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The purpose of the study was to explore in literature what different leadership styles and behaviors of head nurses have a positive influence on the outcomes of patient safety or quality of care.

We reviewed the literature from January 2000 until September 2011. We searched Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl, Psychlit, and Econlit.

We found 10 studies addressing the relationship between head nurse leadership and safety and quality. A wide array of styles and practices were associated with different patient outcomes. Transformational leadership was the most used concept in the studies. A trend can be observed over these studies suggesting that a trustful relationship between the head nurse and subordinates is an important driving force for the achievement of positive patient outcomes. Furthermore, the effects of these trustful relationships seem to be amplified by supporting mechanisms, often objective conditions like clinical pathways and, especially, staffing level.

This study offers an up-to-date review of the limited number of studies on the relationship between nurse leadership and patient outcomes. Although mostly transformational leadership was found to be responsible for positive associations with outcomes, also contingent reward had positive influence on outcomes. We formulated some comments on the predominance of the transformational leadership concept and suggested the application of complexity theory and political leadership for the current context of care. We formulated some implications for practice and further research, mainly the need for more systematic empirical and cross cultural studies and the urgent need for the development of a validated set of nurse-sensitive patient outcome indicators.

We examine how interpersonal behavior and social interaction influence team sensemaking and subsequent team actions during a hospital-based health information technology (HIT) implementation project.

Over the course of 18 months, we directly observed the interpersonal interactions of HIT implementation teams using a sensemaking lens.

We identified three voice-promoting strategies enacted by team leaders that fostered team member voice and sensemaking; communicating a vision; connecting goals to team member values; and seeking team member input. However, infrequent leader expressions of anger quickly undermined team sensemaking, halting dialog essential to problem solving. By seeking team member opinions, team leaders overcame the negative effects of anger.

Leaders must enact voice-promoting behaviors and use them throughout a team’s engagement. Further, training teams in how to use conflict to achieve greater innovation may improve sensemaking essential to project risk mitigation.

Health care work processes are complex; teams involved in implementing improvements must be prepared to deal with conflicting, contentious issues, which will arise during change. Therefore, team conflict training may be essential to sustaining sensemaking.

Future research should seek to identify team interactions that foster sensemaking, especially when topics are difficult or unwelcome, then determine the association between staff sensemaking and the impact on HIT implementation outcomes.

We are among the first to focus on project teams tasked with HIT implementation. This research extends our understanding of how leaders’ behaviors might facilitate or impeded speaking up among project teams in health care settings.

Literature has recognised entrepreneurship education as the main conduit through which entrepreneurial behaviours, attitudes and actions can be built, enacted and delivered. Since the founding of new ventures is largely a resourceful founder-driven enterprise, entrepreneurship education has largely centred on galvanising and shifting the mindsets and cognition of the entrepreneur. Yet, despite over 60 years of delivering entrepreneurship education programmes, hard evidence of the generation of high-growth-oriented and sustainable ventures has been scarce as student entrepreneurship intentions do not always translate into successful venture creation. This is largely because of the complexities of the practicality of entrepreneurial education particularly, the dissonance between acquired education in business schools and the knowledge and competencies needed in the entrepreneurial field. Such dissonance can be attributed to the lack of clarity on the pedagogical approach that most resonates with entrepreneurial action, the diversity in assessment methods and the scholarly illusion pertaining to how pedagogical approaches can be channelled to the generation of growth-oriented ventures. Drawing on Girox's concepts of transformative critical pedagogy (including pedagogy of repression), Socratic dialogue, Hegelian dialectic and Yrjö Engeström's transformative expansive agency, I demonstrate how a flipped transformative critical pedagogy can be harnessed in digitally enhanced learning environments to create new entrepreneurial possibilities for facilitating critical inquiry, complex problem-solving, innovation for the market and fostering tolerance for failure in ambiguous entrepreneurial contexts.