Five Currents of Organizational Psychology—from Group Norms to Enforced Change

This article discusses five currents in organizational psychology that have had particular significance in relation to the field of organizational development in Scandinavia:The social psychological, the socio-technical, the humanistic, the work psychological, and the social constructionist currents. I discuss central tenets from leading scholars in relation to group norms, contextualized working tasks, and conflicts among groups. Although treated differently, the phenomena of the small group, group dynamics, resistance to change, and process consultation are throughgoing.These phenomena link the discipline together into a mutually discordant, but relatively consistent discipline.While the early currents focused on interpersonal process based on dialogue for the sake of satisfaction and efficiency, the latter sees movement as a goal in itself. The analysis exposes a decrease over time of analytical interest in group norms, contextualized tasks, and avoidance of conflict. This focus on continual change has negative implications for the credibility of the discipline.

Velfærdsteknologier i den offentlige sektor - Et sociomaterielt studie af spiserobotter i handikappleje

Denne artikel belyser en række upåagtede virkninger i forbindelse med den socialpolitiske vision om implementering af velfærdsteknologi i den offentlige sektor. Artiklen analyserer mødet mellem en række kriterier og værdier i forbindelse med implementering af spiserobotter i handikappleje og viser, hvordan disse kriterier både væves sammen i den daglige praksis og forsøges fastholdt af forskellige parter. For at skabe overblik over et større empirisk materiale stiller studiet skarpt på to meget forskellige forløb: Det ene udgør en succesfuld afprøvning af spiserobotten, det andet en fiasko. I det succesfulde forløb indfries kriterierne og forhåbningerne om borgerens uafhængighed og et fleksibelt arbejdsmiljø for plejere og medarbejderbesparelser. Fiaskoforløbet sætter fokus på det porøse i mødet mellem krop og spiserobot. Vanskeligheden i at tilvejebringe en sikker forbindelse mellem krop og spiserobot står centralt i artiklens analyse af en ny type ledelsesopgave, der fremkommer i forbindelse med implementering af velfærdsteknologier

Criteria of implementing feeding assistance robots in disability care

This article discusses the entanglement of implementing welfare technology in disability care, and draws on ethnographic observations from a pilot project involving 30 disabled citizens from three different boroughs in Denmark. The disabled citizens suffered from diseases such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral paralysis. The article follows four care assistants and four citizens through a period of 10 months, focusing particularly on the experiences and struggle of two citizens. Against this background, the article takes up a number of conflicting values and criteria practiced by diverse interested groups: 1. employee retrenchment, 2. citizen independence and 3. workforce flexibility. The main argument is that the housing institution studied has turned into a battlefield, where professional values of authentic care meet a strong governmental discourse of modernization of the public sector. The study demonstrates that the implementation of welfare technology in disability care is highly fragile, which is predominantly due to the delicate body-technology assembly, and takes place in agony

Making Materials Matter—A Contribution to a Sociomaterial Perspective on Work Environment

This paper aims to discuss the implications of adopting an STS (science and technology studies)- based conceptualization of the psychosocial work environment. We problematize how work environment research presently divides elements of working conditions into separate physical and psychosocial dimensions. Based on actor network theory, a currently dominant perspective in the field of STS, we discuss the concept of sociomaterial work environment. An ANT perspective on work environment is relevant and timely, we argue, first and foremost because more entities are embraced in the analyses. We argue that the ANT perspective leads to a more nuanced understanding of the work environment where it is not a set of predefined categories that is the focus of interest, but rather the work environment as multiple locally performed aspects of agency, translation, and collectively constructed reality. This perspective on work environment, we argue, addresses pivotal issues raised in the work environment debate during the last ten years, for instance of how the work environment as a concept saliently belongs to a social democratic Scandinavian agenda in which the singular employee in a work environment context is predominantly seen as a victim. This trope, which was peaking in the 1970s, is increasingly becoming obsolete in a changing economy with still more flexible jobs. The contribution of this paper is to provide a presentation and a discussion of the potentials and pitfalls provided by a shift toward a sociomaterial work environment perspective, as well as an empirical exemplification of a sociomaterial approach to work environment assessment

Workshops as tools for developing collaborative practice across professional social worlds in telemonitoring

Background: Lately, patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease use telemonitoring services from ho

Hjelmkamera som opmærksomhedsunderstøttende teknologi.

The application of a relatively simple technology in the form of a helmet-camera may support changes in awareness during and after an operative incidence. The helmet-camera is attached to the superior incident commander from the fire department. By way of the camera, it is possible to achieve further understanding of the operative effort, such associal interaction, ignorance and errors. In this article, recordings from a helmet-camera are analyzed by way of a dialogical session in relation to which the incident manager and the first author analyzes the incident manager’s awareness, participation and “struck” by way of dialogue characterized by reflection and reflexivity. The helmet-camera is analyzed as an awareness-technology, which embraces the potential to make a number of insecurities with regard to organizing principles visible, which the fire department uses during operative incidents. The delicacy in relation to the meeting between the incidentmanager and the team managers’ is striking. The article focuses on the critical situations and disturbances that stand in the way of a common understanding of the incidence effort

Criteria of implementing feeding assistance robots in disability care : a sociomaterial perspective

<br />This article discusses the entanglement of implementing welfare technology in disability care, and draws on ethnographic observations from a pilot project involving 30 disabled citizens from three different boroughs in Denmark. The disabled citizens suffered from diseases such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral paralysis. The article follows four care assistants and four citizens through a period of 10 months, focusing particularly on the experiences and struggle of two citizens. Against this background, the article takes up a number of conflicting values and criteria practiced by diverse interested groups: 1. employee retrenchment, 2. citizen independence and 3. workforce flexibility. The main argument is that the housing institution studied has turned into a battlefield, where professional values of authentic care meet a strong governmental discourse of modernization of the public sector. The study demonstrates that the implementation of welfare technology in disability care is highly fragile, which is predominantly due to the delicate body-technology assembly, and takes place in agony.<br /><br /

Imagining and tinkering with assistive robotics in care for the disabled

The media and political-managerial levels focus on the opportunities to re-perform the Scandinavian welfare states through digitization. Especially in Denmark, this trend is prominent. Welfare technology is a Scandinavian notion used to point at assistive technologies intending to support the elderly, the disabled and care providers. Feeding assistive robotics (FAR) is a welfare technology relevant to citizens with no or low function in their arms. Despite national dissemination strategies, it proves difficult to recruit suitable users. There have been many promises for the potential of assistive robotics including more cost-efficient healthcare delivery, engaged patients and connected care providers. However, the realities of enacting assistive robotics, whether as patients or care providers, can be complicated in ways often unanticipated by government agencies and technology developers. This study discusses governmental agencies’ and technology developers’ visions with regard to what robotics may do and argues that these visions intertwine with affected stakeholders’ organizing of theirworlds. On this founding, the article discusses the resulting tinkering during implementation. The study exemplifies and demonstrates how ethnography can be used as an important method in Human Robot Interaction (HRI) research. The Actor Network Theory idea of ‘follow the actor’ inspired the study that took place as multi-sited ethnography at different locations in Denmark and Sweden. Based on desk research, observation of meals and interviews the study examines sociotechnical imaginaries and their practical and ethical implications.Human and FAR interaction demands engagement, sustained patience and understanding of the citizen’s particular body, identity and situation. The article contributes to the HRI literature by providing detailed empirical analysis based on an ethnographic studywhere political strategies, technology developers’ assumptions and affected stakeholders’ everyday hassles are in focus at the same time

Workshops as Tools for Developing Collaborative Practice across Professional Social Worlds in Telemonitoring

Background: Lately, patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease use telemonitoring services from home. We discuss three professional groups&rsquo; idea of good care in terms of living as a chronically ill patient. Methods: We scrutinize a workshop consisting of the following: (1) presentation of pre-workshop interviews focusing on good patient flows; (2) presentation of the participants&rsquo; photos illustrating their idea of the good life with telemonitoring; (3) discussion of what the three social worlds of care can do together. We understand workshops as learning events founded on the symbolic interactionist idea of learning as reflexism. That is, the process where participants make joint action an object of attention. Results: We propose that not only people, but also objects such as applications, gold standards, and financial arrangement are actively involved in hampering collaboration across social worlds. The contribution is a discussion of the contemporary challenges of technological intensification into healthcare processes seen as a learning event. Conclusion: Workshops constitute useful tools to understand more of how professional groups seek to adopt new technologies and learn about the larger structure of telemonitoring. Developing joint action among social worlds appears to be one of the main challenges of technologically driven innovation in healthcare

Workshops as tools for developing collaborative practice across professional social worlds in telemonitoring

Background: Lately, patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease use telemonitoring services from home. We discuss three professional groups’ idea of good care in terms of living as a chronically ill patient. Methods: We scrutinize a workshop consisting of the following: (1) presentation of pre-workshop interviews focusing on good patient flows; (2) presentation of the participants’ photos illustrating their idea of the good life with telemonitoring; (3) discussion of what the three social worlds of care can do together. We understand workshops as learning events founded on the symbolic interactionist idea of learning as reflexism. That is, the process where participants make joint action an object of attention. Results: We propose that not only people, but also objects such as applications, gold standards, and financial arrangement are actively involved in hampering collaboration across social worlds. The contribution is a discussion of the contemporary challenges of technological intensification into healthcare processes seen as a learning event. Conclusion: Workshops constitute useful tools to understand more of how professional groups seek to adopt new technologies and learn about the larger structure of telemonitoring. Developing joint action among social worlds appears to be one of the main challenges of technologically driven innovation in healthcare