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This qualitative study aims to understand young professional newcomers' experiences of communication processes in membership negotiation in their first workplace after graduation.

Instead of a one-time interview, the participants were contacted five to ten times during the three to ten months, beginning when they entered the workplace. The data were analyzed using a constant comparative method.

Three communication processes during membership negotiation were identified: developing reciprocity, seeking and perceiving acceptance and becoming an active member. To experience membership, newcomers need to achieve acceptance and engage in reciprocal communication in early interaction situations with managers and coworkers.

Only the experiences of newly graduated newcomers were studied. This study illustrates the communication processes and social interaction evolving in membership negotiation during newcomers' entry.

Organizations need to re-evaluate their short orientation programs to support membership negotiations in workplace communication.

By recognizing the communication processes during membership negotiation, the practices of newcomers' entry can be developed to support the membership development.

This study contributes to membership negotiation by showing how newcomers join the flow of membership negotiation through the processes of developing reciprocity, seeking and perceiving acceptance and becoming an active member.

A frame is an interpretive scheme of meanings that guide participants’ interpretations of social interaction and their actions in social situations (Goffman, 1974). By identifying early-career physicians’ identity and relationship frames, this study aims to produce information about socially constructed ways to interpret leadership communication in a medical context.

The data consist of essays written by young physicians (n = 225) during their specialization training and workplace learning period. The analysis was conducted applying constructive grounded theory.

Three identity and relationship frames were identified: the expertise frame, the collegial frame and the system frame. These frames arranged the meanings of being a physician in a leader-follower relationship differently.

The findings suggest that identity questions discussed recently in medical leadership studies can be partly answered with being aware of and understanding socially constructed and somewhat contradictory frames.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of management group meetings (MGMs) in hospital organization by examining the social interaction in these meetings.

This case study approaches social interaction from a structuration point of view. Social network analysis and qualitative content analysis are applied.

The findings show that MGMs are mainly forums for information sharing. Meetings are not held for problem solving or decision making, and operational coordinating is limited. Meeting interaction is very much focused on the chair, and most of the discussion takes place between the chair and one other member, not between members. The organizational structures are maintained and reproduced in the meeting interaction, and they appear to limit discussion. Meetings appear to fulfil their goals as a part of the organization’s information structure and to some extent as an instrument for management. The significance of the relational side of MGMs was recognized.

The results of this study provide a basis for future research on hospital MGMs with wider datasets and other methodologies. Especially the relational role of MGMs needs more attention.

The goals of MGMs should be reviewed and MG members should be made aware of meeting interaction structures.

The paper provides new knowledge about interaction networks in hospital MGMs, and describes the complexity of the importance of MGMs for hospitals.

This study aims to explore what kind of perceptions dental students at graduation stage have on leadership and work communities, and themselves as leaders and work community members after completing a leadership course tailored for them.

The research material comprised reflective essays written by fifth-year dental students who had participated in a leadership course. The essays were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Most students reported that they had not considered seeking a leadership position before the course, but their views of leadership had grown more positive as a result of completing the course. Students perceived interpersonal communication competence as the most important factor for leaders, the whole work community and for themselves. They assessed that their biggest strengths were found in this area. The biggest challenges in adapting to a work community concerned the students’ professional identities, which were still taking shape at the time of graduation.

The need for leaders in health-care professions is growing due to ongoing reforms, multidisciplinary teamwork, the development of new technologies and patient demands. Therefore, undergraduate leadership education is needed to ensure that students have knowledge of leadership. Graduating dental students’ perceptions concerning leadership and work communities have not been widely explored. Students’ perceptions of leadership were positive after the course and helped students to realize their own potential in this area.

The involvement of clients in service encounters and service development has become a central principle for contemporary health and social care organizations. However, in day-to-day work settings, the shift toward client involvement is still in progress. We examined how health and social care professionals, together with clients and managers, co-develop their conceptions of client involvement and search for practical ways in which to implement these in organizational service processes.

The empirical case of this study was a developmental intervention, the client involvement workshop, conducted in a Finnish municipal social and welfare center. The cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) framework was used to analyze the development of client involvement ideas and the modes of interaction during the intervention.

Analysis of the collective discussion revealed that the conceptions of client involvement developed through two interconnected object-orientations: Enabling client involvement in service encounters and promoting client involvement in the service system. The predominant mode of interaction in the collective discussion was that of “coordination.” The clients' perspective and contributions were central aspects in the turning points from coordination to cooperation; professionals crossed organizational boundaries, and together with clients, constructed a new client involvement-based object. This suggests that client participation plays an important role in the development of services.

The CHAT-based examination of the modes of interaction clarifies the potential of co-developing client-involvement-based services and highlights the importance of clients' participation in co-development.

The main aim of this study is to identify the factors that can affect regional differences in the procurement of local food in public catering. Understanding how some regions procure more local food products than others could help promote the use of local food in public catering. Regions with a lower share of local food can learn from regions that have a higher local food share.

The studied phenomenon is complex; therefore, we used several approaches to identify the share of local food procurement and the reasons behind the regional differences. The study gathered survey data and used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), a computable general equilibrium model and several data sources.

The share of local food within the total food procurement varies markedly between regions. The highest local food shares can be linked to a combination of three factors: sufficient and suitable supply, adequate organisational conditions and a political atmosphere that encourages the use of local food. In addition to limited political incentives, poor supply or inadequate organisational conditions effectively characterise why some regions use very few local food products. Hence, a move towards using more local food in public catering requires political decision makers, food producers and procurement personnel to demonstrate a common will and take cohesive action.

By examining regional variation, the results of this study offer a new perspective on the use of local food in public catering.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how LEAN thinking is used as a management and development tool in the Finnish public healthcare system and what kind of outcomes have been achieved or expected by using it. The main focus is in managing and developing patient and treatment processes.

A mixed-method approach incorporating the Webropol survey was used.

LEAN is quite a new concept in Finnish public healthcare. It is mainly used as a development tool to seek financial savings and to improve the efficiency of patient processes, but has not yet been deeply implemented. However, the experiences from LEAN initiatives have been positive, and the methodology is already quite well-known. It can be concluded that, because of positive experiences from LEAN, the environment in Finnish healthcare is ready for the deeper implementation of LEAN.

This paper evaluates the usage of LEAN thinking for the first time in the public healthcare system of Finland as a development tool and a management system. It highlights the implementation and achieved results of LEAN thinking when used in the healthcare environment. It also highlights the expectations for LEAN thinking in Finnish public healthcare.