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Unika is a prototype robot — the product of work by Unimation in the US and Kawasaki in Japan — which by means of vision can detect the deviation between a taught standard path and the actual welding seam. The robot system can then correct the path taken by the welding gun manipulator.

Reference to the history of technological innovation in the 19th and early 20th centuries shows that its main effect has been to extend man's physical capabilities, very often at the expense of his freedom of thought and action. This has led to a steady increase in the standard of living of the average human being but not necessarily to the quality of life of much of the population shackled ‘on‐line’ to the means of production. This is because robotic behaviour, to date, has not been very high in terms of the level of ‘intelligence’ available, machines are generally blind, deaf, dumb and moronic.

The purpose of this paper was to study the unfolding of an urgent and extensive decommissioning program in Sweden, focusing on the public’s reactions and their arguments when opposing the decommissioning activities.

The public’s responses were studied through local media. Its content was surveyed and divided into actions and arguments. The arguments were further analyzed and categorized into inductively developed themes.

Protest activities, such as demonstrations, meetings and petitions, were not coordinated, but mostly carried out for withdrawals of unique services and services in remote areas. The public questioned the decision makers’ information, calculations and competence, the adequacy of the consequence analyses and whether the decommissioning activities would lead to any real savings. Patient and public safety, the vulnerable in society, and effects on the local areas were important topics. Thus, it seems the decision makers did not fully succeed in communicating the demonstrable benefits or create clarity of the rationales for decommissioning the particular services. Furthermore, it seems the public has a more inclusive approach to health services and their value compared to decision makers that need to keep the budget.

Decommissioning is an emerging field of research, and this study of the unfolding of an urgent and extensive decommissioning program contributes with evidence that may improve decommissioning policy and practice. The study illustrates that it may be possible to implement a decommissioning program despite public protest, but that the longer-term effects on the health system’s legitimacy need to be studied.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an unexploited conceptual pragmatic sociological framework for analyses of action strategies among social assistance recipients, who are affected by contemporary politics of retrenchment.

Noting that existing literature on resistance and coping is mostly concerned with either collective public resistance or sub-public individualised coping strategies, the paper turns to theoretical insights from newer French pragmatic sociologist Laurent Thévenot, enabling the researcher to dissolve the stark boundaries between private/public and coping/resistance. The use of the concepts is demonstrated through a case study analysis of the various actions of Danish social assistance recipients, who were recently affected by a harsh workfare initiative.

The empirical demonstration points to a plurality of individualised strategies of action, taken on by the affected social assistance recipients. Thereby it points to some advantages of the proposed framework, as it makes visible the versatility of the contemporary “welfare client”, as he or she dynamically changes the scope of action and moves between the private and the public and between coping and resistance.

The paper applies hitherto unexploited concepts from French pragmatic sociology to strategies of action among welfare recipients in times of welfare retrenchment.

The purpose of this paper is to expand understandings of how logistics can reduce food waste in food supply chains (FSCs).

Using a research framework that associates causes of food waste with logistics solutions, a multiple-case study was conducted in three Swedish FSCs of meat, fruit and vegetables, and ambient products, respectively, and involving industrial producers, wholesalers, and retailers. Data were collected during 19 semistructured interviews and four site visits, and logistics solutions were analysed according to logistics activities, actors involved and their stages in the FSC, and coordination mechanisms.

A joint analysis of nine logistics solutions revealed that to efficiently reduce food waste in FSCs, solutions have been implemented at three stages of FSCs, as well as that those solutions differ in their integration of six logistics activities and four coordination mechanisms. The findings moreover indicate that the solutions are interlinked, thereby implying that coordination is necessary both within solutions as well as among them.

The chief limitation is that the potential of the identified logistics solutions is not quantified.

The paper makes recommendations for reducing food waste in FSCs by developing new solutions and modifying existing ones.

The paper suggests ways to reduce significant environmental impacts of food waste.

By building upon previous research explaining causes of food waste, this paper focusses on logistics solutions for reducing such waste.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the growing practice of managerial coaching. Much of the coaching literature is set in the context of an external coach coming into an organisation. However managers are increasingly being expected to coach their employees, a change in role which can create tensions.

This paper examines the literature on coaching managers. The paper also discusses practical implications for coach training.

This paper identifies key differences in the issues faced by coaching managers and by internal/external coaches and recognises the importance of adequate training of managers in coaching skills as an important issue for organizations to tackle. Furthermore, the development of a supportive coaching culture should not be underestimated in facilitating managers to apply their coaching skills on a daily basis.

The paper gives an overview of the challenges of the coaching managers, identifies areas for development/consideration of coaching training programs and offers practical suggestions for supporting managers in applying their coaching skills.

Contrasting two countries with different gender regimes and welfare states, Sweden and Tanzania, this paper aims to analyse how the institutional context affects the ways in which a neo-liberal reform agenda is translated into institutional changes and propose how such changes impact the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship.

This study uses document analysis and previous studies to describe and analyse the institutions and the institutional changes. This paper uses Scandinavian institutional theory as the interpretative framework.

This study proposes that: in well-developed welfare states with a high level of gender equality, consequences of neo-liberal agenda for the preconditions for women entrepreneurs are more likely to be negative than positive. In less developed states with a low level of gender equality, the gendered consequences of neo-liberal reforms may be mixed and the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship more positive than negative. How neo-liberalism impacts preconditions for women entrepreneurs depend on the institutional framework in terms of a trustworthy women-friendly state and level of gender equality.

The study calls for bringing the effects on the gender of the neo-liberal primacy of market solutions out of the black box. Studying how women entrepreneurs perceive these effects necessitates qualitative ethnographic data.

This paper demonstrates why any discussion of the impact of political or economic reforms on women’s entrepreneurship must take a country’s specific institutional context into account. Further, previous studies on neo-liberalism have rarely taken an interest in Africa.

Crisis services personnel are frequently deployed around the globe under highly demanding conditions. This raises the need to better understand the deployment process and more especially, sustainable reintegration after deployment. Despite recent research efforts, the study of the post-deployment stage, more specifically the reintegration process, remains fragmented and limited. To address these limitations, this review aims at (1) describing how reintegration is conceptualised and measured in the existing literature, (2) identifying what dimensions are associated with the reintegration process and (3) identifying what we know about the process of reintegration in terms of timing and phases.

Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol, the authors identified 5,859 documents across several scientific databases published between 1995 and 2021. Based on predefined eligibility criteria, 104 documents were yielded.

Research has primarily focused on descriptive studies of negative individual and interpersonal outcomes after deployment. However, this review indicates that reintegration is dynamic, multi-sector, multidimensional and dual. Each of its phases and dimensions is associated with distinct challenges.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research that investigates reintegration among different crisis services and provides an integrative social-ecological framework that identifies the different dimensions and challenges of this process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the manager as coach (MAC) role as an organisational development strategy, in particular, aspects of the relationship between manager and employee that make it successful. The purpose of the MAC in the business context is to help employees consider how they might work and behave differently with more effective behaviours that produce better outcomes, without a reliance on the formal authority the manager possesses.

A qualitative case study approach was adopted in which individuals shared their experiences as MAC and/or as an employee receiving coaching from a manager in an asynchronous online discussion forum. These discussions were then qualitatively analysed.

The findings illustrate the complexity of the MAC role and why many managers fail in this role, leading to a loss of engagement and motivation of staff. Similarly, factors, which strengthen the relationship between the MAC and employee, such as trust, shared values, and benevolence lead to success in this organisational relationship.

Managers need to understand how to operate as a MAC to elevate organisational performance. Similarly, organisational developers need to understand what is required in training programs to develop managers into coaches if they are to employ this strategy successfully.

This practitioner oriented paper builds upon a case study, which explores the MAC role and integrates the findings with contemporary knowledge on performance management and coaching.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between foreign market entry modes and hard‐ and soft‐service firms. The paper investigated which foreign market entry modes service firms opt for, and if this is influenced by systematic differences between types of service industries. A secondary purpose is to test the generalizability of the research findings from manufacturing sector to service sector firms.

Our sample consisted of 140 Swedish service firms. These firms were investigated using a mailed questionnaire survey, and logistic regression analysis was used for testing the hypotheses.

The statistical analysis shows that, in general, soft‐service firms are much more likely than hard service firms to choose a high control entry mode over a low control entry mode. Furthermore, as cultural distance increases, the likelihood of this choice increases even more.

The implications are that while hard service suppliers can learn from the experience of manufacturing firms going abroad, soft services are unique. Given the importance for soft‐service suppliers to interact with their foreign customers, they should opt for a high degree of control over their foreign market entry mode. In future research on foreign market entry mode selection in service firms more attention should be given to social processes that exercise control.

The findings enhance knowledge on foreign market entry by service firms.