Socialtjänsten är idag drabbad av en hög arbetsbelastning, något som lett till hög personal omsättning och en hög andel arbetsrelaterade besvär. Flera statliga utredningar av situationen likväl inlägg från intresseorganisationer som SKL och fackförbund föreslår att ett led i att hantera situationen är genom specialisering. Specialiseringen ska bestå i inrättandet av specialistutbildningar och specialisttjänstemän. Studien ger med hjälp av en kartläggning en nulägesbild av specialisttjänsternas förekomst, hur de benämns och inom vilka verksamhetsområden de verkar. Med hjälp av en abduktiv ansats används nyinstitutionell organisationsteori i ett försök att förstå specialisttjänsterna utifrån socialchefers uppfattningar av dessa. / Today the Swedish social services are suffering from high workloads. Consequently this has led to poor retention and high turnover rates. Several Official Reports of the Swedish Governemnt as well as input from unions and Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions suggests that one way to handle the situation is through a more specialized social service. The suggested specialization includes masterprograms in socialwork (MSW, 60 ECT) for social workers and specialized civil servants. The present study will examine the prevalence of this kind of specialists, what they are called, their function and in what parts of the social services they serve. In the present studie I will atempt to understand specialized civil servants from interviews with social service managers perceptions using abduction and neoinstutitional organizational theory.

There is a general scarcity of empirical studies investigating the impact of leadership styles on e-Government use in the service industry. This is doubly true of styles such as transformational, transactional and servant leadership. Theorised models propose that leadership style forms the desired organisational culture for implementing e-services, organisational culture being the mediator and the national culture the moderator. This research fills the empirical gap by investigating how leadership forms the organisational culture that facilitates and enhances the implementation and use of e-government in organisations in Saudi Arabia. The research was conducted through the sampling of employees in private and public sectors. While the data for the leadership styles, organisational culture and national culture were collected through the use of questionnaires designed for employees, the e-services were measured through organizations’ official websites. All data were processed and analysed using computer software (WarPPLS) and SPSS. The results support the hypothesized relationships proposed in the theoretical model, wherein all constructs under study (except for the mediating effect of National Culture (NC) on the relationship between leadership styles and organisational culture) positively affect e-services implementation, including Individualized Influence (IINF), Intellectual Stimulation (ISTIM), Individualized Support (ISUP), Contingent Reward (CR), Management by Exception (MbE), Servant Leadership (SL), Bureaucratic Culture (BC), Involvement Culture (INVC), Mission Culture (MC), Innovative Culture (INC), Task Culture (TC) and Future Culture (FC) and the mediating effect of National Culture (NC) on the relationship between organisational culture and e-services implementation. The results also indicated that specific leadership styles have direct and positive impacts on e-services implementation and indirect influences through a mediating organisational culture and a moderating national culture. The empirical findings bring new evidence in support of this proposal, indicating that specific leadership styles play crucial roles in influencing processes and outcomes within organizations. According to these results, e-services differ from one organization to another, and these variations were correlated to leadership styles and organizational culture. It was found that there were positive and significant correlations between total leadership styles (hybrid) and total organizational cultures (hybrid) in the full sample and in e-services implementation. E-services implementation increases when the mean for leadership styles rises, but types of organizational culture were also crucial factors in achieving better e-services. The national culture variable, which was used as a moderator, did not have a significant influence on the relationship between leadership style and organisational culture. Therefore, the moderating role of national culture in the relationship between leadership styles and organisational culture did not have any level of statistical significance, which means that regardless of the national culture (power distance or uncertainty avoidance) the effect of leadership style on organisational culture in the model adopted in this study appeared to be quite consistent. The study links theory to practice by explaining the subject of modern leadership styles and shows their relevance to the Saudi organisations and business environment. As such, it opens up a domain for investigating the application of modern management theories in a different culture. Although a plethora of studies have investigated the effect of factors such as organisational culture and/or national culture on e-services implementation in Saudi’s organisations, no study (to the best of this writer's knowledge) has tackled the issue of e-services implementation and leadership styles in those organisations. Therefore, studying e-services implementation and leadership styles in Saudi’s organisations is a contribution to the literature on the service industry, adding to its knowledge with a case study from a different cultural setting. The study also opens up a horizon for future research on developing the business sector, as it uses standardized tools in terms of reliability and validity within the context of the e-services implementation. Therefore, this study contributes to existing knowledge in that leadership and organisational culture are revealed to be key contributors to e-services implementation. The three leadership styles - transformational, transactional, and servant leadership - were empirically found to be appropriate styles that work well in e-services implementation projects. These styles have direct and positive benefits to e-services implementation and an indirect impact through the mediating means of organisational culture, and empirical findings bring new evidence for this notion. Moreover, the six organisational cultural dimensions were judged to be appropriate supporters of e-services implementation, specifically: involvement, mission, innovation, task-orientation, bureaucracy, and future-orientation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between school principals’ self-reported spirituality and their transformational leadership behaviors. The relationship between spirituality and transactional leadership behaviors was also explored. The study used Bass and Avolio’s (1984) Full Range Leadership Model as the theoretical framework conceptualizing transformational leadership. Data were collected using online surveys. Overall, six principals and sixty-nine teachers participated in the study. Principal surveys contained three parts: the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ Form-5X Short), the modified Spirituality Well-Being Scale (SWBS) and demographic information. Teacher surveys included two parts: the MLQ-5X and demographic information. The MLQ-5X was used to identify the degree of principals’ transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. The modified SWBS (Existential Well Being) was used to determine principals’ degree of spirituality. The correlation coefficients for the transformational leadership styles of inspirational motivation and idealized behavioral influence were significantly related to principals’ spirituality. In addition, a multiple regression analysis including the five measures of transformational leadership as predictors suggested that spirituality is positively related to an individual’s transformational leadership behaviors. A multiple regression analysis utilizing a linear combination of all transformational leadership and transactional measures was predictive of spirituality. Finally, it appears that the inspirational motivation measure of transformational leadership accounts for a significant amount of unique variance independent of the other seven transformational and transactional leadership measures in predicting spirituality. Based on the findings from this study, the researcher proposed a modification of Bass and Avolio’s (1985) Full Range Leadership Model. An additional dimension, spirituality, was added to the continuum of leadership styles. The findings from this study imply that principals’ self-reported levels of spirituality was related to their being perceived as displaying transformational leadership behaviors. Principals who identified themselves as “spiritual”, were more likely to be characterized by the transformational leadership style of inspirational motivation.

This research was designed to investigate the potential mediating role of personal power and of trust in the relationship between servant leadership and affective organizational commitment. The research responds to calls for increased understanding of the mechanisms at work between leadership models and outcomes. Especially unique in the available literature is the quantitative study of the relationship between servant leadership and personal power. All of the constructs in the research model are based on existing instruments, including those developed for personal power (PP; Hinkin & Schriesheim, 1989; Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998), trust (T; Mayer & Gavin, 2005), servant leadership (SL; Winston & Fields, 2015), and affective organizational commitment (AOC; Allen & Meyer, 1990), and were measured as follower perceptions and attitudes. Social exchange theory was used as the theoretical basis of the proposed model (Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1962). This includes the perspective of social power and trust being characteristic of exchange relationships as opposed to attributes of an individual. Linear regression was performed using IBM® SPSS® (SPSS), and mediation was evaluated using the approach from Baron and Kenny (1986). The hypotheses for the positive relationship between SL and AOC, and for mediation of the SL-AOC relationship by PP were supported. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in confirmation analysis. The hypothesis for T as a mediator in the relationship between SL and AOC was not supported. Further ad hoc analysis suggests SL and PP as serial mediators in the relationship between T and AOC. Implications for academic and practitioner applications are discussed.

This research provides insight into the servant leadership principles that are found in the mission, vision and values statements of companies. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the corporate philosophies of companies to ascertain whether it contains servant leadership principles and thus to what extent these companies may utilise these principles. Mayer, Bardes and Piccolo (2008) state that servant leaders are lead by a moral orientation, which results in the likelihood of them engaging in ethical practices and being unbiased in the decision-making process. The lack of moral and ethical behaviour by leaders indicates that there is a need for a leadership method that is based on ethical practices and moral behaviour. Trompenaars and Voerman (2009) noted that companies who have implemented servant leadership are successful as a result. Spears (2004) indicated that the corporate philosophy of a company should reflect its leadership. This study will therefore aim to identify whether servant leadership principles are evident in the corporate philosophies of companies by using a framework developed to investigate servant leadership. A mixed method empirical research design was applied, using published financial statements to analyse the corporate philosophies of companies. Convenience sampling was used to identify a sample of 100 companies. Fifty companies from the top 200 listed companies at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa (JSE) and another fifty companies from the top 100 listed companies at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) were included in the sample. The values statements, missions and visions of each company were qualitatively analysed and coded. This resulted in a set of data that could be quantitatively analysed. The results show that the majority of the sample as a whole displayed at least five out of the ten servant leadership principles. The JSE sample only displayed five out of the ten xv servant leadership principles compared to the NYSE sample that displayed seven out of the ten. There was also no statistical significant difference between the results of the respondent companies of the two stock exchanges. The JSE sample referred mostly to the servant leadership principle of Integrity, while the NYSE sample referred mostly to Employee empowerment and development. It can be concluded that servant leadership principles are indeed present in the corporate philosophies of companies listed on both the JSE and the NYSE. However, these principles are present in varying degrees. This study provides research on servant leadership principles by providing an international comparison of the missions, visions and values statements of companies in two countries. The framework developed to investigate servant leadership principles can thus be further extended and used to investigate whether businesses in general are employing these principles.

The Master's thesis is dealing with the issues of the civil service, which development and current situation show considerable heterogeneity of opinions and related political dispute. A closer look on current condition, is preceded by the outline of the characteristics of civil services' basic characteristics distinguished by current legal theory. A historical excursion since 1918 with respect to chronological and semantic order, has also been made. The crucial part of the thesis is devoted to the content analysis of the service pragmatics, the bill of The state officials and Service Act and its amendments. In the conclusion, the author defines four variants of possible solution to the current state of the civil service, which, among others, indicate, that it is desirable to revise effective Service Act by the Bill no. 71/9, with respect mostly to career elements and current situation of the civil service.

O objetivo dessa investigação foi conhecer a realidade de um órgão público no contexto da atual reforma gerencial, as vivências dos trabalhadores e suas condições de trabalho, bem como as repercussões destes sobre a saúde mental e qualidade de vida. Foi realizada uma pesquisa mista de abordagem transformativa-sequencial. Aplicou-se o questionário WHOQOL-Bref, que avalia a qualidade de vida e o questionário SRQ-20, que levanta dados acerca da saúde mental, no que se refere aos Transtornos Psíquicos Menores associados a sintomas psicossomáticos. A pesquisa qualitativa foi orientada pela metodologia da PDT – Psicodinâmica do Trabalho que consiste em uma escuta coletiva das vivências dos trabalhadores. Participaram 51 servidores de uma gerência regional do INSS. Além da aplicação dos questionários, foram realizados 12 encontros para escuta coletiva. Constatou-se que os participantes consideram sua qualidade de vida na média de 14 (entre 4 e 20). Na análise das subescalas e questões individuais, há um decréscimo significativo deste escore, indicando que o índice de qualidade de vida geral não é representativo de todos os domínios da mesma. Nas questões relativas ao ambiente físico 88% mostram-se insatisfeitos. O nível de energia também foi considerado insatisfatório, sendo que 56,9 % o valoraram em pouco ou médio. Já para as oportunidades de lazer, o percentual de insatisfação foi de 70,6%. Essa insatisfação manifestada é congruente com os resultados da pesquisa qualitativa. Já o SRQ-20 aponta agravos à saúde mental dos participantes, associados ao ritmo frenético e sem sentido a que estão continuamente submetidos. 72,5% dos participantes encontram-se nervosos, tensos e preocupados, revelando sua insegurança com o futuro e a instabilidade da reforma gerencial. No cômputo geral, para o ponto de corte 7/8 verificou-se positividade ao SRQ-20, sendo que o índice sinalizador de transtornos psíquicos menores foi de 42,9%. A análise das subescalas do SRQ-20 deixou claro que os principais aspectos sugestivos de transtornos psíquicos situam-se na dimensão humor depressivo-ansioso e na dimensão decréscimo de energia vital, sinalizando sobrecarga, esvaziamento do sentido do trabalho, insegurança e desgaste mental e indicando a urgência de ações de prevenção e promoção de saúde neste contexto. A investigação da associação entre os aspectos de qualidade de vida e saúde mental e os aspectos psicodinâmicos do trabalho revelou fatores significativos de adoecimento psíquico. Destaca-se a prevalência de estratégias defensivas individuais de resignação, submissão e isolamento, bem como predomínio do sofrimento patogênico. Alia-se ao acima exposto, a precarização deste contexto de trabalho verificada, em especial, na falta de reconhecimento à importância do servidor público no que se refere aos resultados sociais de seu trabalho associado ao desmoronamento da ética do bem comum que sustenta o sentido do mesmo. Ainda, verificou-se (des)estabilidade evidenciada na descontinuidade da renda e na falta de oportunidades de crescimento e, também, na intensa sobrecarga de trabalho. O orgulho pela profissão, o prazer por garantir os direitos do segurado e o reconhecimento e valorização desse importante papel social, bem como a retomada dos coletivos de trabalho, através da criação de espaços públicos de discussão, conforme propostos pela PDT, podem constituir estratégias de enfrentamento na promoção de relações de trabalho mais saudáveis e emancipatórias. / The goal of this research was to understand the reality of a Brazilian public corporation in the current management reform context, the workers‟ experiences, their working conditions, and its impact on their mental health and on their quality of life. A mixed sequential- transformative research approach was conducted. We used the WHOQOL-Bref questionnaire, that evaluates the quality of life, and the SRQ-20, which seeks data on mental health, with regard to Minor Psychiatric Disorders associated to psychosomatic symptoms. The qualitative research was guided by PDT (in Portuguese) methodology - Psychodynamics of Work, which consists in collective listening to the workers‟ experiences. 51 workers from a regional INSS agency (similar to Social Security Agency), located in Rio Grande do Sul, state of Brazil, participated to this research. Besides applying questionnaires, 12 meetings were held for collective listening. It was found that participants consider their quality of life on average 14 (from 4 to 20). In the analysis of subscales and individual issues, there is a significant decrease of this score, indicating that the rate of overall quality of life does not represent its entire domain. Considering physical environment, 88% of workers were dissatisfied. The energy level was also considered unsatisfactory, having in mind that 56.9% of workers evaluated it as little or medium. For leisure opportunities, the percentage of dissatisfaction was about 70.6%. The dissatisfaction expressed is congruent with the results of qualitative research. The SRQ-20 points out harm to participants‟ mental health, associated to frenetic pace and meaningless activities to which they are continuously subjected. 72.5% of participants were nervous, tense and worried, revealing their insecurity about the future and the instability of the current management reform. Overall, for the cut-off point 7/8 there was positivity to the SRQ-20 and minor psychiatric disorders index was 42.9 %. The analysis of SRQ-20 subscales revealed the main suggestive aspects of mental disorders lie in the anxious-depressive mood and in the decrease of vital energy dimension, indicating overload, loss of work meaning, insecurity and mental fatigue, indicating the urgency of prevention and health promotion actions in this context. The investigation on the association between quality of life aspects and mental health ones and also on psychodynamics of work characteristics revealed significant factors about mental illness. It is possible to highlight the prevalence of individual defensive strategies of resignation, submission and insulation as well as prevalence of pathogenic suffering. We add the above mentioned to the precariousness verified in this work context, in particular, the lack of recognition to the importance of public servants in what regards the social outcomes of their work, associated to the collapse of common good ethics that maintain working sense. Besides, there was (in)stability demonstrated from discontinuity of salary, from lack of growth opportunities and also from the intense workload. The pride in this profession, the pleasure in ensuring people‟s rights and the recognition and appreciation of this important social role, as well as the resumption of work collectives, through the creation of discussion spaces, as proposed by PDT, may create facing strategies for promoting healthier working relationships and emancipatory actions.

The objective of the present work is to study the public servant activity in terms of Social Representation of this activity. The theory by Moscovici on the Social Representation was used as the basis of this research and defined the choice of the technique for the data collection and its analysis. The servants of São Paulo States Public Sector were the population take into account for this work. The method of data collection was the semi-structured interview, with questions proposed to reveal the social representation of the individuals. The verbal technique employed is the usual form to expose the social representation. A content analysis of the data issue of the interviews was done by means of the SPHINX Lexica Software. This analysis shows the existence of three main discourse class: the public activity, the public servant and the change process. / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo investigar as representações sociais que o funcionário público elabora de sua atividade profissional. A teoria da Representação Social de Moscovici embasou esta pesquisa e subsidiou a escolha da técnica de coleta e análise de dados. A amostra foi composta por funcionários públicos da Secretaria de Estado e Negócios da Fazenda do Estado de São Paulo, na cidade de Taubaté SP. Foram feitas entrevistas semi-estruturadas onde foram propostas questões relacionadas aos objetivos do trabalho. Justifica-se a escolha da técnica verbal, uma vez que é a forma mais comum de investigar as representaçõe s sociais. Os dados foram tratados por meio do software SPHINX Léxica que permitiu uma análise de conteúdo das entrevistas realizadas. Dessa análise emergiram três classes de discurso que caracterizam o conteúdo da representação social da atividade profissional: a atividade pública, o funcionário público e o processo de mudança.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a counselling approach developed in part by clinicalpsychologists William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick. It is a directive, client-centredcounselling style for eliciting behaviour change by helping clients to explore andresolve ambivalence. The method has grown in popularity during the last years and has spreadoutside the therapy room and into new fields where it is being applied such as healthcare, socialservice and the police. The usage of MI in therapeutic and healthcare settings is well researchedbut MI has recently emerged in a new field where the research is scarce: leadership. In thisstudy we are exploring the experiences of Swedish social workers that are trained in MI whichhas a manager that is also trained in the method and applies MI in leadership. Our results showthat the social workers are generally positive to their managers using the method; MI is seen asa factor that influences the manager to listen and be more empathetic. Our study also showsthat MI has become a general tool for interactions; the social workers are using the methodoutside client meetings and in interactions with colleagues and managers to facilitate a goodrelationship. However, there are also concerns among some of the respondents that MI couldbe used by their manager to manipulate and create behaviour changes that only benefits theorganisation. This explorative study shows that MI has the potential to impact management andleadership approaches and warrants further investigation to develop this growing field ofinterest.

This thesis is concerned with the relationship between the manager or executive as an individual, and the organization. The theoretical and empirical exploration covers phases of crisis, when organizations approach failure, and more normal times It comprises of two parts that respectively explore: a) strategic errors and failures and their management; and b) forms of leadership that emphasize the development not only of the organization, but also that of the employees, with a particular focus on servant leadership. In each part, a first chapter offers a theoretical development, followed by an empirical study. Contributions in the first part on strategic errors include: a) a novel theorization of organizational failure as an outcome of strategic errors within the overarching theoretical framework of institutional theory; and b) a qualitative study based on content analysis of in-depth of interviews of 30 CEOs and board chairs, including 21 from top European firms in the financial industry employing one million people, that develops error acknowledgment as a key element of the management of strategic errors. Contributions in the second part on leadership include: a) a theoretical re-articulation of six "positive" leadership theories in light of attribution theory, with leader self-awareness, ethics, and integrity coalescing the six theories; and b) a quantitative study showing a positive association from servant leadership to business-unit profit growth, mediated by employee flourishing. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished