Teams that are creatively productive: Exploring the exploitable and exploiting the explorable

The present study examines team processes of exploring and exploiting in inno vation teams, to understand important connections with team development. 51 innovation teams invented a business idea (related to explore), which was to be developed into a viable business plan (related to exploit). The business plans were assessed and divided in a) excellent; b (mediocre); and c (poor). Teams´ internal interactions were evaluated accordingly using qualitative and quantitative studies, in both explore and exploit phase. The top performing teams were found to be highly adaptable to situational demands, continuously challenging each other and demanding a lot from each team member through a disciplined and task-oriented approach. The poorer performers were oriented towards social well-being of the group, creating a supportive atmosphere as a group norm. It is argued that this norm inhibited team innovation performance. This study contributes with knowledge on how to achieve psychological safety in teams to obtain the kind of creativity that is workable – exploring the exploitable and exploiting the explorable

Will an implementation of “Joy of Life in Nursing Homes” have positive effect for the work culture? A comparison between two Norwegian municipalities

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Samhandlingsreformen og bruk av digitale verktøy på Fosen. En innledende kartlegging

-Informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi (IKT), som høykvalitets videokonferanser, sensorteknologi etc., kan være viktige hjelpemidler i gjennomføringen av Samhandlingsreformen (SHR). Gjennom kvalitative intervjuer av 53 personer ble det undersøkt hvilke strukturelle og kulturelle forhold som det er viktig å ta hensyn til i Fosenkommunene i gjennomføringen av SHR ved hjelp av digitale verktøy. Det eksisterende kommunesamarbeidet på Fosen er et meget godt utgangspunkt for realisering av SHR. Det gis også i dag et relativt avansert helsetilbud som inkluderer bruk av IKT, særlig gjennom Fosen Distriktsmedisinske Senter, men også ved sykehjemmene. Ansatte i helsetjenestene er generelt positive til utviklingsprosjekter og til å ta i bruk ny IKT. Det er imidlertid noe skepsis knyttet til bruk av IKT mellom behandler og pasient, og også generelt til hvorvidt brukerstøtten vil være tilstrekkelig. Det anbefales at innføring av nye IKT-løsninger tas i avgrensede steg. Ved hvert steg bør det sikres tilstrekkelig opplæring, mestring og brukerstøtte for å ivareta tilliten til løsningene. Sykehjemmene kan være ”noder” i utvidelsen av samarbeidet mellom Fosenkommunene ved hjelp av IKT. Det beskrives noen utfordringer som bør søkes løst, blant annet knyttet til opplæring av mange deltidsansatte, tilgjengelighet til videokonferanseutstyr, brukerstøtte og organisatoriske forhold i spesialisthelsetjenesten

Why are major sports events trapped in the winner's curse? A case study of the 2017 World Road Cycling Championship

Author's accepted version (postprint).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Emerald in Sport, Business and Management on 07/12/2021.Available online: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SBM-12-2020-0132/full/htmlPurpose – This paper sought to determine how a major sport event can become trapped in a winner’s curse, in which the fierce competition to host the event forces organisers to spend more on acquiring and hosting it than what it is worth in economic terms. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a combination of document analysis and 47 in-depth interviews with 51 individuals representing various private and public organisations involved in the implementation of the UCI 2017 Road Cycling World Championship. Snowball sampling and a semi-structured interview guide were used to ensure coverage of all relevant information. Findings – The organiser and the host municipal lacked the necessary experience with events of this size and character. Information from previous championships events was not transferred, and the municipality administration did not utilise experiences from hosting previous events. Limited financial resources prevented the organiser from hiring enough employees with the necessary competence. Lack of communication between the stakeholders who contributed in hosting the event reduced the quality of planning and preparations. A dubious culture and lack of seriousness within the Norwegian Cycling Federation, which was the owner of organising company, seemed to have been transferred to organiser. Originality/value – The research identifies some of the reasons why major sports events so often turns out to be more problematic than expected in economic terms, not only for the organiser but also for actors in the public sector in the host city. The novelty is that it goes into depth on the underlying reasons and the dynamic forces behind these problems.acceptedVersio

Cross-boundary relationships : The object, the social, and the health professional

This thesis is about how health professionals at hospitals collaborate across professional boundaries. Societal and political reforms demand for more transparency and efficiency in health care work, yet history tells us that the professional practitioner resists external accounting. They are not used to open up their professional boundaries for neither insight nor outsight, and too much pressure may risk to strengthen the boundary instead of soften it. Due to the rising complexity in many of these services, there is a growing attention towards how management and patients can account the professionals’ work. This is often combined with the notion that teams comprised of different professions have a great potential in terms of efficiency. Due to these two aspiring developments – claims of interdisciplinarity and accountability – health professionals need to work with an outwardly rather than inwardly focus.   In other words, health professionals need to construct, build and sustain relations and relationships that extend across their professional boundaries. In this thesis, I pursue the empirical quest of how health professionals do this by employing contributions from two theoretical strands. The first strand is that of team/group development and social relationships. I elaborate here on the meaning of sociality and different models of integration in a relationship. The other strand I draw upon insights from, is Science and Technology Studies; and in particular the notion of objects as mediators of social relationships. The concept of boundary object is elaborated upon and argued to be an important asset in cross-boundary collaboration. Drawing on this theoretical elaboration, added with findings from the papers, I introduce the concept of cross-boundary relationships. A cross-boundary relationship is a relationship that is tightly integrated across the professional boundary. The cross-boundary relationship emerges when health professionals are able to see interactions across the boundary as meaningful, mutually influence and share decisions across the boundary, and finally interpret the boundary itself as an implicit part of the relationship. Boundary objects and social relationships are argued to be an important part of this becoming. The main contribution of this thesis is to show how health professionals can collaborate cohesively across their professional boundaries. Previous research tend to focus on the work professionals exert to upheld their boundaries, or merely describe interprofessional collaboration at a conceptual level. I show the value in focusing on cross-boundary collaboration rather than boundary work, and model how such collaboration in a practical setting may look like. The concept of crossboundary relationship encompasses this idea

Design thinking teams and team innovation performance

Abstract Design thinking (DT) is hailed as a cornerstone of innovation. It is based on teamwork, yet we know little about how the DT team operates and collaborates. In this study, we investigate 51 Norwegian master’s student teams as they work on an innovation project using DT. We seek especially to understand how they communicate and collaborate while working with DT tools, with special attention to divergent and convergent thinking. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyze the teams´ behaviors and developments in these. Findings suggest that the highest performing groups use the DT method with greater discipline than the other groups. To achieve this, they employ more authority-based behaviors and fewer supportive behaviors than the other groups. This disciplined approach to DT as a process and the use of tools, such as brainstorming, are in turn associated with convergent and divergent thinking. The main conclusions are that a disciplined approach using DT as a team tool, enables team reflexivity and psychological safety. This enhances innovative performance

Teams that are creatively productive: Exploring the exploitable and exploiting the explorable

The present study examines team processes of exploring and exploiting in inno vation teams, to understand important connections with team development. 51 innovation teams invented a business idea (related to explore), which was to be developed into a viable business plan (related to exploit). The business plans were assessed and divided in a) excellent; b (mediocre); and c (poor). Teams´ internal interactions were evaluated accordingly using qualitative and quantitative studies, in both explore and exploit phase. The top performing teams were found to be highly adaptable to situational demands, continuously challenging each other and demanding a lot from each team member through a disciplined and task-oriented approach. The poorer performers were oriented towards social well-being of the group, creating a supportive atmosphere as a group norm. It is argued that this norm inhibited team innovation performance. This study contributes with knowledge on how to achieve psychological safety in teams to obtain the kind of creativity that is workable – exploring the exploitable and exploiting the explorable

Advancing the status of nursing: reconstruction professional nursing identity through patient safety work

Background Recent decades have seen increased attention to patient safety in health care. This is often in the form of programmes aiming to change professional behaviours. Health professionals in hospitals have traditionally resented such initiatives because patient safety programmes often take a managerialist form that may be interpreted as a challenge to professional identity. Research, however, has mostly paid attention to the role of physicians. This study aims to highlight how such programmes may affect professional nursing identity. Methods We qualitatively investigated the implementation of a patient safety programme in Norway, paying attention to changes in nurses’ practices and values. Based on purposive sampling, two group interviews, four individual interviews and five hours of observational studies were conducted in a hospital department, involving ten nurses and three informants from the hospital management. Interviews were conducted in offices at the hospital, and observations were performed in situ. All the interviews lasted from one to one and a half hours, and were recorded and transcribed ad verbatim. Data was analysed according to ad-hoc meaning generation. Results The following analytical categories were developed: reconstructing trust, reconstructing work, reconstructing values and reconstructing professional status. The patient safety programme involved a shift in patient safety-related decisions, from being based on professional judgement to being more system based. Some of the patient safety work that previously had been invisible and tacit became more visible. The patient safety programme involved activities that were more in accordance with the ‘cure’ discourse than traditional ‘care’ work within nursing. As a result, this implied a heightened perceived professional status among the nurses. The safety programme was – contrary to the ‘normal’ resistance against audit systems – well received because of the raised perceived professional status among the nurses. Conclusions Reconstructing trust, work, values and status, and even the profession itself, is being reconstructed through the work involved in implementing the procedures from the safety programme. Professional knowledge and identity are being challenged and changed, and what counts as good, professional nursing of high quality is being reconstructed

Shared cognition in intercultural teams: collaborating without understanding each other

Purpose Severe misunderstandings have been proved to cause significant delays and financial overruns in large engineering projects with teams consisting of people from Western and Asian cultures. The purpose of this study was to determine if differences in shared cognition may explain some of the crucial misunderstandings in intercultural production teams. Design/methodology/approach The study has used systematizing the person–group relationship (SPGR) survey methodology, supported by interviews, to study mental models in six South Korean teams that also includes Norwegian engineers (52 individuals). In so doing, the study uses the theoretical framework of Healey et al. (2015), where X-mental representations involve actions that are automated and subconscious and C-mental representations involve actions that are verbalized reasonings and conscious. People may share mental models on the X-level without sharing on the C-level, depicting a situation where teams are coordinated without understanding why (surface discordance). Findings The findings of the study are that people with different cultural backgrounds in an intercultural team may learn to adapt to each other when the context is standardized, without necessarily understanding underlying meanings and intentions behind actions (surface discordance). This may create a perception about team members not needing to explicate opinions (sharing at the C-level). This in turn may create challenges in anomalous situations, where deliberate sharing of C-mental models is required to find new solutions and/or admit errors so that they may be adjusted. The findings indicate that the non-sharing of explicated reasonings (C-mental models) between Norwegians and Koreans contributed in sharing C-mental models, despite having an implicit agreement on how to perform standard tasks (sharing X-mental models). Research limitations/implications The study is limited to Norwegians and Koreans working in production teams. Future studies could benefit from more cultures and/or different team contexts. The authors’ believe that the findings may also concern other standardized environments and corroborate previous perspectives on intercultural teams needing to both train (develop similar X-mental representations) and reflect together (develop similar C-mental representations). Practical implications Based on our findings we suggest the using of cross-cultural training at a deeper level than previously suggested, training in both social interaction patterns as well as verbalizing logical reasoning together. This entails reaching a shared and joint understanding of not only actions but also values, feelings and teamwork functions. This can be enabled by group conversations and training in dynamic team patterns. Important is, however, that standardized contexts may dampen the perception of the need to do both. Originality/value The study contributes to current research on intercultural teams by focusing on a dual-mode perspective on shared cognition, relating these to contextual factors. In this, the authors’ answer the call in previous research for more information on contextual matters and a focus on interaction in intercultural teams. The study also shows how the differences between X-mental and C-mental shared mental models play out in a practical setting