Is leadership in the hands of the employee? : A study about leadership from the leader’s perspective

Titel: Ligger ledarskapet i medarbetarens händer? - En studie om ledarskap ur ledarens perspektiv Nivå: Examensarbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Josefin Aronsson och Anton Lindström Handledare: Monika Wallmon Datum: 2023 – januari Syfte: Studiens syfte är att ur ledarens perspektiv undersöka hur ledarskapet påverkas av relationen mellan en ledare och en medarbetare. Mer specifikt, vilka konsekvenser det får i form av eventuell diskriminering av medarbetare eller för vilken utsträckning som ledaren delegerar egenmakt till medarbetaren. Studiens grund utgörs av LMX-teorin (leader-member exchange), där relationerna mellan en ledare och de enskilda medarbetarna står i fokus. Ledarens perspektiv är inte studerat i en tillräcklig utsträckning, och flertalet forskare efterlyser en större förståelse för ledarens sida av relationen.  Metod: En kvalitativ metod har använts och det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom intervjuer med tio olika ledare från åtskilda organisationer. Respondenternas svar har behandlats mot sin unika kontext, men också jämförts mot varandra. Mönster och teman i materialet har lyfts fram i studiens resultat, och sedan granskats och analyserats med den teoretiska referensramen som bakgrund. Resultat och slutsats: Huvudsakliga slutsatser är att relationen till medarbetaren till en viss del påverkar hur kontrollerande ledaren är, vilka arbetsuppgifter som ledaren tilldelar medarbetaren och hur mycket frihet som delegeras gällande arbetsuppgiftens utförande. Medarbetaren påverkar starkt hur personlig relationen mellan parterna är. Starka relationer kan innebära en fördel genom att medarbetares prestation gynnas, men det kan också vara så att ledaren bygger starka relationer till medarbetare som är mer engagerade och högpresterande. Ledaren diskriminerar inte vissa medarbetare på grund av godtyckligt gillande från ledarens sida, men däremot är det samma faktorer som ligger bakom att en relation blir stark som också kan vara rättvisa skäl till att vissa medarbetare får vissa förmåner, som att de presterar bättre. Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar till en mer nyanserad bild av LMX-modellen genom att beskriva ledarens perspektiv och vad ledaren ser är viktigt för att relationen till en medarbetare ska kunna växa sig stark. Vidare medför studien en nyansering av modellen genom att det konstateras att medarbetare vilka ledaren har en lägre relation till inte behöver vara diskriminerade av ledaren. Det praktiska bidraget är en ökad kännedom om hur ledare påverkas av relationen till sina underordnade, vilket kan ge värdefulla insikter till chefer. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Undersöka om den erfarenhet som en ledare besitter i sin roll har en påverkan för hur ledaren ser på relationen till sina underordnade. Även studier kring hur relationer påverkar ledaren beroende på arten av organisationens uppdrag föreslås samt om det finns några nackdelar för en chef att ha en god och nära relation till sina medarbetare. Nyckelord: Ledarskap, relationen mellan ledare-medarbetare, LMX-teorin, attribution.Title: Is leadership in the hands of the employee? - A study about leadership from the leader’s perspective Level: Student thesis, final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Josefin Aronsson and Anton Lindström Supervisor: Monika Wallmon Date: 2023 - January                                                                           Aim: The aim of the study is to, from the leader’s perspective, examine how the relationships between the leader and his or her followers affects the leadership. More specifically, which consequences it brings on the matters of discrimination of some employers or to what extent the leader is willing to empower the employer. The foundation of the study consists of the LMX-theory (leader-member exchange), where the focus is on the relations between a leader and follower. The perspective of the leader has not been sufficiently studied before, and several authors enquire for a greater understanding of the leader's view of the relationship. Method: A qualitative method has been used, and the empirical material has been collected through interviews with 10 different leaders from diverse organizations. The result from each interview has been processed with the unique context in concern, but the different results has also been compared to each other. Identified patterns are presented in the result of the study, which then has been reviewed and analysed against the theoretical framework. Results and conclusions: The main conclusions from the study is that relationships with employees do have an impact on how much control the leader urges, which tasks the leader assigns to an employee, and how much freedom that the employer gets regarding the execution of a task. The followers affect largely how private the relationship between the parties are. Highly valued relations can benefit the performance of the employers, but it could also be that the leader chooses those employees who are dedicated and perform well when building strong relations. Leaders do not discriminate against some employers on the basis of arbitrary liking, but at the same time it is the same factors which can be seen lead up to that some relationships growing strong, as could be acceptable reasons why a certain employee gets some favours - such as that the employee is performing well. Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes to a more nuanced picture of the LMX-model, though it views the relations from the perspective of the leader and brings clarity of what the leader values in a relationship in order for it to mature and become strong. The model also becomes more nuanced through the highlights of the fact that the leader does not discriminate followers that he or she has a slightly less valued relationship to. The practical implications of the study is a greater knowledge about how leaders are affected by the relationships with the followers, which can give practicing managers some great insights. Suggestions for future research: Examine if the leader’s experience does have an effect on how the leader look upon the relationship with his or hers followers. Studies regarding if the organisations’ mission can matter for the leaders view on relationships are also suggested, and also if there are some disadvantages with strong relations between leader-member. Key words:  Leadership, relations between leader-employee, LMX-theory, attributions

Preschool in combination with other activities : Which are the consequences?

Växjö kommun har ont om ledig mark vilket har medfört att en undersökning harpåbörjats, där förskolor kombineras med andra verksamheter i en och sammabyggnad. Syftet har varit att undersöka möjligheten med dessa kombinationer för attse vilka konsekvenser som uppstår. Undersökningen behandlar två tomter i Växjö som har olika förutsättningar gällandedess detaljplaner. Resultatet visar att en kombination mellan de olika verksamheternaär möjligt men att dagens regler och standardiseringar inte alltid går att ta hänsyn tillvid dessa kombinationer

Are We Ready to Really Hear the Voices of Those Concerned? : Lessons Learned from Listening to and Involving Children in Child and Family Psychology Research

A changing view of children, accelerated by the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UN in Convention on the rights of the child, UN Doc. A/RES/44/25, 1989, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf) has shifted the landscape of child and family research over the last few decades. Once viewed with low credibility and operating outside the interpretive framework of adult researchers, the rights-bearing child is increasingly recognized not only as having the capacity but also the right to participate in research. More recently, this movement has transitioned from the direct engagement of children as research participants—now considered commonplace, although less so for those who are structurally vulnerable—to the involvement of children in research design, review, conduct, and dissemination. Yet, both practical and ethical challenges remain. While children have the right to participation, they also have the right to protection. In this commentary, we set out to: (i) lay forth epistemic, child rights, and child sociology arguments for doing research about, with and by children and youth; (ii) recount our own journey of including children and youth in research to demonstrate the unique knowledge and insights gained through these approaches; and (iii) offer lessons learned on how to engage children and youth in research, including the involvement of structurally vulnerable groups

Where Brain, Body and World Collide

The production cross section of electrons from semileptonic decays of beauty hadrons was measured at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.8) in the transverse momentum range 1 < pt < 8 Gev/c with the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC in pp collisions at a center of mass energy sqrt{s} = 7 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 2.2 nb^{-1}. Electrons from beauty hadron decays were selected based on the displacement of the decay vertex from the collision vertex. A perturbative QCD calculation agrees with the measurement within uncertainties. The data were extrapolated to the full phase space to determine the total cross section for the production of beauty quark-antiquark pairs

Policies Handbook on Using Molecular Collections

The access to molecular collections worldwide greatly improves the quality of scientific research by making a growing number of data available for investigation. The efforts on digitization also aim at facilitating the exchange of material between institutions and researchers that must follow regulations in place and respect best practice. The handbook presented here proposes a workflow to follow to safely exchange materials, in accordance with international laws and legislations. We make numerous recommendations here to help the institutions and researchers to navigate the legal and administrative procedures, to manage molecular collections in the best way possible.

Policies Handbook on Using Molecular Collections

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