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This paper aims to look at the culture of federal workers and some reasons why workers may or may not want to share knowledge among their peers. To overcome the resistance to knowledge sharing, the paper seeks to explore the benefits of having a knowledge management facilitator with experience in the social professions guiding an agency toward becoming a team learning organization. The objective is to show how cultural changes among the federal workers can enable them to participate in team learning and achieve their fullest potential in their careers and their personal lives. Through employee enrichment, federal organizations can enable their workers to achieve new goals, which in turn can promote improved efficiency, innovation, and effectiveness within the organization.

Some federal agencies have a strong KM program in place that applies the concepts involving people, processes, learning and technology as part of their culture. Others have focused on the technology aspect of KM, while resisting incorporation of the remaining elements that are necessary to sustain a knowledge‐sharing culture. Although more investigation is needed to determine each federal agency's position on knowledge management, one thing is certain – encouraging individuals to reach their fullest potential will have a beneficial impact among federal agencies and encourage knowledge sharing among the workforce.

The paper illustrates that addressing the people aspect of KM is an important step that can provide a foundation for establishing a sound knowledge management program throughout the federal government. Focusing on the individual workers, it is necessary to keep in mind the systems approach to KM and incorporate appropriate elements of the system, as individuals are encouraged to participate in the knowledge management process. The paper provides certainty that implementing a sound KM program will benefit today's federal knowledge worker and further the growth of the future knowledge worker in the 2020 decade.

The paper improves the efficiency of the federal workforce.

The paper acknowledges the federal worker's value, which instils a commitment of the federal knowledge worker and stimulates employee creativity.

The paper provides insight into the culture of federal workers and changes that can be made to improve the innovation, efficiency and effectiveness of the federal work force.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are embraced by leadership actors and perceived to influence relationships between leaders and co-workers. Specifically, the authors aim to investigate how leaders and co-workers discursively construct the concept of “communicative leadership” and its practices and perceive that communicative leadership influences relationships, work processes, and agency.

The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership.

Communicative processes that enhance co-worker agency, defined as a capacity to act; include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, and mutual participation. Relational and discursive leadership processes such as responsiveness and dialogue were seen to enhance mutual participation in both organizations. Broader Swedish cultural macro discourses shaped the leader/co-worker relationship, making agency a relational accomplishment rather than an individual phenomenon.

This study relies on data from individual and focus group interviews, rather than direct observation of leadership processes.

Findings suggest that organizations would benefit from making explicit their goals and expectations for communicative leadership in their respective social and cultural contexts.

The authors provide new theoretical and empirical knowledge of leaders’ and co-workers’ discursive construction of a leadership concept; leadership communication research in the Swedish context; empirical research on communicative leadership as an empowering form of leadership communication; and how leadership communication discourse on a micro level is connected to organizational and macro-social cultural levels.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the kinds of effects that using a temporary agency workforce may cause on an organisational level, especially on relations between employees. In this study the authors explore the organisation as a community, leaning on the theory of social capital.

The data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with 18 temporary agency workers and five employees in permanent positions. Discourse analysis with some degree of pragmatism was employed in comprehending the speech of the interviewees.

The position of agency workers may be problematic from the perspective of social capital formulation in a work organisation. The short duration of contracts and different conditions of employment shake relations in a work group. Agency workers may also be outside the information flows. Additionally the norms and rules may be different for temporary and permanent employees and thus cause confusion.

The findings will hopefully provoke researchers to investigate the effects of using a temporary agency workforce in different organisational contexts. In addition, the study indicates that the theory of social capital is fruitful for investigating the topic on the organisational level.

The use of agency workforce should be considered comprehensively in organisations. Its effects on work organisations may be conflicting. If temporary agency workers are needed as interim help, HRM practices should be developed in order to minimise the potential problems in terms of social capital.

The study adopted an organisational perspective on the agency workforce, which is still rare in studies on the topic.

Suggests that simulation of the workflow component of a computer supported co‐operative work (CSCW) system has the potential to reduce the costs of system implementation, while at the same time improving the quality of the delivered system. Demonstrates the value of being able to assess the frequency and volume of workflow transactions using a case study of CSCW software developed for estate agency co‐workers in which a model was produced based on a discrete‐event simulation approach with implementation on a spreadsheet platform.

This conceptual chapter explores communicating with transparency and secrecy in public affairs activities in Norway. The tension between transparency and secrecy is particularly interesting with regard to the question of impact of strategic communication on political policymaking processes. As a theoretical framework, we use a double lens to hold the concepts of both transparency and secrets in focus. First, we draw on Fung’s (2013) principles of democratic transparency: availability, proportionality, accessibility and actionability. Second, we use Horn’s (2011) three logics of political secrecy: arcanum, mysterium and secretum. By integrating Fung’s principles of openness and Horn’s logics of secrecy, we construct a model for analysis of a few public affairs activities and practices. Empirical examples of PR agencies’ communicative activities support our model, in addition to interviews with three executives in agencies. The empirical examples illustrate that communication activities rely on top-down controlled information diffusion in PR agencies’ communication activities, such as podcasts and web pages. They use information to develop group identities and to develop stronger relationships to their clients and customers. The social dimension of information in our examples suggests that the agencies are discrete, operate in the background and are careful about revealing their competence and privileged insights.

This study aims to investigate critical differences between police officer willingness to use and recommend an employee assistance program (EAP) to a peer, including the relationship between officer perceptions of macro-level organizational support and micro-level EAP support.

A survey of 213 police officers from a large, urban police department in the Northeast United States of America is used to evaluate the relationship between officer perceptions of the EAP and the officers' willingness to use and recommend the EAP to peers. Generalized linear regression models are used to evaluate the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on perceived EAP support.

The findings of this study suggest that POS strongly predicts willingness to use the EAP, but POS has no significant relationship with willingness to recommend the EAP. There is evidence that POS moderates the relationship of EAP support on willingness to recommend the EAP to a peer. When POS decreases, the relationship of EAP support with willingness to recommend the EAP to peers becomes stronger.

The current study is limited by the study's focus on only one police department and the department's use of cross-sectional data, which may limit the generalizability of the results to agencies that differ in size and type.

This research has practical implications for those who seek to improve officer receptivity to mental health support and improve the quality of police services provided to the public. The findings demonstrate that improving officer willingness to recommend the EAP to peers may be a more sustainable pathway to addressing officer mental health than willingness to use the EAP considering the current movement toward police reform.

The research unveils significant differences in police officer decision-making between using the EAP and recommending it to a peer. The research also adds empirical evidence to existing research on the role of POS in policing and the altruistic, peer-focused nature of the police subculture.

The purpose of this study is to increase the current understanding of how public sector organizations dynamically balance exploration and exploitation of digital initiatives, i.e. the enactment of digital ambidexterity.

This study uses Zimmermann, Raisch and Cardinal’s perspective of configurational practices for addressing the enactment of digital ambidexterity. The method comprises a qualitative, interpretative case study of a large municipality in Sweden, using both interviews and secondary data.

Through the perspective of configurational practices, the study identifies and describes a set of sub-practices that constitute the enactment of digital ambidexterity. This is then used for theorizing how configurational practices involve the balancing of closeness and distance.

This study is limited by being a single, non-longitudinal case of a Swedish municipality that has implications for generalizability and transferability. Moreover, it opens up for new perspectives to the future study of the enactment of ambidexterity in the public sector.

Organizations striving for digital ambidexterity are recommended to use the configurational approach to assess and design their governance to build ambidextrous capabilities through a combination of closeness and distance.

This study is aimed at strengthening public sectors abilities for continued relevance for its stakeholders over time. With increased need for digital innovation within the public sector, the findings and recommendations derived from the study lead to increased innovation capability, which in turn is expected to lead to increased relevance of services.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that addresses how ambidexterity is enacted within the public sector following the configurational approach. As such, it opens up for new perspectives on organizational ambidexterity.

This study explores how social partners contribute to the successful return to work (RTW) of individuals affected by chronic diseases, employing the framework of actor-centred institutionalism.

This paper adopts a comparative case study methodology to assess the role of social partners in the workplace (re-)integration of people with chronic disease in Belgium and Italy, both of which represent well-developed industrial relations systems yet having different institutional and policy frameworks on RTW.

Institutional factors are found to affect the type and degree of social partners' commitment and contribution to RTW. Differences in their commitment can be explained by their varied degrees of integration in public policy formation, which explain their different preferred stages of interactions in this field: national tripartite social dialogue for Belgium; and sectoral collective bargaining for Italy. Unsatisfactory outcomes of social partners’ contribution in facilitating RTW processes are attributed to the fragmentation of the legal framework and uneven development of collective bargaining in Italy. In Belgium, the authors find the presence of cumbersome RTW procedures downplaying the role of the worker representative.

This paper adds empirical evidence to the limited literature on the role of social partners in facilitating RTW and sheds light on how to improve the current policy context. It suggests involving the social partners in the development of a comprehensive public policy framework, which should allow for an early, flexible and multi-stakeholder (re-)integration procedure following chronic disease.

Burnout has been recognized and measured in the workplace since the 1970s, particularly in service industries. Libraries can be viewed as service providers. Burnout is the result of chronically high work demands combined with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. Burnout components have been linked to physical, emotional, and behavioral consequences, and to high turnover and loss of engagement. Libraries can evaluate burnout levels among staff and address burnout on an individual, management, and organizational level. The Nurse-Experienced Time Pressure, Burnout, and Patient Interaction Questionnaire is modified to identify and quantify activities individuals might use to reduce burnout. The survey is administered to librarians and staff at an academic library and to self-chosen attendees at a conference session on avoiding burnout. Feedback is also solicited in terms of burnout avoidance strategies and possible library responses. Most respondents feel burned out but also committed to providing excellent service to patrons. Respondents have a genuine interest in making work less prone to burnout. Sample sizes were small but gave consistent responses. Burnout can be addressed on an institutional, management, and personal level, with each entity having equal responsibility. Leadership, management, communication, and support efforts can counteract burnout threats. Burnout causes disengagement at work and in personal lives. In terms of personality, neuroticism is a strong predictor of burnout. Making efforts to counteract burnout will lead to a healthier, balanced life. This book chapter is based on research done for a presentation at ER&L 2016 on Avoiding E-Burnout. Causes and counteractions to burnout have been expanded.