Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add a little piece to the research on boundary work and inter-occupational cooperation by addressing two questions: how do actors perform boundary work in an inter-occupational cooperation project that seeks to improve the personnel health work in a hospital setting? What impact does the boundary work have on such cooperation in the personnel health project?

Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on individual, in-depth interviews and participative observations of focus group discussions conducted at a regional municipal organization in Sweden. Respondents are hospital line managers, experts and strategists in the HR departments, and experts from the internal occupational health service.

Findings: The concepts on boundary work, which include closing/opening boundary strategies, provide the framework for the empirical illustrations. The cooperation runs smoothly in the rehabilitation work because of an agreed upon process in which the professionals’ jurisdictions are preserved through closing strategies. Illness prevention and health promotion are not areas of inter-occupational cooperation because the stronger actors use closing strategies. While the weaker actors, who try to cooperate, use opening boundary strategies in these areas, they are excluded or marginalized.

Research limitations/implications: The empirical investigation concerns one cooperation project and was completed at one data collection point.

Originality/value: No similar study of boundary work and inter-occupational cooperation in a hospital setting is available despite the frequency of this professional group configuration in practice. A more inclusive concept of professionalism may facilitate the study of boundary work and inter-occupational cooperation among actors with different professional authority. © Emerald Publishing Limited 2018

The spiritual leadership literature suggests that such leadership has a positive influence on organizations' productivity and profitability as well as on employees' enjoyment and well-being. In a qualitative study conducted at a Swedish abbey for nuns, using interviews, observations, correspondence, and documents, this research indicates that spiritual leadership may pose negative risks to organizations and their leaders. Risks in spiritual leadership that are indicated include a culture of narrow-mindedness and leadership rotation failure that can lead to rigidity and to the leader's work overload because of the demand for limitless empathy and for personal sacrifice. The findings should be viewed as an inspiration for further research.

This paper explains a growing function in today’s public organizations: the technostructure. It reports on the outcomes of an educational programme to develop teams comprising HR, financial and organizational development managers in a Swedish municipality in order to achieve joint support to line managers. The three groups emphasized the importance of their dissimilar work areas and their differences vis-à-vis other administrative occupations with presumably simpler tasks, and showed their indispensability. The groups’ relations were strengthened, but not their actual joint support to line managers. The paper contributes to the literature on professionalized technostructures and organizational change. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The public sector faces a grave problem as far as managerial retention as the result of the increasing number of retirements and of voluntary resignations. Despite the vital interest in managerial turnover in the public sector, research is scarce. This study, which increases our understanding of why public sector managers leave their positions, takes a qualitative and narrative research approach in examining voluntary turnover. Interviews were conducted with operations managers (in education, social care, and technical activities) at three Swedish municipalities. We identify a multitude of environment push and pull factors with a focus on administrative support, supervisory support and illegitimate tasks. The narratives of managerial turnover reveal the complexity of the decision to leave or remain in a job, containing a mixture of push and pull factors, negative feelings, unmet expectations and extraordinary events. Three possible HRD actions to decrease undesirable managerial turnover are identified: re-work organizational structures; re-model job characteristics; and re-examine managerial turnover decisions as a long and complex process. Our hope is that the findings are used for ultimately create healthy organizations. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Managers are key assets to the public sector in creating effective and healthy organizations. However, there are indications of high managerial turnover, which may decrease organizational efficiency, increase costs, and lead to a less favorable view of the public sector. In this article we review the literature on actual voluntary managerial turnover in the public sector in order to describe the state of knowledge and discuss the ways forward. Searching in three large databases, we found a total of 12 empirical articles on actual managerial turnover in the public sector from 1992 to 2014. The research is scarce, especially on lower management levels, and little knowledge is available for human resource professionals in their work to support managers in creating healthy and meaningful managerial roles. We argue that more research is needed to understand to what extent and why managers leave, and what the actual effects are. © Anna Cregård, Linda Corin, Katrin Skagert and School of Public Administration 2017

In recent years the number of people working within the techno structure in public sector organizations has increased, for example within human resource, communication, financial control, and general administration, just as Mintzberg (1993) foresaw already in the beginning of the 1980’s[1]. Many of these occupations have initiated a professionalization process, which among other things has resulted in an increased focus on developing the profession itself, strengthening boundaries towards other occupations and functions, and elevating the jurisdiction. For example within local government human resource and communication functions the jurisdictional claim has been transferred from the operative, hands-on work to more strategic work and in partnership with strategic management[2]. The techno structure experts can be described as more professional, more knowledgeable and highly skilled, but also more detached from the everyday work of civil servants and operative managers trying to execute the public organization’s mission, hence creating public value.

Professionalization within the local governments’ techno structure is theoretically interesting. For example there is a matter of gender, since women mostly inhabit the techno structure functions. It is also interesting from a cooperation and boundary work point of view, since different models of cooperation contain different logics of negotiations, conflict and agreements. And cooperation is hard to achieve, since that requires actual prioritization and redistribution of resources[3]. In this study our aim is to develop knowledge on cooperation models between the techno structure experts and line-managers in order to create sustainable and healthy organizing that can foster public value creation. Following Zhou, et al.[4] inter-occupational cooperation is defined here as working together across boundaries in order to achieve common goals, emphasizing the multi-actor and multi-occupational relationships.

In order to investigate the content and effects of different models of cooperation we have conducted case studies in three Swedish local governments, including focus group interviews, survey data and secondary sources. We have also re-analyzed both survey data and interview data from our previous investigations on related issues in local governments.

We present three analytical models of cooperation between line-managers and techno structure experts, derived from the empirical investigation. The three models are built up by different logics, and hence create different levels of value to the public organization and common good on the one hand, and to the different functions and professions involved on the other hand. The models may be used as analytical tools for empirical and normative work for the development of the public organization, but also as a foundation for adding a little piece of the theoretical puzzle of how to create cooperation and value within local government organizations. 

[1] Mintzberg, H. (1993). Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 

[2] Condrey, S.E. (2015). Public Human Resource Management: How We Get Where We are Today. Riccucci, N. M. (ed) Public Personnel Management. 1-13. Routledge. 

[3] Ashkenas, R. (2015). There’s a Difference Between Cooperation and Collaboration. Harvard Business Review, April 20, 1-6. 

[4] Zhou, J., et al. (2014). Making collaborators happy: The outcome priming effect in integrative negotiation. Public Personnel Management, 43(3), 290-300.

According to Action Agenda 21, which was adopted at the Rio Conference in 1992, sustainable development is a major objective for local and global development. Economic growth, good living conditions, and protection of the earth’s natural environment are important to all people in the world. This article focuses on one aspect of sustainable development, i.e. on environmental sustainability. Research shows that local government can take a leading position in protecting the natural environment and disseminating information on it among stakeholders. However, our knowledge about the dissemination of environmental information practices among stakeholders is limited. The purpose of this research is to fill a gap in current knowledge, to describe and compare the practical work with dissemination of such information among stakeholders in Swedish and Polish municipalities. The questions to be answered are: What environmental information is collected and produced by the local government? At what stakeholders is such information targeted? and What effects does it have on decision-making by stakeholders in the investigated municipalities? The study is based on state regulations, the homepages of municipal offices, and policy documents, official reports, and semi-structured interviews with key managers responsible for the protection of the natural environment in the studied municipalities. Data were collected from late 2015 to early 2017. This research indicates that dissemination of environmental information has a positive effect on the decision-making of internal stakeholders. In both countries, the municipal authorities follow the EU recommendations, resulting in innovative work and growing environmental awareness among the municipal authorities, the residents, and other stakeholders. Improvement of the natural environment is perceived as “a must” for the future. Nonetheless, especially larger municipalities face challenges because the production and dissemination of environmental information is time-consuming. In the long run, however, surprisingly positive effects on the local protection of the natural environment appear.

The top municipal managers – the CEOs – hold an important role in the Swedish municipalities. He or she is the highest non-politically appointed official, in charge of the administration. Often the position has ensured stability in municipalities with high turnover on politicians and changing political majority, and with the position also comes a comprehensive and professional bureaucracy. The municipal services are extensive in Sweden, and are characterized by high competence, independence from state intervention and a wide-ranging scope. Politics and management usually work close to each other. However, this makes the position of the municipal CEO both influential and difficult, as she or he moves in and between major political issues but always has to be perceived as apolitical and objective. The position is formally unregulated and is often described in terms of understanding and making sense about a golden interface. In this paper we analyze the past, present and the future of Swedish municipal administrative governance based on the perspective of the municipal CEO. We also discuss effects of the development of the role and its performance. We conclude by suggesting how the role - and thus also part of the municipal governance - could develop in the future.

Two theoretical frameworks form the basis of our studies. Institutional theory forms the basis for analyzing path dependencies and change. Theoretical concepts of leadership form the basis for studying the managerial role of the municipal CEO. The framework provides the starting point for our operationalization of questions to a questionnaire sent to all Swedish municipal CEOs every five years for a 20-year period (a total of five times starting in 1995). In addition to the survey data, we use longitudinally collected interview data as well as secondary sources.

Our investigations reveal that the municipal CEO holds his or her position in a shorter period (increased turnover) grows older and the proportion of women is increasing rapidly and steadily. The CEO puts less emphasis on economic crisis management, but puts more emphasis on ensuring compliance with rules, giving politicians advice and planning for regional development with other municipalities’ CEO. Comparing to other countries' corresponding positions, we notice that the Swedish municipal CEO has much in common with Northern Europe's local administrations, but not with Southern Europe's countries or Great Britain. The leadership style is more participatory than authoritative even if this changes slightly over the years. The CEOs describe their role as difficult, especially in relation to the political level. The changes in the role during the investigated 20 years suggest there are at least three trajectories to choose from in the future: 1) to become increasingly political (and perhaps even politically appointed), 2) to be clearly separated from the political level through increased formal regulation, or 3) to support continued informal interpreting of the mystic and undefined golden interface.

BACKGROUND: Sick leave due to stress-related ill-health is increasing and is often caused by occupational imbalance. These types of issues tend to affect both the ability to work and cope with everyday life, as well as the overall experience of health, negatively. There is still little knowledge on how to prepare people and workplaces for the return-to-work process after participation in a work rehabilitation program due to stress and occupational ill-health. Therefore, this study aimed to describe what is needed to achieve a balanced everyday life that includes paid work as experienced by individuals who had participated in a ReDO® intervention due to occupational imbalance and ill-health. METHODS: The concluding notes from 54 informants' medical records were used for qualitative content analysis. The informants had participated in an occupational therapy group intervention to promote occupational health and regain full work capacity. RESULTS: The analysis resulted in one major theme and four categories describing how the informants perceive that they must take control of their everyday life as a whole. By doing so, they need to work with structurization and prioritization, social interaction, boundary setting, and occupational meaningfulness. CONCLUSION: The study indicates a highly relational process, where it is impossible to divide life into private and work, and presupposes balance in everyday life in multiple dimensions. Its contribution includes the formulation of perceived needs in the transition between intervention and return to work and could, through further research, be used to generate a more effective and sustainable return- and rehabilitation models. © 2023. The Author(s).

Introduction: Stress-related ill-health is one of the fastest-growing reasons for sick leave and an extensive societal problem. It affects the individual, the workplace, and society at large. People can experience stress in all areas of everyday life and often cope by stopping prioritizing themselves. Agenda 2030 third goal aims to promote good health and well-being for all and ensure people's opportunity to reach their full potential and contribute to society's development. However, the focus is often on interventions to rehabilitate people back from ill health, not to promote their health.

The aim was to explore what the risk factors, and what promotes well-being in people with stress-related ill-health from both a work and everyday perspective.

Method Through mixed methods with both quantitative tree analysis of 218 people before entering a work rehabilitation program, and qualitative content analysis of concluding notes of 54 people after the intervention a compilation was made.  

Results The findings of the studies show a highly relational process, where it is impossible to divide life into private and work, and presupposes balance in everyday life in multiple dimensions. It also indicates that risk factors aren’t about gender, age, or education- but about complex occupational patterns in daily life and a lack of social context.

Conclusion: Work and everyday life are highly intertwined. Perhaps the key to promoting our health and preventing stress-related ill-health is not to scale down on occupations and sleep more, but to add more meaningful occupations that give us a sense of participation and fellowship.

According to Action Agenda 21, adopted at the Rio Conference in 1992, sustainable development should be realized as a major objective for local and global development. Economic growth, good living conditions, and protection of the earth's natural environment are very important to all people in the world. Ball et al., 2006; Marcuccio & Steccolini, 2005; Osborne and Ball, 2011; Lodhia et al., 2012 show that local government has a leading position regarding practical work and dissemination of information on sustainability among stakeholders. Schoolars like Wilmhurst & Frost, 2000; Deegan et al., 2002; Steccolini, 2004; Gonzalez and Perez-Chamorro, 2008 share the opinion that research focus mostly on content of information on sustainability, when analysing reports, brochures, or other documents, while knowledge about dissemination process of information on sustainability among stakeholders, and its effects on decision making by local authority is limited. The purpose in this paper is to compare the dissemination process of information on environmental sustainability among stakeholders and to explain its effects on decision making in two countries (Sweden and Poland). We ask: What do we know about the local governments’ practical work with the dissemination of information on environmental sustainablity among stakeholders within the Gothenburg Region in Sweden and the Lodz Region in Poland? What effects do the dissemination of such information have on decision-making by the local authority and on sustainable development in the chosen municipalities? The research is based on semi-structured interviews with key-respondents responsible for sustainable development in four municipalities in each region; homepages and official reports in the chosen municipalities, and state, regional and local regulations.

Our research indicates that the dissemination of information on environmental sustainablity among stakeholders have a positive effect on decision-making by the local authorities and sustainable development in general. The dissemination of such information in Poland is not just bleak imitations of the Swedish municipal work but it is adapted to the Polish context, financial possibilities and local specific needs. In both countries, the local authorities follow the EU:s recommendations rather strictly. In both countries innovative work is observed but also a growing awarnes among the residents and other stakeholders that improvement of sustainable development as “the must” for the future. The bigger municipalities take on greater challenges than the smaller ones. Hence their work is more intense and is a paragon for smaller municipalities. Although the production and dissemination of information on environmental sustainability is time consuming and not always proves useful in the short run, our respondents point out that in the long run, it may give surprisingly positive effects on a local sustainable development and hence, it may contribute to the improvement of global sustainable development.