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The purpose is to firstly, provide an example of how voices of people with various disabilities (motor, visual, hearing, and neuropsychiatric impairments) can be listened to and involved in the initial phases of a co-design process (Discover, Define). Secondly, to present the outcome of the joint explorations as design opportunities pointing out directions for future development of crisis communication technologies supporting people with disabilities in building crisis preparedness. The study was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study assumes a design research approach including a literature review, focus group interviews, a national online survey and collaborative (co-)design workshops involving crisis communicators and representatives of disability organisations in Sweden. The research- and design process was organised in line with the Double Diamond design process model consisting of the four phases: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver, whereof the two first phases are addressed in this paper.

The analysis of the survey data resulted in a series of challenges, which were presented to and evaluated by crisis communicators and representatives from the disability organisations at the workshops. Seven crisis communication challenges were identified, for example, the lack of understanding and knowledge of needs, conditions and what it means to build crisis preparedness for people with disabilities, the lack of and/or inability to develop digital competencies and the lack of social crisis preparedness. The challenges were translated into design opportunities to be used in the next step of the co-design process (Develop, Deliver).

This research paper offers both a conceptual approach and empirical perspectives of design opportunities in crisis communication. To translate identified challenges into design opportunities starting with a “How Might We”, creates conditions for both researchers, designers and people with disabilities to jointly turn something complex, such as a crisis communication challenge, into something concrete to act upon. That is, their joint explorations do not stop by “knowing”, but also enable them to in the next step take action by developing potential solutions for crisis communication technologies for facing these challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the perspective of the management group regarding how they reasoned when deciding to engage in a model focussing on systematic work environment management, and what motives that influenced their decision.

This qualitative study with semi-structured interviews includes 18 representatives from the management groups in 18 Swedish municipalities. Data were analysed with a constant comparative method.

The participants described two aspects that were of importance when making the decision; establishing commitment before making the decision and establishing strategies to legitimise the decision. Furthermore, they expressed motives that were linked both to their individual expectations and wishes and to policies and facts in their organisations. The participants experienced the model as a valuable tool in their organisations to increase employee participation and to provide structured support to their first-line managers.

The managers’ motives were linked to individual expectations and external directives. These were often intertwined and influenced their decisions. When implementing this type of model, it is important to discuss decisions in a larger group to avoid building an organisational initiative on one person’s expectations. Furthermore, it is important to support the management’s work to establish commitment for the model in the municipal organisation.

This study adds to knowledge of the complexity of deciding and implementing models to support systematic work environment management in organisations.

This paper focuses on medical device university spin-offs (USOs), taking into account the peculiarities of financial and nonfinancial support and intellectual property rights (IPRs). The authors declare that these parameters play a significant role in business development at the early stages.

This empirical data consist of individual and group interviews in Finland and Sweden, which are later inductively analyzed.

The results show that public financial support contributes to the formation and start of sales stages in small countries and local markets. However, at the validation stage, approaches for supporting entrepreneurship in the field of medical devices may differ. The ownership of IPRs assists in the development of entrepreneurship in the region due to the transfer of research results and researchers to the industry and increases the number of spin-offs and the cooperation of universities with business.

This contribution is in the identification of the key parameters for the formation, support and development of the USOs from the point of view of the availability of financial resources and the ownership of IPRs.

This paper aims to analyse the construction of gender in business media through identification of media discourses in terms of vocabulary and vocabulary structures.

The authors conduct critical discourse analysis and linguistic text analysis of media articles in two Swedish business magazines, focussing on vocabulary and vocabulary structures used to describe men and women as managers.

Media texts fall into traditional, gender-stereotyped patterns. The use of metaphors, choice of words and sentence structures construct and maintain stereotyped models of gender. The linguistic practices and use of specific and gender-biased vocabulary shape discursive practices, contributing to the construction and reconstruction of institutionalised gender-stereotyped patterns of behaviour and established social norms.

The focus on vocabulary and vocabulary structures extends the technique and application of critical discourse analysis, enabling fine-grained analyses, in this case of media texts. This research also indicates a need for future studies that adopt a critical discourse analysis to take into account analytical procedures that shed light on micro-mechanisms that support the materialisations of gender inequalities.

Texts that portray both men and women show gender bias that is deeply rooted in the vocabulary and vocabulary structures and thus help to reinforce established discursive practices and gender inequalities. Therefore, there is a need for a fundamental change in the media reports on managers.

The research contributes to the analysis of media texts and representations of men and women as managers by providing a detailed analysis of discursive practices that takes into account vocabulary and vocabulary structures. The findings show the deeply rooted structure of gender-stereotyped patterns in media texts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the selection of decision-making approaches at manufacturing companies when implementing process innovations.

This study reviews the current understanding of decision structuredness for determining a decision-making approach and conducts a case study based on an interactive research approach at a global manufacturer.

The findings show the correspondence of intuitive, normative and combined intuitive and normative decision-making approaches in relation to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability. Accordingly, the conditions for determining a decision-making choice when implementing process innovations are revealed.

This study contributes to increased understanding of the combined use of intuitive and normative decision making in production system design.

Empirical data are drawn from two projects in the heavy-vehicle industry. The study describes decisions, from start to finish, and the corresponding decision-making approaches when implementing process innovations. These findings are of value to staff responsible for the design of production systems.

Unlike prior conceptual studies, this study considers normative, intuitive and combined intuitive and normative decision making. In addition, this study extends the current understanding of decision structuredness and discloses the correspondence of decision-making approaches to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is unequal treatment in hiring depending on whether a job applicant signals living in a bad (deprived) neighborhood or in a good (affluent) neighborhood.

The authors conducted a field experiment where fictitious job applications were sent to employers with an advertised vacancy. Each job application was randomly assigned a residential address in either a bad or a good neighborhood. The measured outcome is the fraction of invitations for a job interview (the callback rate).

The authors find no evidence of general neighborhood signaling effects. However, job applicants with a foreign background have callback rates that are 42 percent lower if they signal living in a bad neighborhood rather than in a good neighborhood. In addition, the authors find that applicants with commuting times longer than 90 minutes have lower callback rates, and this is unrelated to the neighborhood signaling effect.

Empirical evidence of causal neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes is scant, and causal evidence on the mechanisms involved is even more scant. The paper provides such evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate changes in, and associations between, sense of coherence (SOC) and emotional distress in women who participated in an accredited motivational program (VINN) in correctional institutions in five countries.

A prospective study with a pre- and post-test design included 316 participants from Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Russia and Norway. Global emotional distress was measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. SOC was measured using the 13-item Orientation to Life Questionnaire. One-way analysis of variance and multilevel regression models were used in the statistical analyses.

An increase in SOC was associated with a decrease in emotional distress. Emotional distress decreased significantly −3.80 points (95 percent CI (−4.61, −2.97)), and SOC significantly improved from pre- to post-measurement by 1.82 points (95 percent CI (0.72, 2.92)), regardless of country and correctional institution.

The results add new knowledge regarding a coherent theoretical foundation of a motivational program for women. The ability of a program promoting health is important for researchers, health-care workers and facilitators delivering programs for women in correctional facilities. An increase in SOC can act as a protective factor in order to manage stressors and risk factors among women serving in correctional facilities.

The present study indicates that enhancing women’s coping resources and providing income alternatives to crime is fundamental to their capacity to desist from criminal behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how emergent changes are handled in research and development (R&D) projects. R&D projects’ business potential lies in their exploration of the unknown; conversely, this makes them uncertain endeavours, prone to emergent changes.

Uses a single-case-study design, based on a projects-as-practice perspective and a soft systems methodology (SSM) analysis, to map how ad hoc R&D teams handle emergent changes, specifically the solution identification and assessment phase and the implementation plan. An R&D project in the power industry, involving over 250 engineers, was analysed.

This paper shows how emergent changes are handled differently from initiated changes during the decision-making phase. The system analysis shows that the most critical factors for managing these changes are: collective reflection between project parties; and including experienced engineers in implementation-plan reviews.

The results are of relevance both to R&D managers aiming to improve team performance and to general project management. Informal notions of emergent changes can be formalised in the change request process. Weaknesses in the project team’s organisation are highlighted, and details of how of how to mitigate these are provided.

Combines engineering-design and project-management research on emergent changes, adding to the former regarding people–organisational and strategic issues. Furthers understanding of the projects-as-practice approach and emergent change (deviations) handling by ad hoc teams in a project environment. SSM has not previously been used to explore aspects of projects-as-practice, and this is a novel way of adding to the body of knowledge on project praxis and practise.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a leadership program in a way that captures leadership self-efficacy, political skills (PS) and resilience in the form of indicators of health and well-being that would have relevance for leadership roles in turbulent organizations.

The design was quasi-experimental with pre- and post-measurement with unequal controls. Measurement was made through a mail survey before and after the leadership development program. n=107.

Program participants differed from the control group in the post-measurement in that they reported higher levels on leadership self-efficacy and had better health compared to a year earlier.

Concepts like leadership self-efficacy, PS and measures of health and well-being can be used to operationalize and measure broad and contextually relevant outcomes of leadership development.

Evaluation of leadership development can benefit from including these more psychologically relevant and generic outcomes.

The study illustrates how psychologically based concepts can help to elucidate key outcomes of leadership development that can be critical for meeting the challenges in the turbulent and fluid work situation managers currently meet.