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The purpose of this article is to contribute to the research methodology literature that arose out of the (new) sociology of childhood and the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) with regard to conducting ethical research with children rather than on children. In particular, this article reflects on the development of a method (learning dialogues).

Learning dialogues were designed to enable children to share their responses to prompts about specific aspects of their lifeworlds. This was one method used to produce the data corpus which also included a large-scale survey, classroom ethnographies and (video) re-enactments of children's lives after school.

The piloting of the learning dialogues took place in several iterations and a particular form was used for the main study. The original idea and development of the learning dialogues highlights they were both a rich source of data that complemented the other data sources in the study and an activity that children indicated that they enjoyed. The authors discuss the practicalities involved with adapting a qualitative method to different settings and to projects with large numbers of children.

The conceptualisation of the learning dialogues as sources of personal documentation about aspects of children's lifeworlds was unique to this research. In thinking about the learning dialogues as one source of data within a broader project, the research aimed to be more inclusive of all participants in contributing to the findings produced in the project.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the aspects of being a physician that such medical professionals mention in dialogue groups when given the opportunity to choose their own topics of discussion.

Over a period of two years, 60 physicians participated in eight dialogue groups at one of the main hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden. Five focus group interviews were performed after the final dialogue group session.

Qualitative content analysis showed that three themes dominated in the physicians' perceptions of their role: hierarchy and subgroups; understanding of learning and knowledge; clinical work. Very little time in the dialogue groups was spent discussing the third theme, i.e. problems or issues related to patients or their families. The hierarchy among doctors seemed to influence many aspects of the role of these individuals, their healthcare organisation and their work environment. The methodology in the dialogue groups challenged the prevailing hierarchical structures and seemed to improve the relations between different groups of doctors in the hierarchy. For some of the physicians, this also resulted in a new way of perceiving and acting in their professional role.

The results of this study represent only one hospital.

The findings may help healthcare managers understand physicians' conceptions of their role.

Few intervention studies have considered management programmes directed towards physicians. The present investigation is the first qualitative analysis of the use of dialogue groups within a healthcare setting.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition for dialogic performance management and investigate the managerial choices that dialogic performance management necessitates from public managers.

The research strategy was based on a narrative analysis grounded in relativism and constructivism. Multiple data collection methods were used in this case study to examine a local government in Finland.

The paper proposes a definition and provides practical illustrations of the concept of dialogic performance management. The empirical findings are a set of managerial choices used to orchestrate dialogic performance management.

The concept of dialogic performance management encourages practitioners to ask themselves whether their current performance management practices are based on managerial monologues, rather than dialogues that incorporate staff into the performance management. The results also show that managerial choices shape the form of dialogic performance management.

The previous accounting and performance management literature has not examined the managerial choices that are used to shape dialogic performance management. In this research, the authors identify these types of managerial choices in the case organisation. The research is valuable because only after explicating managerial choices can one start to examine why dialogic performance management either fails or succeeds when public managers orchestrate it.

The theoretical aim of the research in this paper is to conceptualize learning in the context of communicative action research, specifically in the context of democratic dialogue. The empirical aim is to show how and in which conditions action research projects, based on democratic dialogue, work.

In the paper, first, a conceptual synthesis is made by combining organizational and learning approaches to action research interventions based on the principles of democratic dialogue. Second, the new frame of reference is used to make a content analysis of two public sector cases from Finland, which will be presented as chance narratives.

The paper finds that the conceptualization of action research interventions first, as development organizations, and second, as learning spaces, sharpens the empirical analysis of the impact of the interventions. The article will point out how the action research interventions enhance collaborative learning among the participants. In cases where democratic dialogue is adopted as a regulative rule, desired organizational changes are likely to happen. In these cases, democratic dialogue diffuses from development organizations to the production and bargaining organizations.

The paper shows that the level of the conceptualization of the research makes it relevant also in other western countries that are experiencing a transformation of the public sector towards managerialism.

The paper combines theories of learning and organizations in the framework of communicative action research in a way that makes explicit the role of workplace democracy. The paper gives a strong theoretical and empirical evidence of the potential of the dialogue methods in the intentional changes of working life.

This study provides details on the development of a qualitative approach to the assessment of public evaluation of water recycling schemes. The approach involved the presentation to a small group of information and audiovisual material on the water cycle and wastewater treatment followed by the use of focus group style questioning to elicit discussion and questioning of the material. Qualitative analysis, based on a discursive method of evaluation, was used to assess dialogue in the groups, and it was concluded that participants used the context of the local scheme to assess their use of recycled water and consider extending the application of recycled water to more personal uses. Participants also tended to use item evaluation rather than category evaluation of water recycling. Agreement responses within workshops also influenced the discourse of evaluation of water reuse.

The purpose of this paper is to explore educator competencies and roles needed to perform participatory patient education, and develop a comprehensive model describing this.

Data collection in the qualitative study proceeded through two phases. In the first phase, 28 educators were involved in exploring educator competencies needed to perform participatory, group-based patient education. The paper used qualitative methods: dialogue workshops, interviews and observations. In the second phase, 310 educators were involved in saturating and validating the insights from phase one using workshop techniques such as brainstorming, reflection exercises and the story-dialogue method. A grounded theory approach was used to analyse data.

A model called “The Health Education Juggler” was developed comprising four educator roles necessary to perform participatory patient education: the Embracer, the Facilitator, the Translator and the Initiator. The validity of the model was confirmed in phase two by educators and showed fit, grab, relevance, workability and modifiability.

The model provides a tool that can be used to support the focus on “juggling” skills in educators: the switching between different educator roles when performing participatory, group-based patient education. The model is useful as an analytical tool for reflection and supervision, as well as for observation and evaluation of participatory, group-based patient education.

The study proposes a comprehensive model consisting of four equally important roles for educators performing participatory, group-based patient education.

In many organisations information systems are difficult to use and so underutilised that managers lose substantial productivity gains. Major problems stem from design processes based on an engineering paradigm; these are critically assessed. How to build the software interface through user profiling, clearing a user migration path and designing suitable methods of dialogue are then discussed. Four fundamental design principles are advanced; the design considerations for workstations and their immediate environments are detailed. Implementation of the important but neglected proposals elucidated here would help towards achieving systems usability – productive, safe preferred use in practice. However, wider organisational issues, for example, personnel policies, work hours, politics, also impact on usability. These also must be considered by management in the process of achieving effective workstation design.

This article investigates the quality of stakeholder engagement (SE) process disclosure in the context of non-financial reporting (NFR) introduced by Directive 2014/95/EU (NFRD). SE implies the involvement of the subjects interested in the organization's activity, according to the principle of inclusiveness and the key concepts of the stakeholder theory (ST).

The authors conducted a content analysis on 75 non-financial statements (NFSs) published by companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange in 2018 and 2021 to evaluate the evolutionary profiles of SE quality through the years.

The average level of SE is not significantly high. The research showed an overall poor quality of disclosure concerning stakeholders' key expectations and issues to be addressed and answered. Furthermore, a certain variability emerged in the quality of the disclosure between the various reports, and no significant improvements in SE quality were noted from 2018 to 2021.

The conclusions provide a replicable method for the analysis of SE quality in NFSs and the development of new standpoints in the ongoing debate on the implications of mandatory legislative frameworks for NFR. Content analyses intrinsically present margins of subjectivity. The sample was limited to a subset of NFS from Italy; hence, the results could be country specific.

This work suggests some possible ways of improvement of SE practices by companies.

Original assessment model based on eight variables identified from the academic literature and the most common international sustainability reporting standards. These variables were stakeholder identification, stakeholder selection process, degree of involvement, SE approach, dialogue channels, SE results, different points of view and integration of the SE process.