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The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding regarding how managers attempt to make purposeful use of innovation management self-assessments (IMSA) and performance information (PI).

An interpretative perspective on purposeful use is used as an analytical framework, and the paper is based on empirical material from two research projects exploring the use of IMSA and PI in three case companies. Based on the empirical data, consisting of interviews and observations of workshops and project meetings, qualitative content analysis has been conducted.

The findings of this paper indicate that how managers achieve a purposeful use of PI is related to their approach toward how to use the specific PI at hand, and two basic approaches are analytically separated: a rule-based approach and a reflective approach. Consequently, whether or not the right thing is being measured also becomes a question of how the PI is actually being interpreted and used. Thus, the extensive focus on what to measure and how to measure it becomes edgeless unless equal attention is given to how managers are able to use the PI to make knowledgeable decisions regarding what actions to take to achieve the desired changes.

Given the results, it comes with a managerial responsibility to make sure that all managers who are supposed to be engaged in using the PI are given roles in the self-assessments that are aligned with the level of knowledge they possess, or can access.

How managers purposefully use PI is a key to understand the potential impact of self-assessments.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the perspective of the management group regarding how they reasoned when deciding to engage in a model focussing on systematic work environment management, and what motives that influenced their decision.

This qualitative study with semi-structured interviews includes 18 representatives from the management groups in 18 Swedish municipalities. Data were analysed with a constant comparative method.

The participants described two aspects that were of importance when making the decision; establishing commitment before making the decision and establishing strategies to legitimise the decision. Furthermore, they expressed motives that were linked both to their individual expectations and wishes and to policies and facts in their organisations. The participants experienced the model as a valuable tool in their organisations to increase employee participation and to provide structured support to their first-line managers.

The managers’ motives were linked to individual expectations and external directives. These were often intertwined and influenced their decisions. When implementing this type of model, it is important to discuss decisions in a larger group to avoid building an organisational initiative on one person’s expectations. Furthermore, it is important to support the management’s work to establish commitment for the model in the municipal organisation.

This study adds to knowledge of the complexity of deciding and implementing models to support systematic work environment management in organisations.

The activities carried out in ports are disruptive to the environment where they are located. Therefore, the objective of this work is to analyze the presence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the missions and visions of the main ports of Latin America.

A qualitative technique of content analysis was applied to the missions and visions of 72 ports in Latin America. First, the missions and visions of the ports were collected (72). Second, it was assigned a value 1 if the mission had any evidence of CSR, 0 if it had no evidence and “-” if the mission was not found. The same procedure was performed with the visions.

Results indicate that 20.83% of the ports allude to CSR in their missions, 34.72% of the ports allude to it in their missions and visions and 13.88% only allude to it in their visions (22 ports did not mention it in their missions or their visions). So, the main findings indicate that in Latin America the majority of ports do not consider elements of CSR in their missions and visions.

This paper is mainly focused on covering two gaps in the literature: first, to increase knowledge about the strategic bases of ports in Latin America through their missions and visions; and second, to visualize the coherence of the missions and visions with the activities of CSR.