| 1. |
- Tyskbo, Daniel, Dr. 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Karma chameleon : Exploring the leadership complexities of middle managers in the public sector
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Public Management Journal. - Philadelphia, PA : Routledge. - 1096-7494 .- 1559-3169. ; 26:4, s. 548-569
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While leadership is one of the most discussed concepts in the social sciences, there is a need for more scholarly research that examines the ambiguous leadership position of middle managers, and how their leadership work is perceived in practice. In this article, we follow the recent research turn of adopting a social constructionist view of leadership, and make use of metaphors to answer the following research question: how are middle managers in the public sector managing the expectations and demands from both top management and subordinates, and what are some of its consequences? We study this in the public sector, a context of particular importance but one that has often been neglected in previous research. Through a qualitative in-depth case study, based on observations, interviews, and organizational documents, our findings show that middle managers were trapped in the way they moved between being constructed as a leader and a follower, along what we call a leader-follower pendulum, and in the way they enacted two different leadership metaphors: the buddy and the commander. These aspects jointly contribute to a complex and ambiguous situation for middle managers, which in turn gives rise to alienation and the constant strive to fit in, something that we metaphorically refer to as “karma chameleon.” © 2022 The Author(s).
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| 2. |
- Fasth, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Crisis management as practice in small- and medium-sized enterprises during the first period of COVID-19
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. - : Wiley. - 0966-0879 .- 1468-5973. ; 30:2, s. 113-224
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article draws attention to the social context and working methods in crisis management. Based on 1000 interviews with business leaders in Swedish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we analyze crisis management in practice and ask: What social contexts do business leaders use in crisis management, and what working methods do they rely on? Most companies in this study do not have any form of crisis group; rather, they deal with issues reactively as they occur. Few of the companies work continuously with a crisis plan and only slightly more than half of those that have crisis plans report that it has been helpful in dealing with the COVID-19 situation. The study concludes that Swedish SMEs seem reliant upon a process that has an emerging nature whereby decisions are largely based on gut feeling. However, the companies in our sample that experienced a significant revenue decline due to the COVID-19 situation report that they employ a more centralized and deductive approach with reports and documents as a basis for their work. The study contributes to a developed understanding of how crisis management works in practice.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Löwstedt, Martin, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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Leadership under construction: A qualitative exploration of leadership processes in construction companies in Sweden.
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management - ASCE. - 1943-7862 .- 0733-9364. ; 147:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Leadership has increasingly been advocated as a potent organizing practice, linked positively to several performance dimensionsas well as successful organizational development and change. Despite these alleged promises, the specific characteristics of leadership proc-esses as they unfold in a construction context have not been fully captured by construction researchers. This paper is predicated on anidentified lack of methodological richness underlying leadership studies in construction. While a growing number of contributions havequantitatively tested the ideas and models of leadership scholars, few have qualitatively explored the experiences and interpretations ofthe actual people that practice leadership in their daily work in construction companies. Drawing on a rich qualitative interview study, thispaper analyzes open-ended stories about leadership in the largest construction companies in Sweden. The findings show how leadership styleshave been shaped to align with traditional work and organizing principles, but also how they, by the same token, pose a seemingly unresolvedtension with change initiatives that seek to reorganize to improve organizational performance. Altogether, these findings indicate that there aregrounds to question the transformative potential of leadership in construction companies, as practiced today. The paper concludes by outliningthe practical implications of these findings, together with some analytical generalizations that can serve as pointers for a strengthened lead-ership agenda in construction research, one that is characterized by an increased methodological richness and accentuated focus on thecontext-specific aspects of leadership
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| 5. |
- Styhre, Alexander, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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The benefit of market-based governance devices: Reflections on the issue of growing economic inequality as a corporate concern
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Management Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 0263-2373. ; 37:4, s. 413-420
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Growing economic inequality in advanced economies is explained by a variety of conditions and mechanisms, but a growing literature emphasises how corporate governance decisions serve to transfer wealth from labour to capital owners, including shareholders. The article introduces the term governance devices to examine how a consistent annual real wage growth (calculated to 1.20 percent) over the period 1997-2017 has been negotiated in Sweden, based on a bilateral market-based industrial agreement between the employer organisation and a confederation of trade unions. The article stresses the importance of governance decisions in counteracting secular stagnation of real wage growth, which reduces the purchasing power in an economy and incurs other externalities. Corporate governance is, therefore, a key mechanism in resolving the issue of how to allocate the residual cash being generated in the corporate production activities so that it benefits all constituencies and balances short-term returns to shareholders and medium-to long-term economic growth and stability. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 6. |
- Bruncevic, Merima, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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Introduction
- 2024
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Ingår i: Towards a Sustainable World - Academic Insights and Perspectives. - Göteborg : Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet. - 9789189838277 ; , s. 19-57
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 7. |
- Bergström, Ola, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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It takes change to remain the same: The transformation of Swedish government policy making in economic crises and the involvement of social partners
- 2021
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Ingår i: Economic and Industrial Democracy. - 0143-831X. ; 43:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The government responses to the corona crisis across the world has actualized an old debate regarding the role of the state and government policy making in economic crises. This debate should, the authors of this article argue, be understood in the context of how government policy making has been transformed in advanced capitalist economies in the past five decades and recent theoretical developments regarding the role of actors and institutions involved in the production and dissemination of ideas in such transformations. Drawing on an extensive review of policy making and changes in policy making doctrines, this article examines the role of government public investigations in the transformation of the Swedish government policy making in relation to economic crises where the state supports policy making through social partners.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Round, H., et al.
(författare)
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Reality bites: Managing identity ambiguity in an advertising agency
- 2017
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Ingår i: Creativity and Innovation Management. - : Wiley. - 0963-1690. ; 26:2, s. 202-213
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Creative industries provide a challenging environment for management, especially given the ambiguities inherent in these environments and the need to balance creative work with mundane, yet supportive practices of organizations. Within these environments there are a large number of individuals with high identity needs such as the Creatives, and management must thus balance the needs of these Creatives with those of other organizational actors, including those responsible for allegedly 'non-creative' processes. This paper examines an Australian advertising agency and demonstrates how individuals and groups within the organization handle ambiguities and tensions inherent to their work. The case study shows how management provides structures and support in order to allow for heedful interactions between two oppositional dimensions of the environment. Therefore managerial action and instituted processes serve to strike a balance between the creative and non-creative work and to guide individuals and groups towards meaningful outcomes.
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| 10. |
- Styhre, Alexander, 1971
(författare)
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Agency and the principle of charity: a pragmatist theory of the interaction order
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Journal of Organizational Analysis. - : Emerald. - 1934-8835. ; 31:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of agency on basis of a pragmatist philosophy framework of analysis. Agency is a key analytical concept in management studies, debated in terms of its theoretical elements and its degree of empirical substantiation. Agency is commonly either assumed to be the case, understood as some generic human capacity to act with integrity, or, alternatively, agency is considered to be derived from social structures, say professional norms or occupational identities acquired through socialization. In contrast, in an attempt to escape the agency/structure model, agency may be considered as what is generated in and through meso-level interactions, constituted as recurrent practices wherein accomplishments in the past serve as the template for new activities that further reinforce agential capacities. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the work of pragmatist philosopher Donald Davidson and what he calls the principle of charity, this paper presents an analytical model wherein agency is generated on basis of a shared everyday language wherein beliefs and preferences are constituted and thereafter serve as the basis of agential action. Findings Davidson's externalist theory of action is supportive of the theory and study of meso-level interactions and helps to overcome the question whether agency is exogenously given or the effect of social structure. Originality/value This paper reviews recent social science literature on agency and introduces pragmatist philosophy concepts to better examine under what conditions social actors can reasonably have faith in an interaction being premised on beliefs that are held on basis of rational and reasonable grounds. This adds to an integrated theory of agency, being of importance for social theory and organizational analysis more specifically.
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