Safety management is a central management activity in high-risk industries. We propose a new way of thinking about safety management by exploring the role of safety communication for safety culture, as opposed to understanding safety communication merely as an artifact of safety culture. Applying an in-depth qualitative interview study approach with 39 participants from a Swedish pulp- and paper mill, the study identifies enabling and hindering factors of safety communication for safety culture. Enabling factors include leadership commitment, employee engagement and involvement, knowledge sharing, psychosocial wellbeing, and effective reporting and risk management. Hindering factors involve organizational fragmentation, neglect of psychosocial aspects, lack of mentoring and training, dysfunctional reporting systems, and a culture of silence regarding safety. Theoretically, the study contributes with shedding light on the role of safety communication for shaping and aligning safety culture dimensions and processes throughout an organization via targeted, engaging and holistic safety management. Further, we advance theory by observing a greater role of psychosocial aspects in safety communication than previously recognized. Practical implications manifest in the need to incorporate psychosocial aspects in safety management as well as actively leveraging the aligning power of safety communication. Further research can depart from this study and can further deepen our understanding of mechanisms through which safety communication influences safety culture. Managers, policy makers and practitioners are equipped with insights on how to strengthen enabling factors and improve hindering factors to foster safety culture via safety communication.

Purpose – To implement lean in a broader and more efficient manner, national programmes have been initiated to support organisations in their development processes. The purpose of this paper is to identify activities and characteristics of the design and implementation of national programmes to support the implementation and sustained development of lean in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach – Empirical data were collected for more than 15 years from three national programmes, in the manufacturing industry, public sector and agriculture sector, respectively, including interviews, questionnaires, observations, document studies and analysis seminars. The total background data includes 256 interviews and 3, 304 questionnaires.

Findings – The study illustrates how activities for support, steering and stirring up can improve the sustainability of the programmes and the change processes in the participating organisations and also improve employee experiences of their work environment. Examples of such activities are support activities for coaching, broad institutional support, courses and training, learning activities and evaluation research, active external funders, active programme and organisational management and active unions.

Practical implications – The study has identified key organisational challenges for national lean programmes to promote sustainability, economy and working conditions. It provides guidance for designing effective and long-term change initiatives, relevant to funding organisations, management, unions, change agents, researchers and policy makers.

Originality/value – This paper addresses a research gap concerning national programmes. Research is strongly needed into how to design and operate well-structured and continuously improved national change programmes. The findings are of high relevance for designing and improving the methodology for programmes and for adapting the methodology to different sectors, industry types and business sizes. © 2026 Karin Andersson, Agneta Halvarsson Lundqvist, Pernilla Lindskog, Henrik Barth, Martin Melin, Jenny Ståhl and Jörgen Eklund.

Purpose - The aim of this research paper is to identify and explore paradoxical tensions during sustainable transitions toward a circular economy. This is operationalized through the identification of paradoxical tensions and their occurrence within organizations, a process that is essential for advancing the understanding of sustainable transitions toward a circular economy. Such insights contribute to the development of the research field and open new opportunities for value creation within entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative action design research was conducted using five case studies of small and medium-sized enterprises, enabling observations, interviews and exploratory studies at the business premises. The action design research methodology consisted of four different stages: (i) problem formulation, (ii) building, intervention and evaluation, (iii) reflection and learning and (iv) formalization of learning.

Findings - The findings indicate that sustainable transitions toward a circular economy are enabled through dynamic multilevel interactions between different actors and roles, where various paradoxical tensions occur over time. This is made possible by identifying and relieving paradoxical tensions in the business, where an intermediary position is identified, which manages and relaxes tensions when strains occur in the sustainable transitions toward a circular economy.

Originality/value - The novelty and originality in this research paper can be found in the intermediary, which this study have labeled as the dynamic role, where individuals are identifying and relieving paradoxical tensions during sustainable transitions toward a circular economy.

© 2026 Senad Osmanovic, Henrik Barth and Pia Ulvenblad

Denna skrift bygger på ett projekt genomfört i samverkan mellan Högskolan i Halmstad, Centralfonden samt tre företag i skogsindustrin; Aspa Pulp, Billerud Skärblacka och Vida. Det är skrift nummer två i en trilogi som fokuserar på arbetsmiljö- och säkerhetsarbete i skogsindustrin. Den första skriften behandlade hur olika parter arbetar ”Säkert tillsammans i skogsindustrin” och finns publicerad via Centralfondens hemsida (https://centralfonden.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ Sa%CC%88kert-tillsammans.pdf).

I denna skrift tittar vi istället lite extra på vad var och en av oss kan göra för att arbetet skall bli ännu säkrare. Texten innehåller forskningens sammanfattning av de processer och resultat som har utvecklats under projektets gång. Projektet har genomförts under perioden 2023-2025. AFA Försäkring har finansierat forskarnas arbete och Centralfonden har finansierat behovsdrivna partsgemensamma processer med fokus på utveckling av arbetsmiljön i de medverkande företagen. Även i denna skrift låter vi flera röster berätta om säkerhetsarbetet. Kunskapen som har vuxit fram bygger på forskarnas datainsamling och analys av drygt 200 dialoger (inklusive intervjuer och utbildningar med workshops) i de tre medverkande företagen.

The digitalization of cattle husbandry has increased the cattle health- and welfare-related data creation and collection into multiple information systems (IS). We describe nationally the widely used cattle health and welfare data-containing IS in Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Sweden by studying their ownership and the funding, developmental views, data access, data ownership, and data integration between other IS. In addition, we describe the IS with experts and stakeholders in interviews and living labs (LLs). There are two statutory IS in each study country, while there is one non-statutory IS in Estonia and Sweden and four in Finland and Germany. The IS providers and the data integration possibilities between systems differed by study countries, while the type of data collected and the IS funding policies remained similar. In LLs, congruent views about the importance of the standardization of the collected data and the usability of these data for farm decision-making and improvement in management practices were mentioned as the main challenges for future development. To gain full benefit from the collected data, data from automatic milking systems should be integrable with the data collected into other IS. In the future, data integration should be improved for a more user-friendly approach of cattle health- and welfare-related IS, and utilization of the collected data for animal health and welfare improvement should be implemented within the cattle value chain to ensure the sustainability of the industry. Common will between public and private operators, as well as cross-border multidisciplinary cooperation, is required to fulfill these goals. © 2025 Kallio, Timonen, Tamm, Põder, Kukk, Schlereth, Ulvenblad, Ulvenblad, Tikkanen, Kilpeläinen, Barth, Abate Kassa and Viira.

This paper explores the application of the 3MI innovation management framework in a hackathon-based academic project focused on sustainable student housing in Halmstad, Sweden. Six interdisciplinary student teams addressed real-world challenges related to sustainable mobility and social interaction in urban settings, proposing innovative solutions ranging from kinetic energy-harvesting pathways and smart infrastructure to adaptive social spaces and shared mobility platforms. The findings highlight the potential of early-stage, participatory innovation processes to produce scalable, environmentally responsible housing models. At the same time, limitations of the 3MI framework became evident, particularly its rigidity in dynamic design contexts and its limited guidance for end-user engagement and long-term impact evaluation. The paper concludes with recommendations for integrating more agile and user-centred tools to enhance innovation outcomes in urban development. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2025.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare by introducing novel treatments and applications, thereby transforming the sector. However, the complexity, ambiguity, and inherent risks associated with AI can create tensions for healthcare workers that may result in stress, anxiety, and discomfort when they make decisions. These tensions are paradoxical in nature as they may present conflicting demands that can persist over time and develop into seemingly irrational situations. Understanding how these paradoxical tensions affect healthcare workers' responses to AI is crucial in addressing their concerns. This study investigates the role of paradoxical tensions and the paradoxical mindset in shaping healthcare workers' responses to AI. The study examines how these two factors influence individuals' intention to adopt AI systems and tools and evaluates the users' satisfaction with them. Using a quantitative survey design, data were collected from 357 healthcare workers. The results, based on regression analysis, indicate that paradoxical tensions positively influence both individuals' intention to adopt AI systems and tools and their satisfaction with the current use of AI systems and tools. The results also indicate that the paradoxical mindset positively mediates these relationships. © 2024 The Authors

Research Gap Innovation has brought new value opportunities to countries worldwide for decades. Albeit these advances, there are still challenges that current and future generations must face to advance society and entrepreneurship [1]. Some of these challenges are related to the circular economy and sustainable business model innovation [2–4].

Introduction By focusing on sustainable business model innovation, Geissdoerfer et al. (2018) explain that several solutions for sustainability and circularity are rooted in business modeling and enable strategic approaches to innovation [4]. These solutions target sustainable value, long-term outlooks, proactive stakeholder action, and the closing, narrowing, slowing, intensifying, and dematerializing of resource loops for a circular economy [4]. The intersection between design and implementation is where the purpose of this research lies: identifying uncaptured value.

Methods A total of five small- and medium-sized enterprises are part of this research, and the chosen methodology is a qualitative canonical development framework [5]. The methods are divided into the following three domains: the philosophical context domain, the research question domain, and the methodical content domain [5]. Subsequently, this research was operationalized through semi-structured interviews, interpretive qualitative data analysis, and descriptive first- and second-level coding.

Results The design process in sustainable business model innovation has been initiated by all the cases, supported through participation in a project focusing on sustainable transitions toward a circular economy. The cases are also entering the implementation phase, where challenges arise and are met with new decisions and actions, iteratively shaped by their entrepreneurial mindset. This is balanced by paradoxical tensions, where different strategies and intentions affect decision-making. However, the challenges associated with design and implementation can be outlined and can lead to new value opportunities, even if the cases use different terminologies depending on their respective industries. Hence, there is awareness of implementation knowledge in sustainable business model innovation when identifying uncaptured value.

Conclusions The conclusion highlights the need to identify uncaptured value in sustainable business model innovation by being iterative and enabling a circular economy. This leads to new decisions where entrepreneurs ensure that the implementation of sustainable business model innovation is successful, from a long-term perspective, moving from a linear to a circular economy. © 2025 by the authors.