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The purpose of this paper is to describe staffs’ perceptions of digital support for medication administration (DSM) and out of the perceptions interpret underlying values.

In total, 22 persons working in elder care participated in the study. The study had a qualitative approach and focus group interviews were used to collect data. To analyze the manifest content a phenomenographic method was used. An interpretation of perceptions was then undertaken aimed at identifying underlying values.

Three descriptive categories, “utility,” “impact on working environment” and “economic impact” were the result of the manifest analysis. The values of having a “good working environment,” “benefits” and “good economy” were interpreted as guidance for staffs’ acceptance or rejection of the DSM.

The care-giving process and its challenges from the perspective of the staffs need consideration. Staffs in this study sometimes expressed strong emotions as a sign of frustration for losing prerequisites to perform their work well. In big complex organizations where economy and effectiveness are often discussed, knowledge of power relations in innovation and implementation processes would be beneficial. Although moral distress is a well-known phenomenon, future research may be needed to find solutions that diminish this negative trend in more economic focussed organizations.

This study had a twofold approach with the intention of going beyond descriptions. To gain a deeper understanding a normative interpretation was completed. Ethical conflicts are frequently characterized as conflicts between at least two values. In this study staffs expressed fear of losing prerequisites needed to perform their work well. Prerequisites that were identified as values and these values were threatened by the DSM.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how first-line managers (FLMs) in home care (HC) reason about the opportunities and obstacles to lead the work according to the individual’s needs and goals.

In this participatory appreciative action reflection project, eight managers within one Swedish municipality were interviewed. The data were analysed using a thematic analysis.

The results showed a polarization between two different systems that FLMs struggle to balance when attempting to lead HC that adapts to the needs and goals of individuals. One system was represented by the possibilities of a humane system, with human capital in the form of the individual, older persons and the co-workers in HC. The second system was represented by obstacles in the form of the economic needs of the organization in which the individual receiving HC often felt forgotten. In this system, the organization’s needs and goals governed, with FLMs needing to adapt to the cost-effectiveness principle and keep a balanced budget. The managers had to balance an ethical conflict of values between the human value and needs-solidarity principles, with that of the cost-effectiveness principle.

The FLMs lack the opportunity to lead HC according to the needs and goals of the individuals receiving HC. There is a need for consensus and a value-based leadership model based on ethical principles such as the principles of human value and needs-solidarity to lead the HC according to the individual’s needs and goals.

This paper utilizes the concept of innovation as a form of methodological starting-point in order to analyse the gendered meanings of marketization in Swedish universities. The purpose of the paper is to scrutinize how the concept of innovation is produced in Swedish universities, and how these versions of innovation are gendered and related to different understandings of gender equality.

The analysis departs from a critical perspective to studies of gender equality and is anchored in a critical policy analysis approach – the “what's the problem represented to be? Approach” developed by Bacchi. This approach is used in the analysis of interviews with top-level leaders at two Swedish universities and how they perceive innovation. The results are related to a governmentality framework in order to explain the gendered innovation discourse in academia.

One of the main results is that innovation is represented in a broad way when discussed at a more abstract level. However, when the discussion becomes more concrete and also related to a gendered understanding of the researchers actually turning their research results into innovations, this broad representation of innovation shrinks. The analysis also shows how a governmentality framework both explains the inevitability of innovation and the difficulties of working for political change for women in the academy.

In analysing innovation as produced instead of taken for granted, this article puts forward a critical understanding of innovation, both in relation to gender and to the inevitability of de-politicisation processes of the neo-liberal audit culture in academia.

The purpose of this paper is to rethink the concept of organizational culture as something that emerges bottom-up by using the sociological concepts of boundary object and boundary work as an analytical lens and to show how this approach can help understand and facilitate intersectoral coordination.

We used observations and qualitative interviews to develop “deep” knowledge about processes of intersectoral coordination. The study draws on a conceptual framework of “boundary work” and “boundary objects” to show how a bottom-up perspective on organizational culture can produce better understanding of and pave the way for intersectoral coordination. We use a case of health professionals engaged in two Danish intersectoral programs developing and providing health promotion services for women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

The study showed how boundary work revolves around negotiations on how to define, understand and act on the diagnosis of GDM. This diagnosis has the characteristics of a “boundary object”, being more loosely structured in general terms, but strongly structured in local settings. Boundary objects help connect different professionals and facilitate coordination. The analysis showed how the introduction of time and the concept of “lifelong health promotion” helped to transgress existing organizational and professional boundaries.

The findings contribute to the literature on organizational culture and intersectoral coordination. We highlight the benefits of a practice-oriented, bottom-up perspective for a better understanding of how shared meaning is produced in cross professional coordination and collaboration. While the theoretical implications will be general applicable when studying organizational culture, the implications for practice are sensitive to context and the processes we have described as the outcomes of boundary work are generated from cases that were most likely to provide deep insight into our research topic.

For practice this can build bridges between organizational and professional boundaries.

The findings contribute to the literature on organizational culture and intersectoral coordination. We highlight the benefits of a practice-oriented, bottom-up perspective for a better understanding of how shared meaning is produced in cross professional coordination. This may build bridges between organizational and professional boundaries in practice settings.