| 1. |
- Kihlberg, Robert, 1975-
(författare)
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Influence in sensemaking during change : a study of the Swedish police reform and subsequent change work
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is based on four articles, and examines efforts of influence in processes of sensemaking during, and subsequent to, the Swedish police reform. Sensemaking – a process where individuals work to understand what is going on when they encounter confusing events – is of central importance for how organizational change unfolds. Influence in sensemaking refers to activities with capacity to shape persons preferences and perceptions, as they try to make sense. In this dissertation, the overall purpose is to increase the understanding about influence in sensemaking during micro-processes of change. The research questions address how efforts of influence in sensemaking at different organizational levels can be understood, and by which means actors attempt to influence others sensemaking. The research applies sensemaking and sensegiving as its theoretical framework. With a qualitative approach, and ethnographic methods, influence in sensemaking is examined on four levels: Article 1 examines how the strategic level of reform promote change through visual media. The results show how 44 videos function to layer meaning and construct stereotypes in attempts to influence how the sensemaking of change would take place. Article 2 reports an ethnography of middle-managers involving employees in a multivocal process that aims to influence how sensemaking evolves. This process has four features: open-endedness, low control over cues given, several sources of cues, and the encouragement of complexity and ambiguity. Article 3 studies employees working as ‘change’ agents at employee conferences. Results show that these actors exert influence in three ways: drawing on positional power, acting powerless, and by attempts to give power away. Article 4 reports an ethnography of employees enacting a change initiative. The results show how employees’ various enactments involve episodic power, which influence the sensemaking process to varying degrees and towards diverse ends. Overall, the results from the articles outlines three understandings of influence in sensemaking: top-down efforts, reflexive interactions and responsive enactments – each with particular consequences for who can take part in processes of sensemaking, organizing, and change work, when and how. For organizations, the results imply a need for managers and employees to raise awareness of others as well as one’s own influence in sensemaking, as it shapes the way they make sense of, understand, and enact organizational change. In a larger perspective, this has significance for which forms of organizing are stimulated to develop – democratic or undemocratic.
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| 2. |
- Rantatalo, Oscar, 1982-
(författare)
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Sensemaking and organising in the policing of high risk situations : Focusing the Swedish Police National Counter-Terrorist Unit
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Specialised policing of critical incidents has previously been underexplored within scholarly research. Simultaneously, this type of policing has been recognised as a highly complex endeavour which hinges on an organisationalability to make sense of uncertainty and external contingencies. To build knowledge on the subject of specialised policing, the present thesis aims to explore processes of sensemaking and organising in the work context of specialised police units dedicated to the policing of high risk incidents. Two research questions have guided the thesis project viz.: 1) what ascribed meanings are coupled to specialised police unit work practice and; 2) how can organising of specialised police units be enacted in a reliable manner. These questions are empirically addressed through four part-studies: Study A amounts to a contextual literature study of previous research on specialised police units and aims at conceptual development of anomenclature describing police specialisation as a professional context. Study B in the thesis examines symbolic meanings connected to specialised police units and how such meanings relate to constructions of occupational identity of police officers working in a specialised police unit. With these studies as a contextual frame, study C within the thesis examines how leadership, management and ICT system within a specialised police unitimpacts organisational reliability and sensemaking during incident management. Finally, study D examines organisational reliability on an interpersonal level during incident management as it entails a study of collaboration between police practitioners conducting an intervention. The thesis employs a mainly ideographic and close practice approach to researchas the empirical examinations are focused upon one specific specialised police unit, namely the Swedish police’s National Counter-Terrorist Unit (NI). Using data collected through interviews, observations and archival sources, the thesis aims to contribute both to organisational developmentand to knowledge development within the scholarly community. In overview, the results of the thesis indicate that specialised policing on a level of ascribed meaning tend to be represented as exceptional, sensational and surrounded by inferences of elitism, machismo and violence. In extent, such representations inform serving police officers occupational identity workeither by spurring identification or dis-identification with prevailing accounts of meaning. On a level of organising, resilient policing of high risk incidents is shown to be dependent on an ability to favour flexibility, both through the organisational frameworks that frames incident management and in interpersonal enactment during task execution. This conclusion challenges day-to-day conceptualisation of specialised police units’ work practice as instrumental applications of coercion.
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| 3. |
- Haake, Ulrika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Doing gender and professional identity : inclusion and exclusion of female civilians in criminal investigations
- 2023
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Ingår i: Policing & society. - : Routledge. - 1043-9463 .- 1477-2728. ; 33:8, s. 893-907
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The number of civilian crime investigators (CIs) has been increasing among the police, a trend that is called civilianisation. However, conflicts have arisen from perceptions that civilian CIs undermine professional police efforts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intersection of doing gender and professional identity in narratives on inclusion and/or exclusion in CIs' professional practices. Because professional background and gender composition change with the civilianisation of the police, this study included interviews with 48 female CIs from Sweden. The study showed that aspects of belongingness and uniqueness interact in complex ways and conclude that the intersection of being a civilian CI and a woman is at the core, especially in narratives on exclusion. Taken together, this means that civilian CIs' narratives are important to learn from and can help the police become aware of obstacles to and opportunities for civilian employees' full participation in the criminal investigation practice. Aspects of belongingness and uniqueness are discussed to contribute knowledge of how gender and professional identity can be redone in a way that helps reduce future barriers to full inclusion of female and civilian CIs in police work.
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| 4. |
- Haake, Ulrika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Leadership in swedish public organizations : a research review in education and care
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies. - : VIA University College. - 2245-0157. ; 13:2, s. 63-85
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article is a review of recent Swedish leadership research in two large public-sector areas: education and care. By comparing and contrasting research in these areas, we unveil the specifics and commonalities of research in public-sector leadership. We reviewed research articles from 2018 to 2020 and analyzed theories used, data-gathering methods employed, and topics researched. The results show some fundamental differences between the two areas. Compared to research on education, research on care is to a larger extent non-theoretical and is often focused on change management, quality assurance, and leaders’ roles in employee health. Conversely, studies on education are theory driven and mostly focused on leaders’ roles in learning and shared leadership. We discuss the state of Swedish public leadership research and make suggestions for mutual learning and moving forward in this research field.
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| 5. |
- Hällgren, Markus, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Sensemaking in detective work : the social nature of crime investigation
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal of Police Science and Management. - : Sage Publications. - 1461-3557 .- 1478-1603. ; 23:2, s. 119-132
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we contribute to the knowledge on police detectives' work practices, and report how police detectives make sense of casework in a social manner. As our research question, we address the ways in which detective work can be understood as a social process. To target this question, we conducted an ethnographic study that examines how detectives who work with domestic violence and high-volume crimes strive to frame and understand events in everyday investigative practice. The data consist of approximately 200 hours of ethnographic data and interviews from two departments in a Swedish police station. The results indicate that detectives' sensemaking of casework took place through two principal practices: a concluding practice and a supporting practice. Furthermore, the findings show that detectives' work is highly social and procedural. This suggests that detectives' work practice is of a social nature and that contacts between investigators are important to take into account in the organization of an investigative department.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Liljeholm Bång, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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The mismatch between teaching and assessing professionalism : a practice architecture analysis of three professional programmes
- 2024
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Ingår i: Studies in Continuing Education. - : Routledge. - 0158-037X .- 1470-126X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While there is broad agreement about their importance, courses in professionalism have proven difficult to teach and assess. Furthermore, there is currently a lack of knowledge regarding problems that are common across professional boundaries. The purpose of this article is to examine what teaching and assessing professionalism in higher education entails in three distinctly different professional education contexts in Sweden: medical, police, and social-work education. The study is qualitative and comparative, with data consisting of documents (curricula, syllabi, course content n > 200), interviews (n = 18), and participant observations (∼30 h) of how professionalism is taught and assessed in each programme. The results describe the practice architectures of teaching and assessing professionalism, where problems and dilemmas are made visible. The results also show a tension between the ambition to practise and the ambition to assess, which leads to what we call 'assessment avoidance'.
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| 8. |
- Lindberg, Ola, Docent, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Workplace learning, power, and practice : modes of participation for civilian criminal investigators
- 2024
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Ingår i: Vocations and Learning. - : Springer. - 1874-785X .- 1874-7868. ; 17:1, s. 43-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article aims to contribute to the theorization of power in workplace learning. We examined the ways in which civilian investigators participate in criminal investigation practice, and how these modes related to the social ordering in the police organization. Civilians, mostly women and well educated, are being hired in large numbers to help with the shortage of staff within the Swedish police organization. We analysed 71 interviews with both civilians and police officers, covering views on the nature of investigative work, the introduction of civilians, and their competence. The interviews were analysed in an abductive process using a practice theory outlook on power and participation. The results show four different modes of participation for civilians that have vastly different consequences for their integration into the police. These modes are dependent on how civilian competence is viewed, whether civilians are viewed as different or similar, and whether they are considered competent at investigating crimes. We conclude that the struggle to define competent practice is at the core of understanding the relationship between learning and power.
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| 9. |
- Rantatalo, Oscar, et al.
(författare)
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Criminal Investigation in Rural Areas : How Police Detectives Manage Remoteness and Resource Scarcity
- 2021
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Ingår i: Policing. - : Oxford University Press. - 1752-4512 .- 1752-4520. ; 15:2, s. 1352-1366
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses how rural environments characterized by remoteness impact the work of police detectives in their casework. It reports on an ethnographic study of two investigative departments (working on volume crime and domestic crime) located in Northern Sweden. Interviews (N=27) and participant observations (N =56) were conducted in order to examine how investigators approached and managed rural conditions in their daily work. Findings indicate that police investigations in rural areas are characterized by constraints, such as resource shortages, extended set-up times (due to travelling), and challenges in multitasking. The findings identify two main practices for investigating crime in such settings: 'rural investigation' that entails a decentralized approach in which investigators are embedded locally; and 'investigating the rural' that entails a distanced, centralized approach. This article discusses trade-offs and predicted outcomes in crime investigation and highlights how the urban/rural binary divide encompasses a paradoxical tension that investigators must manage continuously
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| 10. |
- Rantatalo, Oscar, et al.
(författare)
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The enactment of professional boundary work : a case study of crime investigation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Professions & Professionalism. - Oslo : OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University. - 1893-1049. ; 13:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Professional boundary takes place as actors negotiate occupational boundaries and division of labour. In this article, we examine the conditions of defensive, accommodating, and configurational boundary work in the context of crime investigation. We analyse how professional boundaries are negotiated as civilian investigators become involved with policing. The article is based on 71 interviews with civilian and police crime investigators from a variety of investigation units in Sweden. Findings show how policing as a professional field is shifted as civilians from a wide variety of backgrounds and with varying motivations enter the occupation. Defensive boundary work that devalued civilians was widely occurring. However, boundary work that focused on learning, collaboration, and training was also occurring in high-status units. The discussion focuses on how power asymmetries impact boundary work when professions are undergoing change. This study exemplifies how organizational actors navigate, defend, and challenge their positions as professional boundaries are negotiated.
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