Working Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings are often perceived as something to be avoided yet delineate an integrative part of everyday work. This book addresses the role that misunderstandings play in collaborative work and, above all, their effects on the organisational result. As exemplified by project collaboration across three offices of a multinational corporation in India, Frauke Mörike explores how misunderstandings shape the organisational system and why they prove not only necessary but even productive for organisational functioning. In doing so, she offers new ways to think about collaboration and establishes `misunderstanding' as a key factor of insight for the field of organisational research.

A dramaturgical analysis of a paediatric team handover

Introduction: The paediatric team handover process is a crucial workplace practice and comprises the transfer of patient information from one shift to another involving medical professionals and students. A qualitative study was performed to analyse the feasibility, functionality, benefits and limitations of the dramaturgical approach when applied to examining a handover session. Methods: Data relating to one handover were collected and analysed from video and audio recordings, notes created by two independent observers and a de-identified copy of the handover sheet. Results: The dramaturgical constructs and subsequent findings allowed us to make informed inferences about the dynamics of the handover procedure. The directors/lead actors consisted of a consultant and a registrar. One consultant was transitory and the remaining 12 attendees were either major support, support or bit actors. The students (bit actors/audience) were included when a learning point was emphasised. The script was informal and improvised as the discussion emphasised certain facets of patient care or accentuated learning points. The staging involved the seating arrangement, a whiteboard, computer screen and ongoing data presentation. The performance suggested a handover of two halves: one emphasising learning and the other allocation of patient care responsibility. Conclusion: We concluded that the real-life drama occurring within a handover was feasibly analysed, with its functionality demonstrated, using the dramaturgical investigative system. The multifaceted recordings enabled researchers to review the ‘authentic’ handover system without censorship. These findings have implications for educational and organisational research.

The RELATE model: strategies to effectively engage healthcare organisations to create amenable contexts for implementation

PurposeThe field of implementation science has emerged as a response to the challenges experienced in translating evidence-based practice and research findings to healthcare settings. Whilst the field has grown considerably in recent years, comparatively, there is a conspicuous lack of attention paid to the work of pre-implementation, that is, how we effectively engage with organisations to support the translation of research into practice. Securing the engagement and commitment of healthcare organisations and staff is key in quality improvement and organisational research. In this paper the authors draw attention to the pre-implementation phase, that is, the development of an amenable context to support implementation research.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from examples across an interdisciplinary group of health systems researchers working across a range of healthcare organisations, the authors present a reflective narrative viewpoint. They identify the principal challenges experienced during the course of their work, describe strategies deployed to effectively mitigate these challenges and offer a series of recommendations to researchers based on their collective experiences of engaging in collaborations with healthcare organisations for research and implementation. This reflective piece will contribute to the narrative evidence base by documenting the challenges, experiences and learning emerging from the authors’ work as university researchers seeking to engage and collaborate with healthcare organisations.FindingsThe RELATE model is presented to guide researchers through six key steps and sample strategies in working to secure organisational buy-in and creating a context amenable to implementation and research. The six stages of the RELATE model are: (1) Recognising and navigating the organisation's complexity; (2) Enhancing understanding of organisational priorities and aligning intervention; (3) Leveraging common values and communicating to key individuals the value of implementation research; (4) Aligning and positioning intervention to illustrate synergies with other initiatives; (5) Building and maintaining credibility and trust in the research team; and (6) Evolving the intervention through listening and learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors hope this guidance will stimulate thinking and planning and indeed that it will encourage other research teams to reflect and share their experiences and strategies for successful engagement of organisations, thus developing a knowledge base to strengthen implementation efforts and increase efficacy in this important enterprise.Originality/valueResearchers must relate to the world’s everyday reality of the healthcare managers and administrators and enable them to relate to the potential of the research world in enhancing practice if we are to succeed in bringing the evidence to practice in a timely and efficient manner. Climates receptive to implementation must be developed incrementally over time and require actors to navigate messy and potentially unfamiliar organisational contexts. In this paper, the often invisible and lamentably underreported work of how we begin to work with healthcare organisations has been addressed. The authors hope this guidance will stimulate thinking and planning and indeed that it will encourage other research teams to reflect and share their experiences and strategies for successful engagement of organisations, thus developing a knowledge base to strengthen implementation efforts and increase efficacy in this important enterprise.

Mobile Technology

The digital transformation of society is reaching a state of maturity, which provides people with new and exciting possibilities (NESTA, 2019) and implies a preponderant change in terms of inclusive collaboration, human-centred global economy and governance. Conjointly, ‘knowledge is the impetuous for communication’ (Carayannis & Clark, 2011, p. 203) with respect to foster ‘social capital’ and to thrive ‘cultural knowledge’ (Levallet & Chan, 2019, p. 182). Within this context, mobile technology, thanks to its affordance (Ahonen, 2011; Volkoff & Strong, 2013) and its contextuality (Cochrane et al., 2016), can enable creativity which supports the Cognitive Process Dimension (Anderson et al., 2001). Scilicet, mobile devices become the interface between people and processes (Morel et al., 2018; Dampérat et al., 2019) in relation to innovative practices (Makri et al., 2017) and real-world learning (Saleh et al., 2019) in formal and informal contexts. Moreover, it can enhance the developing of ideas inner/outer an organisation, or a classroom (Hall et al., 2020), and the serendipity flow of learning experiences (Makri et al., 2015). To a certain extent, mobile technology can bolster ‘collective knowledge’ (Pont, 2013; Levallet & Chan, 2019) by enabling quick decision-making and by connecting with a glocal network (Antonczak, 2021). From a transdisciplinary approach, amidst learning sciences (Sommerhoff et al., 2018), management and organisational research, this presentation canvasses mobile technology (Jones & Marsden, 2006; Ahonen, 2011) as being a key apparatus and interface for collaborative innovation (Demil & Lecocq, 2012; Suire et al., 2018), which allows organisations to develop their ‘information ecology’ (Nardi, 1999) through a dynamic sense of what is inside and what is outside their boundaries. Said differently, it deciphers how mobile technology can enable exchange information and co-creative practices beyond formal structures and systems across industries and/or academia. To start, the presentation quickly outlines some key concepts from an inter-disciplinary literature reviews (Baumeister & Leary, 1997), including collaboration, creativity, knowledge dynamics such as knowledge creation and/or conversion (Sawyer, 2008) as well as ‘knowledge retention and/or knowledge loss’ (Levallet & Chan, 2019). Next, it epitomises a few technological enabling conditions (Makri, 2017; Levallet & Chan, 2018; Cheng et al., 2019) such as autonomy, diversity, interactivity, contextuality through mobile social media and mobile-first applications (Apps) in relation to collaboration and learning practices beyond the limits of a physical environment. Then, it introduces the methodological and qualitative approach used for the analysis and findings, as well as the interpretations of practices in Education and Business. Finally, this presentation concludes with some features about how mobile technology practices support collaborative and innovative learning environments, the co-creation of new frameworks, and it suggests further avenues for supplementary research.

A dual lens approach to exploring informal communication's influence on learning in a political party

PurposeThe study aims to explore and discuss the extent of influence of informal communication on learning in a European social democracy political party through a dual lens approach combining information behaviour and organisational learning perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents results from an in depth qualitative study, whereby data were collected through semi-structured and episodic narrative interviews. Template analysis was used.FindingsInformal conversations were identified as intrinsic to the work of the political party. They did influence learning at individual and group levels, and there was a degree of diffusion within the organisation, although the latter was found to depend on opportunity, individual self-efficacy, level of involvement in the party and perceptions of who has influence. The dual lens approach facilitated greater levels of granularity of analysis at individual and group levels of learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper highlights the benefits of using a dual lens approach to add depth to the interpretation of the research findings. Due to the small number of participants further research is needed to verify and extend the results and support a greater degree of transferability.Originality/valueThe information behaviour and organisational research theory that underpin the research have not been used together in this way before, and the context for the phenomenon being researched, a traditional political party struggling against the rise of populism in the 21st century, is both contemporary and understudied in each of the theory areas.

The humanities are not our patient

When inviting contributions to a special issue of this journal titled ‘Management Learning and the Unsettled Humanities’ the guest editors did not simply encourage contributors to explore possibilities ‘for reciprocal integration’ between the two realms. Stressing that ‘the humanities . . . [are] facing a complex crisis on their own’, they stated that ‘the humanities . . . need to be enriched, nuanced, and critiqued through . . . the ideas and perspectives of organisational research’. While we may agree that all is not well in the humanities and share their scepticism towards ‘just prescribing the value of the humanities to ameliorate the ills of management education’, we are less confident that the humanities need management learning as much as we need them. As long as learning and scholarship in management and organisation studies continues to suffer from too much management, we doubt that ‘management education [may help] . . . unsettl[e] . . . the human within the . . . humanistic . . . disciplines’. Rather, students of management and organisation still have plenty to learn from the humanities, not least from its rich portrayal of human lives. It is on this basis we draw the conclusion that the humanities are not our patient.

Wasta Effects on Supply Chain Relationships in the Middle East Region

This chapter's aim is two-fold: to examine the impact of Wasta on long-term supply chain relationship and uncover the ways trust functions the complex interplay between culture (Wasta) and long-term supply chain relationship. Data from 350 buyers and 302 suppliers in the Jordanian manufacturing sector show that there is a general consensus on the idea that long-term buyer-supplier relationship is significantly affected by Wasta and that theqa (i.e. trust) moderates the relationship between Wasta and long-term relationship. The findings contribute to the increasing shift of focus towards contextualizing organisational research beyond Hofstede's cross-cultural paradigm to encompass context-specific religious-cultural values of the Middle East region.

Measuring and managing creative labour: Value struggles and billable hours in the creative industries

Creative labour is often characterised as hard to measure and manage. As ‘immaterial labour’, it breaches the working day’s boundaries and produces uncertain outputs. These conditions, claim postoperaists, precipitate a ‘crisis of measurability’. Drawing on 33 interviews with workers at 10 graphic, brand and strategic design agencies in the UK and the Netherlands, this article disputes claims creative labour eludes quantification. Responding to calls to reconnect organisational research with the study of value, it deploys Marxian value theory to demonstrate that the billable hours system of pricing and allocating work in creative agencies establishes ‘fictitious norms of timing’ reminiscent of the Taylorist factory that mediate the labour-process with reference to standards of socially-necessary labour-time set in the market. Rebureaucratising and socialising creative labour, billable hours help creative agencies overcome measurability as a problem, not a crisis. But the timesheeting practices around which billable hours are organised internally are marked by antagonisms. The combination of clear measures around which to bargain and their pivotal economic role has implications for how we conceptualise the capacity of creative workers to collectively organise, make claims on value and create the potential for a realisation of the conditions of crisis postoperaists describe.

Clinical academic careers for general practice nurses: a rapid evidence assessment

Background Clinical academics are health professionals who provide direct patient care alongside engaging in health research. Despite the generally agreed consensus that such roles enhance evidence-based care, availability and uptake has been sporadic in non-medical professions. With no data readily available regarding general practice nurses undertaking clinical academic roles, there is a need to understand the barriers and enabling factors that impact general practice nurses considering or pursuing a clinical academic career. Aims This review aims to address the question ‘What are the barriers and enablers relevant to general practice nurses in the UK pursuing clinical academic careers?’ by providing an overview of the relevant existing literature and drawing out the implications for policy and practice. Methods Literature published in the past 10 years was systematically searched. Using agreed inclusion criteria, papers were first screened on titles and abstracts, with papers included at this stage reviewed as full texts. Results Thirteen papers met the criteria for inclusion. The extraction and synthesis of findings allowed for the development of three themes: roles and responsibilities; embarking on a clinical academic career; and organisational research culture. Conclusions Findings suggest that infrastructure developments are required across higher education institutions and general practice organisations to bring about a cultural change to equip and empower general practice nurses to consider and pursue clinical academic careers.