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This study operationalizes risks in stakeholder dialog (SD). It conceptualizes SD as co-produced organizational discourse and examines the capacities of organizers' and stakeholders' practices to create a shared understanding of an organization’s risks to their mutual benefit. The meetings and online forum of a German public service media (PSM) organization were used as a case study.

The authors applied corpus-driven linguistic discourse analysis (topic modeling) to analyze citizens' (n = 2,452) forum posts (n = 14,744). Conversation analysis was used to examine video-recorded online meetings.

Organizers suspended actors' reciprocity in meetings. In the forums, topics emerged autonomously. Citizens' articulation of their identities was more diverse than the categories the organizer provided, and organizers did not respond to the autonomous emergence of contextualizations of citizens' perceptions of PSM performance in relation to their identities. The results suggest that risks arise from interactionally achieved occasions that prevent reasoned agreement and from actors' practices, which constituted autonomous discursive formations of topics and identities in the forums.

This study disentangles actors' practices, mutuality orientation and risk enactment during SD. It advances the methodological knowledge of strategic communication research on SD, utilizing social constructivist research methods to examine the contingencies of organization-stakeholder interaction in SD.

This article addresses the relationship of universities to their changing regulatory environments internationally.

This article updates analysis published in 2004 exploring the contrasting modes of, and key trends in, regulation of higher education across eight OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) states. The article offers a wider analysis of the changing patterns of regulation rooted in mutuality, oversight, competition and design, and the implications for the management of higher education institutions.

Since 2004, higher education has seen more growth in oversight-based and competition-based regulation, but also some decentralization of regulation as an increasing cast of actors, many international and transnational in character, have asserted themselves in key aspects of the regulatory environment. This article explores the implications of these changes in the regulatory mix over higher education for the ways that universities manage their regulatory environment, arguing first, that there is significant evidence of meta-regulatory approaches to regulating universities, and second, that such a meta-regulatory approach is consistent with an emphasis on university autonomy, raising a challenge for universities in how to use the autonomy (variable by country) they do have to manage their environment.

This article offers an original analysis of how universities might most appropriately respond, deploying their autonomy, however variable, to address their external regulatory environment. The author suggests we might increasingly see the external regulatory environment as meta-regulatory in character and universities making more use of reflexive governance processes.

Place-based community events fulfil important functions, internally and externally. They provide opportunities for people from diverse communities and cultures to encounter each other, to participate in pleasurable activities in convivial settings and to develop mutual understanding. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of such events as a means of resisting or challenging the deleterious effects of territorial stigmatisation.

The authors explore two place-based community events in areas that have been subject to territorial stigmatisation: Govanhill in Glasgow, Scotland, and South Dunedin, New Zealand. They draw on in-depth case study methods including observation and interviews with key local actors and employ inductive analysis to identify themes across the datasets.

The demonstrate how neighbourhood events in both Glasgow and Dunedin actively seek to address some of the deleterious outcomes of territorial stigmatisation by emphasising strength and asset-based discourses about the areas they reflect and represent. In their planning and organisation, both events play an important mediating role in building and empowering community, fostering intercultural encounters with difference and strengthening mutuality within their defined places. They make use of public and semi-public spaces to attract diverse groups while also increasing the visibility of marginalised populations through larger showcase events.

The empirical element focuses only on two events, one in Glasgow, Scotland (UK), and the other in South Dunedin (New Zealand). Data generated were wholly qualitative and do not provide quantitative evidence of “change” to material circumstances in either case study community.

Helps organisers think about how they need to better understand their communities if they are to attract diverse participation, including how they programme public and semi-public spaces.

Place-based community events have significant value to neighbourhoods, and they need to be resourced effectively if they are to sustain the benefits they produce. These events provide an opportunity for diverse communities to encounter each other and celebrate what they share rather than what divides them.

This paper is the first to examine how place-based community events help resist narratives of territorial stigmatisation, which produce negative representations about people and their environments. The paper draws on ethnographic insights generated over time rather than a one-off snapshot which undermines some events research.

This study seeks to provide further testing of access in the context of government – community relations within the political context of the Republic of North Macedonia. The study analyses relationship cultivation strategy of access and explains how it contributes to achieving trust and relationship satisfaction in government–community relations. This paper also provides insights into the importance of access to achieving positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction.

For this research, a qualitative inquiry was conducted, and qualitative in-depth interviewing was used as the main research method. In total, 39 interviews were conducted: 12 interviews with Macedonian civil servants, eight interviews with Albanian civil servants and 19 interviews with Albanians.

The findings of this study showed citizens not to have enough access to government and its institutions. Besides, the results showed access to be crucial to building positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction. In particular, discrimination and social distance were crucial in building trust between government and citizens.

The study provided evidence on the importance and contribution of the cultivation strategy of access to government-community relationships in general and to the relational outcomes of trust and satisfaction in particular. The findings supported the initial assumptions that access constitutes an important factor in predicting the government–community relationship quality.

Peer support is increasingly being introduced into mainstream mental health services internationally. The distinctiveness of peer support, compared to other mental health support, has been linked to values underpinning peer support. Evidence suggests that there are challenges to maintaining those values in the context of highly standardised organisational environments. The purpose of this paper is to describe a “principles-based” approach to developing and evaluating a new peer worker role in mental health services.

A set of peer support values was generated through systematic review of research about one-to-one peer support, and a second set produced by a UK National Expert Panel of people sharing, leading or researching peer support from a lived experience perspective. Value sets were integrated by the research team – including researchers working from a lived experience perspective – to produce a principles framework for developing and evaluating new peer worker roles.

Five principles referred in detail to: relationships based on shared lived experience; reciprocity and mutuality; validating experiential knowledge; leadership, choice and control; discovering strengths and making connections. Supporting the diversity of lived experience that people bring to peer support applied across principles.

The principles framework underpinned development of a handbook for a new peer worker role, and informed a fidelity index designed to measure the extent to which peer support values are maintained in practice. Given the diversity of peer support, the authors caution against prescriptive frameworks that might “codify” peer support and note that lived experience should be central to shaping and leading evaluation of peer support.

This paper adds to the literature on peer support in mental health by describing a systematic approach to understanding how principles and values underpin peer worker roles in the context of mental health services. This paper informs an innovative, principles-based approach to developing a handbook and fidelity index for a randomised controlled trial. Lived experiences of mental distress brought to the research by members of the research team and the expert advisors shaped the way this research was undertaken.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether incorporating a 20-week Kundalini yoga programme into a residential home for children improves well-being outcomes.

This is a mixed methods feasibility study. Feasibility was assessed through recruitment and retention rates as well as participants’ self-report perceptions on social inclusion, mental health and well-being and through semi-structured interviews on the benefits of the study. Mutual recovery entailed that children in care (CIC), youth practitioners and management participated together in the Kundalini yoga sessions.

The study initially enrolled 100 per cent of CIC and 97 per cent (29/30) of eligible staff. Attendance was low with an average rate of four sessions per participant (SD=3.7, range 0-13). All the participants reported that the study was personally meaningful and experienced both individual (e.g. feeling more relaxed) and social benefits (e.g. feeling more open and positive). Pre- and post-yoga questionnaires did not show any significant effects. Low attendance was associated with the challenges faced by the children’s workforce (e.g. high levels of stress, low status, profile and pay) and insufficient consultation and early involvement of stakeholders on the study implementation process.

Because of the chosen research approach (i.e. feasibility study) and low attendance rate, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, further research with larger samples including a control or comparison group to pilot similar research questions is mandatory.

This study has generated a number of valuable guiding principles and recommendations that might underpin the development of any future intervention for CIC and staff working in children’s homes.

The concept of togetherness and mutuality within residential spaces is discussed in the paper.

The effects of Kundalini yoga have not been reported before in any peer-review publications. This paper fulfils an identified need (i.e. poor outcomes among CIC and residential staff) and shows how movement and creative practices can support the concept of mutual recovery.

In Italy, worker cooperatives (WCs), whose workers hold major control rights over collectively-owned assets, are the leading vehicle for the promotion and development of employee ownership. Worker cooperatives are present in all regions and in most economic sectors, employing about 506,000 workers and generating a turnover of about €22 bn. Despite their history and diffusion, the high prevalence of WCs in Italy is under-researched and -thematised and requires new research.

The paper leverages unpublished primary and secondary data from Centro Studi Legacoop databank, the Aida-Bureau Van Dijk databank and the Cooperative Registry of the Ministry of Economic Development (CRMED) to explain the spread of WCs in Italy.

This paper reveals descriptive statistics of WCs and investigates their distribution across economic sectors and regions, their economic and financial performance and gives an overview of the relevant legislation. The paper indicates that older small- and medium-sized cooperatives located in central and north-eastern Italy perform best economically. However, in recent years, an increasing number of young cooperatives has emerged in South Italy thanks to favourable legislation, cooperative finance and the diffusion of cooperative know-how. Limitations to such results are reported in the conclusions.

The paper sheds light on past and recent development trends of WCs in Italy, highlights their growth in South Italy and revitalises the debate on the drivers, structures and rationales of employee-owned enterprises in Italy. Findings generate implications for research and practice. Given the tendency of WCs to better protect jobs than investor-owned enterprises, the spread of these enterprises may help workers find better and more stable jobs, counter-cyclically mitigating the dangerous effects of macro- and meso-economic fluctuations and instability.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to an understanding of the relational work carried out in mentoring programmes and the implications for learning capabilities in future practices.

This study is based on field research of a mentoring programme bringing together senior and newly graduated workers in a large Swedish health care organisation. In total, 54 qualitative interviews with mentors, mentees, HR, managers and union representatives are included.

The findings point to the role of trust and a psychological sense of community in the socialisation work that goes on in relationships between the mentor and the mentee. This in turn leads to increased social capital in the form of learning and retaining workers. The conditions for being vulnerable and asking questions, as well as daring to be independent, are an essential and decisive part of constructing bonding within the professional group and bridging out to other professions and parts of the organisation.

The practical contribution from this study is the workplace conditions that are central to organising mentoring programmes, with implications for learning capabilities in future practices.

With its theoretical focus on social capital, the study shows the importance of relationships for learning and retaining both newly graduated and experienced employees in a context of high employee turnover. It is central to achieving strong and mutually beneficial relationships through continual and trustful interaction between actors. By using the concepts of social capital, socialisation agents and psychological sense of community, this study contributes to an understanding of mentoring and workplace learning.

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the dynamics and considerations of professionals regarding the sharing of tacit, personal knowledge in their practice.

Adopting a social-constructivist ontology, the qualitative design deploys semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Data were coded, and analysed through interrelating and reasoning.

Personal knowledge is difficult to share precisely, but can be shared to some extent using reflection and stories. Knowledge also provides a position and professional agency, emphasising boundaries and impacting the decisions on interaction and sharing. As such, professional commitment is vulnerable and contextual and, by extension, material becomes part of this interplay of professional practice and collaborative development.

Findings imply that exchange and use of knowledge and material present in organisations are impacted by individual professionals’ autonomy and decisions, which consequently impact on employees’ practice. This calls for research that focuses on individual factors such as autonomy, professionalism and attitudes in addition to organisational and facilitative matters.

Stimulating professional commitment and interpersonal learning is a matter of valuing personal knowledge and practice to avoid protectionism, boundaries and segregated agency. Management and professionals should consider how and why individuals exchange their personal knowledge, paying attention to social structures and individuals’ voices and objectives in forming communities.

This study combines the concept of tacit knowledge with the younger field of practice theory. By connecting personal knowledge to practice, it extends agency to the material world and offers a more individual perspective to knowledge sharing in and between entities.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a tremendous negative effect on the economies around the world by infusing uncertainty into supply chains. In this paper, the authors address two important research questions (RQs): (1) did COVID-19 wage subsidies impact small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to become more flexible towards the SMEs' business customers and (2) can such flexibility be a source for greater resilience to the crisis? As a result, the authors investigate the relationship between governmental wage subsidies and SMEs' flexibility norms towards the SMEs' business customers (study 1). The authors further uncover when and how flexibility towards existing customers contributes to SME resilience (study 2).

The authors frame the inquiry under the resource dependence theory (RDT) and behavioural additionality principle. The authors use survey methodology and test the assumptions in study 1 (n = 225) and study 2 (n = 95) on a sample of SMEs from various business-to-business (B2B) industries in Croatia.

Overall, in study 1, the authors find that SMEs that receive governmental wage subsidies have greater flexibility norms. However, this relationship is significantly conditioned by SMEs' competitive profile. SMEs that strongly rely on innovation are more willing to behave flexibly when receiving subsidies, whereas SMEs driven by branding do not. Study 2 sheds light on when flexibility towards existing customers increases SME resilience. Findings show that flexibility norms are negatively related to resilience, but this relationship is becoming less negative amongst SMEs with lower financial dependence on the largest customer.

This study extends RDT in the area of firm–government relationships by showing that wage subsidies became a source of power for the Government and a source of dependency for SMEs. In such cases, the SMEs receiving those subsidies align with the governmental agenda and exhibit higher flexibility towards the SMEs' customers. Drawing arguments from behavioural additionality, the authors show that this effect varies due to SMEs' attention and organisational priorities resulting from different competitive profiles. Ultimately, the authors showcase that higher flexibility norms can contribute to resilience if the SME restructures its dependency by having a less-concentrated customer base.