Detta examensarbete avslutar Magisterprogrammet i kvalitets- och ledarskapsutveckling vid Mittuniversitet vårterminen 2020. Examensarbetet utgör också en fristående och oberoende studie som är tänkt att komplettera Vinnova-projektet Swedish Edtest som pågår 2020-2022. Projektet syftar till att utforma en vetenskaplig metod för att genomföra och utvärdera digitala lärresurser samt bidra till att utveckla leverantörernas tjänster och produkter. Detta examensarbete fokuserar på ledarskap, arbetssätt och organisatoriska förutsättningar kopplat till framgångsrikt innovationsarbete. De ledare och personer med ledande och/eller samordnande uppdrag som intervjuats i studien verkar inom någon av de kommunala eller fristående huvudmän som också ingår som partner i projektet.Studien visar att skolan som organisation har visat sig vara långt mer lättrörlig och innovativ än förväntat. Deltagande skolledare har alla vittnat om att startsträckan för att ställa om undervisningen har varit kort och gått över förväntan, vilket talar för att det finns en betydligt större innovationskapacitet hos skolor och huvudmän än vad man tidigare varit medveten om när man leder och organiserar arbetet. Detta kan vara en anledning till att man inte utformat metoder och strukturer för att tillvarata och vidareutveckla den innovation som sker. Vad gäller den innovation som nu sker tycks mervärdet inte främst ligga i att arbeta digitalt utan att det digitala arbetssättet utvecklar undervisningen och sättet att hantera och nå kunskapsmålen. Samtliga intervjuade uppger att omställningen till fjärr- och distansundervisning har ökat innovationskapaciteten i den verksamhet där man leder eller samordnar arbetet. I vilken utsträckning och på vilket sätt varierar. Majoriteten av de intervjuade uppger att de redan nu ser lösningar eller metoder som man bedömer kan stödja elevernas lärande även när man återgår till ordinarie undervisning och verksamhet. Exempel som ges är ökad digital kunskap och mognad bland personalen, ökat kollegialt samarbete och erfarenhetsutbyte, re-design av undervisningen med större fokus på vad som verkligen är viktigt för att eleverna ska nå målen för sin utbildning samt en ökad flexibilitet av när och fjärrundervisning.De intervjuade ledarna främjar innovation och lärande genom ett transformativt och relationsinriktat ledarskap med starkt engagemang i skolans kärnprocess och med fokus på lärande framför teknik vad gäller innovation. De beskriver också i stor majoritet att vårens omställning till fjärr- och distansundervisning skapat ett utpräglat utvecklingsinriktat ledarskap bland såväl dem själva som i deras personalgrupper. Personliga förutsättningar som krävs är mod och tillit, långsiktighet och uthållighet, engagemang och delaktighet. Organisatoriska förutsättningar som krävs är lokalt friutrymme och mandat liksom resurser och tid. Andra återkommande begrepp är ledningens fokus, målsatta utvecklingsområden samt förutsättningar att prioritera och aktivt delta. Majoriteten av de intervjuade uppger att innovationsstödjande arbete dels sker frivilligt genom att skapa förutsättningar för intresserade och framåtlutade lärare och dels obligatoriskt genom organiserade möten,avdelade utifrån olika fokus. Organisationen kring att utvärdera effekt och mervärde är enligt en betydande majoritet av de intervjuade däremot underutvecklad eller saknas helt. / This thesis constitutes an independent and independent study that is intended to complement the Vinnova project Swedish Edtest, which runs 2020-2022. The project aims to design a scientific method for implementing and evaluating digital learning resources and to contribute to the development of suppliers' services and products. This degree project focuses on leadership, working methods and organizational conditions linked to successful innovation work. The leaders and persons with leading and/or coordinating assignments interviewed in the study work within one of the municipal or independent principals who are also partners in the project.The study shows that the school as an organization has proven to be far more agile and innovative than expected. Participating school leaders have all testified that the starting distance for reteaching has been short and beyond expectations, which suggests that there is a much greater innovation capacity among schools and principals than was previously known when leading and organizing the work. This may be one reason why methods and structures have not been designed to harden and further develop the innovation that is taking place. As far as the innovation that is taking place now is concerned, the added value does not seem to lie primarily in working digital, but that the digital way of working develops teaching and the way in which knowledge objectives are managed and achieved.All interviewees report that the transition to long-distance and distance learning has increased the innovation capacity of the activities in which the work is managed or coordinated. To what extent and in what way varies. The majority of those interviewed state that they already see solutions or methods that are judged to support learners' learning even when returning to regular teaching and activities. Examples given are increased digital knowledge and maturity among the staff, increased collegial cooperation and exchange of experience, re-design of teaching with a greater focus on what is really important for students to achieve the goals of their education, and greater flexibility of when and remote education.The interviewed leaders promote innovation and learning through transformative and relationship-oriented leadership with strong involvement in the core process of the school and with a focus on learning over technology in terms of innovation. They also describe in a large majority that this spring's transition to remote and distance education has created a marked development-oriented leadership among themselves as well as in their staff groups. Personal conditions required are courage and trust, long-term approach and perseverance, commitment and participation. Organisational conditions required are local free space and mandates as well as resources and time. Other recurring concepts are management's focus, targeted development areas and conditions to prioritize and actively participate.The majority of those interviewed state that innovation support work is done voluntarily, partly by creating conditions for interested and forward-leaning teachers and partly mandatory through organized meetings, divided according to different focus. The organisation around evaluating impact and added value is, according to a significant majority of the interviewees, on the other hand, underdeveloped or missing completely. / <p>2020-06-26</p>

Denna studie visar hur både sensemaking och berättelser tjänar som verktyg för att ge fördjupad förståelse för de implikationer som digitalisering innebär för moderna organisationer och därigenom samspelet mellan organisering och digitalisering. Berättelser bidrar med en djupare förståelse för hur sensemaking konstrueras och struktureras i en organisation under digital transformation. Sensemaking och berättande visar hur organisationen konstruerar olika förändringsbilder av digitalisering, hur dessa fluktuerar, samt vad detta kan innebära för organisationens arbete med detta. / This study shows how both sensmaking and storytelling serve as a tool for providing in-depth understanding of the implications that digitalization entails for modern organizations and thereby the interaction between organizing and digitization. Stories contribute with a deeper insight of the way in which sensmaking is constructed and structured within an organization undertaking digital transformation. Sensemaking and storytelling show how the organization portrays various change images of digitization, the way these fluctuate, and what implications they may pose for organizations.

Communication is a key aspect of organizational success and along with technological improvements and increase in use of digital tools, it is becoming more important to understand how to undertake the change process known as digitalization. This paper researches the digitalization performed within a higher education institute in order to cope with Covid-19 and how communication was performed at different levels within the hierarchy. The aim is to identify how communication during change differs across the hierarchy and especially how this ties together with change management, role/position, and leadership. Furthermore, this will be compared against existing research and literature on communication to see whether there exist contradictions or contrasts which may be identifiable using i.e. position. The research question developed for this is: How do managers at different levels in the hierarchy of a higher education institute communicate with their staff during an externally forced digitalization? The findings show that, in practice, there are clear differences between the way managers at different levels in this institute communicate during the change process. This includes aspects such as the clearly reduced communication resulting from the more limited timeframe lower levels of management get prior to the implementation of change. It also includes certain speculative differences based on the information presented during interviews, although it is presented as speculative as the information may not present the full story. While these differences can be important to note in terms of their practical influence, it is also interesting from a theoretical perspective as new theories will need to be developed: It is also relevant for the societal aspect as e.g. differences between upper and lower managers, especially during challenging times such as digitalization, can lead to needless stress and friction if they are not understood.

This study focuses on employees in a public organization and their experiences of cutback management. In January 2017, the Swedish Migration Agency decided to initiate a cutback process in which a large number of employees risked losing their job. Such process is still ongoing, and we have performed qualitative interviews with seven respondents prior receiving a potential notice of termination. Through such interviews it emerged how the respondents experienced the cutback management process, and we divided such experiences into six themes. These were communication, participation, acknowledgement, job security, trust and motivation. Six of the respondents experienced a lack of communication, not being involved in the cutback process and a lack of acknowledgement by the management. Along with the insecurity a cutback process creates due to the risk of losing one’s job, such experiences led to a lower motivation, a lower organizational commitment but also a lower work commitment. Their experiences led as well to a lower trust both in the Swedish Migration Agency and the state as employers. As a consequence of their experiences, but specially of the job insecurity and family situation of each respondent, more than half of the respondents had left or decided to leave the organization. Our result differs from previous research specially in the matter concerning the work commitment and public service motivation. Our study shows that it is possible the employees of today’s public organizations work for the state because of what the state can do for them and not because of what they can do for the state and the users of public service. Our study shows the public service motivation appears to be in decline, and thus also the work commitment in times of cutbacks.

Today’s business world is highly dynamic, increasingly international, and marked by powerful corporations. Nonetheless, individual human beings shape the environment in which business takes place. In light of such surroundings, one increasingly important challenge for organizations is successful change management, which can only succeed with employees’ support. When facing a well-informed, interconnected array of stakeholders, companies must also tackle demands to take social responsibility. By combining various theoretical and methodological approaches, the present dissertation addressed these trends in four empirical papers. Study 1 and Study 2 considered the reactions of employees during organizational change. The first study investigated the connection between dispositional resistance to change and emotional exhaustion. In a multilevel model, work-unit level informational team climate and perceived organizational support were relevant moderators. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the second paper turned to factors associated with employees’ intended support for change. Drawing from the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), it revealed relevant configurations of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Study 3 focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and investigated which combinations of responsible and irresponsible activities, both recent and more historical, shape corporate reputation among the general public. Lastly, Study 4 expressly brought change management and CSR research together by showing that employees reacted more favorably to organizational change when their supervisors effectively communicated responsibility. Taken together, the present dissertation demonstrated that corporations can make a change through responsibility in order to favorably influence both stakeholder and business outcomes, thereby providing relevant implications for both research and practice.

Organizations, for-profit or not-for-profit, continually assess demands from their internal and external stakeholders and adjust their operations and strategies for long term sustainability. Building on the classical contingency theory of organization, the purpose of this cross-sectional study was to identify the differences of operational values and principles between private and public broadcasting organizations; an additional goal was to examine how these organizations use their operating choices to adapt to their environment. In a comparative study design between for-profit and not-for-profit broadcasting organizations as independent variables, the focus of the study was to compare 3 groups of dependent variables regarding operational values, principles, and the external environment. Using convenience sampling, the survey sample of 70 respondents included males and females over the age 18 selected for each of the research sites at Ghana Television, GH One, and Accra Metropolis. The key variables of operational values and external environments were measured by 6-point Likert scales, which were developed for the study. The measures were examined for their content validity and face validity, and they were empirically tested for their reliability and validity with collected data before testing the proposed claims. A series of t tests supported the claims that the 2 organizations operate with different principles and values. For-profit organizations focus on operational efficiency while not-for-profit organizations commit more to human development issues. The results of this study offer insights to broadcasting organizations about how to maximize their resources and bring about positive social change in community development by offering better programming options to stakeholders.

Some hospital leaders are ineffective in implementing the electronic medical record (EMR) systems in the hospitals. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies hospital leaders use to successfully implement EMR systems. The target population consisted of hospital leaders and healthcare professionals from two hospitals who have successfully implemented EMR systems. The conceptual framework of this research study was Kotter's 8-stage process for leading change, building on the model of an effective change management method. Data were collected from 5 interviewed participants and company documents related to strategies regarding the EMR system implementation. The results of reviewing open-ended interview questions and archived documents were analyzed using codes and themes to facilitate triangulation. Three primary themes were developed from the coded data: (a) strategies hospital leaders use to implement the EMR system, (b) strategies hospital leaders use to achieve quality and best practice, and (c) strategies hospital leaders use to manage change and resistance to change. Results revealed 4 steps for successful implementation: (1) creating a vision, (2) communicating the vision, (3) establishing strong leadership, and (4) consolidating gains. Utilizing the successful strategies hospital leaders use to implement the EMR systems could produce quality patient care, efficiencies in hospital operations, and reduced organizational operation cost. The findings could effect positive social change through delivery of quality health and patient care that results in community cost benefits and healthier patient lifestyles.

As the United States prepares for a generational shift in leaders, there is a lack of literature adequately examining how Generation X and Millennial entrepreneurs manage organizational conflict about leadership and change management. The scope of this problem should concern individuals who are stakeholders in any organization. In preparation for the coming shift in generational leaders, the subject study explored the management of organizational conflict regarding leadership and change management for Generation X and Millennial entrepreneurs. Supported by a theoretical foundation built on theory of generations and realistic group conflict theory, this qualitative study analyzed the interviews and narratives of six Generation X entrepreneurs and six Millennial entrepreneurs. The analysis outlined specific themes of the management of organizational conflict by participants from both generations. This study revealed that Generation X cohort members tackle contemporaneous or emerging conflict via formal dialogue and compromised reconciliations, in the service and advancement of the organization, while Millennial entrepreneurs manage organizational conflict as it relates to leadership and change management by employing conversations rooted in fundamental company values, orchestrating team meetings, and establishing a goal-aligned yet collaborative work culture. The subject study also disclosed that Generation X and Millennial entrepreneurs both incorporate conversations to manage organizational conflict as it relates to leadership and change management, but they contrast on prioritizing creating a collaborative work culture versus focusing on company growth. At an organizational level, the instant study impacts stakeholders by enabling positive social changes informed by evidence-based insights about how Generation X and Millennial entrepreneurs manage organizational conflict.

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Vertrauen ist ein zentrales Element im menschlichen Leben und in der zwischenmenschlichen Zusammenarbeit. So ist ein Zusammenleben ohne ein gewisses Maß an Vertrauen überhaupt nicht denkbar. Im alltäglichen Leben ist auch zu erfahren, dass der Aufbau von Vertrauen sehr viel Zeit, Kraft, Investition und Geduld erfordert, wogegen der Vertrauensverlust sich schlagartig einstellt und oft starke psychische und psychologische Belastungen zur Folge hat. Die Auswirkungen, mit denen ein Arbeitgeber bei Vertrauensverlust durch unmotivierte und unproduktive Mitarbeiter zu rechnen hat, können enormen wirtschaftlichen Schaden für das Unternehmen bedeuten und den Verlust eines Marktvorsprungs zur Folge haben. Aus diesem Grund erfährt das Konstrukt Vertrauen im betrieblichen Umfeld einen immer stärker werdenden Bedeutungszuwachs insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund von Wirtschaftskrisen, Fusionen, Produktionsverlagerungen, Kurzarbeit oder Arbeitsplatzverlust. Der Aufbau und die ständige Pflege einer vertrauensvollen Unternehmenskultur, deren Inhalt u.a. der konstruktive Umgang des Managements mit Ängsten und Emotionen der Mitarbeiter in Bezug auf bevorstehende Veränderungen ist, bildet die Basis für eine erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit. Derzeit besteht aber in der Wissenschaft noch kein Konsens darüber, was Vertrauen ist, wie es gemessen, beurteilt und gezielt beeinflusst werden kann. Dieser Problemstellung ist der vorliegende Beitrag gewidmet. Mit Hilfe von Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung wurde zum einen die Bedeutung von „professionellem“ Vertrauen in mehreren Unternehmen erhoben. Ein weiteres Ziel der Untersuchung war es, das Vorhandensein von vertrauensfördernden und -hemmenden Faktoren in und zwischen Unternehmen zu untersuchen und Rangfolgen bzgl. deren Bedeutung für die Mitarbeiter abzuleiten. Aus der Befragung und Analyse wurde des Weiteren ein Messinstrument zur Ausprägung von professionellem Vertrauen in Organisationen entwickelt. Die daraus gewonnenen Erkenntnisse weisen den Weg eine belastbare Vertrauenskultur im Unternehmen aufzubauen und nachhaltig zu erhalten.:1. Vertrauen als Voraussetzung für Innovationsfähigkeit 2. Vertrauen messen und beurteilen 3. Vertrauensfördernde und -hemmende Faktoren 4. Literatur