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Implementing change in healthcare is difficult to accomplish due to the unpredictability associated with challenging the status quo. Adapting the intervention/practice/program being implemented to better fit the complex context is an important aspect of implementation success. Despite the acknowledged influence of context, the concept continues to receive insufficient attention at the team-level within implementation research. Using two heterogeneous multidisciplinary healthcare teams as implementation case studies, this study evaluates the interplay between context and implementation and highlights the ways in which context influences the introduction of a collective leadership intervention in routine practice.

The multiple case study design adopted, employed a triangulation of qualitative research methods which involved observation (Case A = 16 h, Case B = 15 h) and interview data (Case A = 13 participants, Case B = 12 participants). Using an inductive approach, an in-depth thematic analysis of the data outlined the relationship between team-level contextual factors and implementation success.

Themes are presented under the headings: (1) adapting to the everyday realities, a key determinant for implementation success and (2) implementation stimulating change in context. The findings demonstrate a dynamic relationship between context and implementation. The challenges of engaging busy healthcare professionals emphasised that mapping the contextual complexity of a site and adapting implementation accordingly is essential to enhance the likelihood of successful implementation. However, implementation also altered the surrounding context, stimulating changes within both teams.

By exposing the reciprocal relationship between team-level contextual factors and implementation, this research supports the improved design of implementation strategies through better understanding the interplay and mutual evolution of evidence-based healthcare interventions within different contexts.

Collegiality is often discussed and analyzed as a challenged form of governance, a form of working that used to function well in universities prior to the emergence of contemporary and modern forms of governance. This seems to suggest that collegiality used to dominate, while other forms of governance are now taking over. The papers in volume 86 of this special issue support the notion of challenged collegiality, but also show that for the most part, nostalgic notions of “the good old days” are neither true nor helpful if we are to revitalize academic collegiality. After examining whether a golden age of collegiality ever existed, we discuss why collegiality matters. Exploring what are often described as limitations or “dark sides” of collegiality, we address four such “dark sides” related to slow decision-making, conflicts, parochialism, and diversity. This is followed by a discussion of how these limitations may be handled and what measures must be taken to maintain and develop collegiality. With a brief summary of the remaining papers under two headings, “Maintaining collegiality” and “Revitalizing collegiality,” we preview the rest of this volume.

The purpose of the paper is to propose an effective approach of artificial intelligence (AI) addressing social-humanitarian reality comprising non-formalizable representation. The new task is to describe processes of integration of AI and humans in the hybrid systems framework.

Social-humanitarian dynamics contradict traditional characteristics of AI. Suggested methodology embraces formalized and non-formalized parts as a whole. Holonic and special convergent approaches are combined to ensure purposefulness and sustainability of collective decision-making. Inverse problem solving on topology spaces, control thermodynamics and non-formalizable (considering quantum and relativistic) semantics include observers of eigenforms of reality.

Collective decision-making cannot be represented only by formal means. Thus, this paper suggests the equation of hybrid reality (HyR), which integrates formalizable and non-formalizable parts conveying and coalescing holonic approaches, thermodynamic theory, cognitive modeling and inverse problem solving. The special convergent approach makes the solution of this equation purposeful and sustainable.

The suggested approach is far reaching with respect of current state-of-the-art technology; medium-term limitations are expected in the creation of cognitive semantics.

Social-humanitarian events embrace all phenomena connected with individual and collective human behavior and decision-making. The paper will impact deeply networked experts, groups of crowds, rescue teams, researchers, professional communities, society and environment.

New possibilities for advanced AI to enable purposeful and sustainable social-humanitarian subjects. The special convergent information structuring during collective decision-making creates necessary conditions toward the goals.

Relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class, and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses but have also entrenched political imperatives in its universities. As a consequence, the university is a highly politicised space. This is not new. What is new is a communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). We explore the effects of politicisation and new modes of communication using the case of a controversial article published in a South Africa journal and the ensuing polemic. Drawing on both institutional theory and Castells’ description of the network society, we conceptualise collegiality along two dimensions: horizontal collegial relations which exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct; and vertical collegiality which describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management, and which is necessary for the governance of the university as a complex organisation. We conclude that the highly personal nature of communication that is propelled by digital communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While issues pertaining to collegiality in South Africa may at first glance appear to be unique to the country, we believe that in a globally transforming academy, the South African case may offer novel insights and useful lessons for other highly politicised university systems.

The aims of this paper are to share how one cohort of tourism practitioners viewed the transformative change needed within the tourism industry and to explore the implications for leadership in the future.

The research design is based on a virtual whiteboard brainstorming activity incorporating both the individual and collective thinking of 20 participants in a global cohort class. Using conversational techniques to elicit cognitive knowledge and felt experience, the methodology generates shared understandings about the opportunities and challenges of implementing regenerative tourism.

The conversations reported in the findings of this paper provide important insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by tourism professionals as enablers of regenerative tourism. Findings included, first, that participants within the course demonstrated characteristics of transformational leadership including a strong moral positioning, embodied self-awareness, collaboration and collective action. Second, specific points of inertia that impede regenerative tourism are identified including embedded culture, power and organisational structures. Third, professionals are calling for practical tools, new frames of reference, and examples to help communicate regenerative tourism.

This is a viewpoint, not a research paper. Nonetheless, it provides a rich vein of future research in terms of disruptive pedagogy, potentially gendered interest in regenerative tourism, issues of transforming the next generation and power.

Governance, organisational, destination management strategies, planning and policy frameworks, individual issues as well as contradictions within the tourism system were revealed. Transformative change in an uncertain future requires transformational leadership, characterised by moral character and behaviours that trigger empowered responses.

This paper shares insights from a unique global cohort class of tourism professionals wherein the challenges and opportunities for regenerative tourism are identified. The methodology is unusual in that it incorporates both individual and collective thinking through which shared understandings emerge.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine specificities, including limits of mindfulness at work in an African organisational context, whilst dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically addresses the role of organisational and managerial support systems in restoring employee wellbeing, social connectedness and attachment to their organisations, in order to overcome the exclusion caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes interviews as the main data source. The sample comprises of 20 entrepreneurs (organisational leaders) from Ghana and Nigeria.

The authors found that COVID-19-induced worries restricted the practice of mindfulness, and this was prevalent at the peak of the pandemic, particularly due to very tough economic conditions caused by reduction in salaries, and intensified by pre-existing general economic and social insecurities, and institutional voids in Africa. This aspect further resulted in lack of engagement and lack of commitment, which affected overall team performance and restricted employees’ mindfulness at work. Hence, quietness by employees even though can be linked to mindfulness was linked to larger psychological stress that they were facing. The authors also found leaders/manager’s emotional intelligence, social skills and organisational support systems to be helpful in such circumstances. However, their effectiveness varied among the cases.

This paper is one of the first studies to establish a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and mindfulness limitations. Moreover, it is a pioneering study specifically highlighting the damaging impact of COVID-19-induced concerns on leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) relationships, particularly in the African context. It further brings in a unique discussion on the mitigating mechanisms of such COVID-19-induced concerns in organisations and highlights the roles of manager’s/leader’s emotional intelligence, social skills and supportive intervention patterns. Finally, the authors offer an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of organisational interventions and supportive relational systems in restoring social connectedness following a social exclusion caused by COVID-19-induced worries.

The purpose is explore an approach to acquire, analyze and report data concerning an organizational change initiative that combines knowledge generation and knowledge use, and contrast that with a method where knowledge generation and use is separated. More specifically, the authors contrast a participatory group workshop with individual interviews analyzed with thematic analysis, focusing on information about the change process and its perceived practical relevance and usefulness.

Participants were managers responsible for implementing a broad organizational change aiming to improve service quality (e.g. access and equity) and reduce costs in a mental health service organization in Sweden. Individual interviews were conducted at two points, six months apart (i1: n = 15; i2: n = 18). Between the interviews, a 3.5-h participatory group workshop was conducted, during which participants (n = 15) both generated and analyzed data through a structured process that mixed individual-, small- and whole-group activities.

Both approaches elicited substantive information about the content, purpose and process of change. While the content and purpose findings were similar across the two data sources, the interviews described how to lead a change process, whereas the workshop yielded concrete information about what to do. Benefits of interviews included personal insights about leading change while the workshop provided an opportunity for collective sense-making.

When organizational stakeholders work through the change process through a participatory workshop, they may get on the same page, but require additional support to take action.