Interplay of coordination, co-creation and community building: examining interprofessional collaboration in workplace development efforts in health care

Purpose Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is increasingly important in work and workplace learning. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of IPC that are relevant for learning and developing at work. Design/methodology/approach We examine IPC in the discussion data of health care professionals when designing, implementing and evaluating developmental tasks. Qualitative content analysis is carried out on temporally sequential task trajectories, considering IPC from the perspective of the objects and goals of IPC task activity in developmental efforts. Findings The developmentally relevant characteristics of IPC are crystallized in the concepts of coordination, co-creation and community building, which play different, interdependent roles in development efforts. We show their interplay and how they complement each other in practice. Research limitations/implications Our findings regarding IPC characteristics are to be interpreted as working hypotheses and resources for further research. Practical implications Understanding the dynamics of IPC is useful for renewing work practices. Attention to the interplay and complementarity of IPC characteristics may help in the design and implementation of effective and sustained development efforts. Originality/value The dynamics of IPC in developmental settings have not been sufficiently studied. This paper proposes three developmentally relevant and intertwined characteristics of IPC for scholars of workplace learning.

Happy employees as a basis for health management

The paper deals with one of the most pressing problems in the field of management, the problem of employee satisfaction with working conditions. The value orientation of modern Russian society has changed significantly, partly under the influence of the axiological dominants of foreign economies, and partly due to the processes of reforms in the Russian society. At the forefront were such categories as success, efficiency, flexibility, stress resistance. However, all these trends do not always have a positive effect on the physical and mental health of employees. The experience of foreign colleagues dealing with occupational physiology can be taken into account in Russian conditions. More and more attention is paid to the problem of preventing premature employee burnout, to the study of the main motivational mechanisms that contribute to improving the quality of work. The study aims to analyze the objective and subjective factors of assessing employee performance in terms of quantitative and qualitative indicators. At the same time, the authors set the following goals: the systematization of the results of the employee survey; identification of the main problems in the workplace; development of mechanisms and methods for maintaining the motivation and health of employees; and, finally, the formation of an optimal image of a modern manager, focused on improving performance indicators and at the same time maintaining a good psychological climate in enterprises (such as government agencies, educational institutions, private companies or small businesses). It is concluded that a happy employee with a certain freedom of action, deserving the confidence of their superiors, is ready to fulfill the assigned tasks even in the face of loss of wages. Internal balance acquires the highest value for a modern employable person, and this must be taken into account when forming the road map for enterprises.

Mentoring in Practice: Rebuilding Dialogue with Mentees’ Stories

The voluntary and community sector (VCS) is a key player in the support of prisoners and ex-prisoners in the English and Welsh criminal justice system. Organisational learning and innovation is urgently required in this sector to adapt to the current political and economic environment. The chapter describes exploratory efforts to introduce participatory methods drawn from Change Laboratory Methods and Clinics of Activity within a local VCS organisation that would help (re)build dialogue between stakeholders with the aim of promoting organisational learning and innovation. The intervention comprised an ethnographic phase of observing the staff, interviews with 19 key stakeholders, and a final developmental workshop with the staff. The analysis of these data by the researcher (first author) provided insight into the experience of mentors working in the voluntary sector as well as providing a trigger for dialogue in a subsequent workshop that used these data to establish dialogue between staff. These served as dialogical artefacts, introducing micro-dramas in the form of selected user stories. These dialogical artefacts triggered diverse reactions and analyses by the various participants, highlighting different elements than those anticipated by the researcher. We discuss the different readings of our research data by the researcher and staff members, presenting these two contrasting perspectives, and the implications this has for workplace development methods.

Methods of Promoting Professional Agency at Work

In the midst of continuous changes in working life, finding a way to balance organizational demands and the needs of employees has become an important task. This task has highlighted the significance of agency and social interaction, as influencing factors that can enhance people’s potential to meet new learning tasks. In the Scandinavian and Finnish contexts, research institutions, in cooperation with work organizations, have developed practical methods to promote agency and learning at work. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of two different workplace development methods, identity (ID) training, and participatory action research (PAR) using dialogue forums if combined and applied as a two-level approach. The study asks what the characteristics of these methods are in general and if there are any key characteristics that could support their combined application. The research question is answered by a qualitative descriptive analysis of the literature on organizations, agency, and applications of the methods. The results shed light on and emphasize the intertwining characteristics of the methods. The research concludes with the hypothesis—to be tested in further research—that the methods are necessary for each other and recommends a preliminary investigation on the prevailing organizational culture, as a resource for organization-specific modifications.

Workplace location, polycentricism, and car commuting

Although significant strides have been made regarding the relationship between urban structure and travel, some doubt appears to be lingering concerning the impacts of polycentric urban development. For example, the debate on whether a polycentric or monocentric workplace location pattern is favorable for reducing negative environmental effects from transportation has not been entirely settled. This study intends to contribute to clearing up some of the misconceptions by focusing on the implications of spatial distribution of jobs on commuting patterns among employees within the Oslo metropolitan area. Results show a strong tendency for a higher share of car commuting among employees working in suburban workplaces. This pattern persists also for suburban workplaces located close to suburban transit nodes. The share of transit commuters shows the opposite pattern. Commuting distances also tend to increase the farther from the city center the workplace is located. These conclusions are based on cross-sectional and quasi-longitudinal survey data as well as semi-structured in-depth interviews of workers, including several interviewees who had changed their workplace locations. To our knowledge, this is the first mixed-methods study on the influence of workplace location on commuting behavior. The results raise doubt about the appropriateness of polycentric intra-metropolitan workplace development as a strategy for sustainable mobility.

What Works in Democratic Dialogue?

As the global world produces new social problems and the continuously changing environment of work organizations calls for new modes of operation, there emerges a need for discussion forums to analyze and find practical solutions, involving the people concerned. This article examines, within the framework of realist evaluation, the potential of democratic dialogue, a Nordic method of workplace development, to generate outcomes that are put into practice in work organizations. Democratic dialogue is seen as a social program that, by providing the participants with new resources and new reasoning in work conferences and other dialogue forums, enables them to make new choices. The focus is on three Finnish action research networks applying democratic dialogue, and the recompilation of these cases along the Context-Mechanism-Outcomes formula of realist evaluation. Changes in the organizational patterns of communication, linked to the criteria of democratic dialogue and the design of work conferences, are identified and examined through the lenses of varied organizational concepts that elaborate the underlying processes generating change. The article suggests further research to compare cases with the same starting points but differing outcomes to trace the finer distinctions in the preconditions for accomplishing the desired objectives.