family businesses. The authors offer some research insight to spur critical thinking and discourse around the impact of AI on family business successors.

Family businesses are initially skeptical of AI technology. However, its use and adoption are crucial for the survival of the family business. To leverage this technology, the authors need to investigate the role of the family business successors as “Gen AI.”

It is challenging but necessary to develop policies and educational support for successors to ensure the survival of family businesses worldwide. The authors propose four key areas of future research.

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is possibly “the richest and most accessible service-learning experience” in the marketing curriculum (Petkus, 2000, p. 68). Yet, despite this recognition, scholars and practitioners continue to lament the pronounced theory-practice gap between how IMC is taught and the practice of it in industry (Schultz and Patti, 2009; Kerr and Kelly, 2017). This research embeds IMC practice within a classroom setting and subsequently explores student marketers' perceptions of their skill development through experiential client-based learning.

An in-depth qualitative study demonstrates the value of integrating experiential learning within an IMC course, captured through students' reflective practice.

Evidence suggests that experiential, client-based projects are suitable for fostering key practice-based skills in the classroom through students “experiencing” IMC at work. However, this is not always easy. In fact, building key skills such as leadership, motivation, communications, organisation and teamwork presents various challenges for students, whilst students appear unaware of other pertinent skills (e.g. persuasion, critical thinking) gained through exposure to “real-world” IMC tasks.

Instructors adopting experiential learning in the marketing classroom have an opportunity to actively design tasks to embed key workplace skills to bridge the theory-practice gap. Client-based projects offer fertile ground for students to experience marketing in action whilst ultimately bolstering their confidence in their workplace skills.

This research contributes to the marketing education literature and acknowledges the importance of embedding key workplace skills into the contemporary marketing curriculum. An overview of challenges and solutions for instructors seeking to adopt experiential learning via client-based projects in the IMC classroom is presented within this research.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of healthcare professionals’ practice, where learning is taking place when a digital artefact is implemented for identification of patients’ cognitive impairment. The use of digital artefacts is increasing in various workplaces, to include professionals in healthcare. This paper aims to explore the following research question: How is the professional learning unfolding in patient-based work when a digital artefact transforms the practice?

Various data collection methods are used for this study, consisting of dialogue meetings, interviews and a reference-group meeting. Thematic analysis is used to inductively bring forth the themes of the collected data.

Professionals’ knowledge and experience are of vital importance in learning and changing work practices. Together with their ability to reflect on changes, their knowledge and experience constitute the prefiguration when the introduction of a digital application brings about indeterminacy in the work practice.

This paper makes a contribution to practice-based research as it consolidates previous research and identifies professionals knowledge and learning in a healthcare context. This can be used to further explore and advance the field, as well as to establish the evidence-based importance of transforming practices based on implementation of digital artefacts.

The paper aims to investigate and describe the complex and dynamic dilemmas teachers are facing connected to students' net-based out-of-school activities.

The authors draw on the notion of dilemmatic spaces when thematically analyzing focus group interviews conducted with 41 teachers at three lower secondary schools in Sweden.

Two themes capture the teachers' dilemmas concerning their students´ net-based out-of-school activities: negotiations of content and negotiations of professional identity. When teachers take part in professional discussions where dilemmatic spaces are recognized, rather than focusing on either being for or against digitalization, they are enabled to express a multifaceted view of professional identity.

This study is a starting point for further studies investigating how pedagogical and didactic decisions are made in a digital time.

The findings are expected to be helpful to policymakers in understanding teachers' work. Also, teachers can be empowered by taking the departure in the findings and discussing how to handle dilemmas fruitfully.

In a rapidly changing digital society, it is important to investigate what dilemmas teachers face in their work in order to learn from them. This study is a significant contribution.