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In the face of diverse national and international threats, the purpose of this paper is to explore the transformational leadership challenges in emergency services systems in Canada. These adaptive complex systems respond to critical mass emergencies, disasters and catastrophes.

This qualitative research study uses grounded theory to examine the phenomenology of emergency services leadership from systems perspective. Using the theoretical Wu-Shi-Ren (WSR)-Li systems paradigm, this key informant study of 103 emergency leaders from 81 organizations focusses on the systemic challenges that transformational leaders face in emergency services systems. The response rate was 83.5 percent using a semi-structured and open-ended questionnaire.

This key informant study underscores the competencies for transformational leadership and identifies 12 key leadership challenges in the context of the future evolution of emergency services systems. From the use of a grounded theory methodology, the new theory of transcendental transformational emergency leadership is posited.

Qualitative studies such as this key informant study underscores the relevance of the WSR-Li systems paradigm and grounded theory approach in discerning leadership challenges that are specific if not unique to emergency services systems.

This study underscores the theoretical and pragmatic implications of the transformational leadership challenges for leadership paradigms, innovation and inter-sectorial collaborative networks and possible future emergency services research.

This study stresses the importance of addressing leadership challenges of emergency services systems as instrumental in ultimately saving lives, minimizing injuries and assuring complete health and social recovery from the scourges of emergency events nationally and internationally.

Qualitative studies of the perspectives of strategic emergency leadership of systemic emergency services systems has not hitherto been done in Canada nor internationally. This key informant study underscores the relevance of the WSR-Li systems paradigm and grounded theory approach in discerning transformational leadership challenges that are specific if not unique to emergency services systems. Moreover, from the use of a grounded theory approach, a new theory of transcendental transformational emergency leadership emerged.

This study explores municipal leaders' perceptions on strategic human resource management in their local government organization. Previous studies on companies demonstrate that the top manager's perceptions of the importance of human resource management (HRM) for the organization are reflected in the quality of human resource management and its strategic role. The authors are interested in how leaders in municipalities perceive HRM.

The authors interviewed 30 leaders of Finnish municipalities for this qualitative study focused on municipal leaders' perceptions of HRM. The authors applied a discourse analytical approach in the analysis.

The authors recognized four discourses that frame perceptions of HRM: HRM as a strategic weapon, HRM as an underperformer, HRM as a matter of formality and HRM as a cost generator. In addition, the authors recognized that the discourses reflected leaders' self-positioning in relation to the power to impact issues related to HRM. Shifting between distinct roles demonstrated that municipal leaders' emphasis on HRM and its strategic alignment reflects the power relations in the municipality and the attitudes to the importance of HRM.

This study contributes to the academic discussions on HRM in municipalities and provides views on the municipal leader's role and impact on valuing and investing in HRM. From a practical point of view, the study will increase municipal leaders' knowledge of HRM's impact on the performance of the organization and also of the possible means of HRM.

The sound leadership style can be indicative of organizational success and explanatory of quality performance. Besides this, there are various factors that can impact organizational performance. To this end, this study aims to investigate the effect of ethical leadership on organizational performance, with the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational culture.

The service sector in Jordan was targeted by this research, and data were collected from 371 middle-level and top-level managers working in service companies. These responses were analyzed by using analysis of a moment structure.

The result conveyed that ethical leadership does not only influence organizational performance, but it also, and positively so, affects the organizational culture and CSR. In addition, CSR and organizational culture significantly mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational performance.

The findings of this study are a guide for managers and owners of service companies who are aiming to enhance organizational performance. If they follow the ethical leadership approach and emphasize CSR initiatives and organizational culture, they can attain, and naturally so, the maximum level of organizational performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is the first to analyze ethical leadership in the context of the service sector in Jordan and highlight its influence on organizational culture, CSR and ultimately organizational performance. Moreover, it examined the mediating effects of organizational culture and CSR between ethical leadership and organizational performance.

Leading with vision while granting employees autonomy is one effective organizational response to the demands of a dynamic external environment. The former is thought to align followers' behavior by providing guidance, the latter to increase variance in their behavior by relinquishing control; both exert beneficial but distinct effects on organizational performance. What has remained uncharted heretofore is how these leader behaviors shape their followers' cognition and, subsequently, yield improvements in performance. The authors argue that a leader's vision communication transforms followers' cognitive representation of their work. This not only enables them to specify their goals in alignment with the vision (goal clarity) but also to locate the meaning of their work within the bigger picture of the vision (construal level). By contrast, perceived autonomy in terms of power-sharing might directly affect followers' work engagement more narrowly.

The authors tested the model on a sample of 408 employees from eleven enterprises of a holding company. In the survey, employees reported perceived vision communication and autonomy provided by their leader. Furthermore, the authors assessed the employees' goal attainment. To capture how employees represent their daily work activities, the authors measured their construal level and their goal clarity.

The results show that both perceived vision communication and granted autonomy improve employees' goal achievement. Moreover, two processes mediate the relationship between vision communication and goal achievement in followers: first, specifying goals in terms of clarity; second, composing a higher-level mental construal of their work. In contrast, no mediation of empowering leader behaviors was found.

Better goal achievement through visionary leadership is therefore achieved through cognitive alignment of followers, while leader-granted autonomy acts as a motivational tool directly on performance.

The paper contributes to the discussion on valuation in organization studies and strategic management literature. The nascent literature on valuation practices has examined established markets where producers and consumers are known and rivalry in the market is a given. Furthermore, previous research has operated with a narrow meaning of value as either a financial profit or a subjective consumer preference. Such a narrow view on value is problematic and insufficient for studying the interlacing of innovation and value creation in emerging technoscientific business domains.

The authors present an empirical study about value creation in an emerging technoscience business domain formed around personalized medicine and digital health data.

The results of this analysis show that in a technoscientific domain, valuation of innovations is multiple and malleable, entails pursuing attractiveness in collaboration and partnerships and is performative, and due to emphatic future orientation, values are indefinite and promissory.

As research implications, this study shows that valuation practices in an emerging technoscience business domain focus on defining the potential economic value in the future and attracting partners as probable future beneficiaries. Commercial value upon innovation in an embryonic business milieu is created and situated in valuation practices that constitute the prospective market, the prevalent economic discourse, and rationale. This is in contrast to an established market, where valuation practices are determined at the intersection of customer preferences and competitive arenas where suppliers, producers, service providers and new entrants to the market present value propositions.

The study findings extend discussion on valuation from established business domains to emerging technoscience business domains which are in a “pre-competition” phase where suppliers, customers, producers and their collaborative and competitive relations are not yet established.

As managerial implications, this study provides insights into health innovation stakeholders, including stakeholders in the public, private and academic sectors, about the ecosystem dynamics in a technoscientific innovation. Such insight is useful in strategic decision-making about ecosystem strategy and ecosystem business model for value proposition, value creation and value capture in an emerging innovation domain characterized by collaborative and competitive relations among stakeholders. To business managers, the findings of this study about valuation practices are useful in strategic decision-making about ecosystem strategy and ecosystem business model for value proposition, value creation and value capture in an emerging innovation domain characterized by collaborative and competitive relations among stakeholders. To policy makers, this study provides an in-depth analysis of an overall business ecosystem in an emerging technoscience business that can be propelled to increase the financial investments in the field. As a policy implication, this study provides insights into the various dimensions of valuation in technoscience business to policy makers, who make governance decisions to guide and control the development of medical innovation using digital health data.

This study's results expand previous theorizing on valuation by showing that in technoscientific innovation all types of value created – scientific, clinical, social or economic – are predominantly promissory. This study complements the nascent theorizing on value creation and valuation practices of technoscientific innovation.