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The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a new measure of gender equality at male-dominated workplaces, allowing quantitative analyses of men's beliefs about gender-based inequality at work.

The present paper examines a questionnaire developed from qualitative interviews based on grounded theory methodology and designed to assess men's beliefs about gender inequality. A 23-item version of the Men's Polarized Gender Thinking Questionnaire (MPGQ) was completed by a sample of 220 men from three different male-dominated organizations in Sweden. Recommended psychometric testing procedures were conducted.

Confirmatory factor analysis supported a six-factor model of male attitudes to gender-based inequality: different views on success, stereotypical gender roles – different jargons, benevolent sexism, conscious of gender order, conscious of the male norm system and strategies for gender equality at work. The final model showed acceptable fit to data. All six factors were positively intercorrelated.

It was concluded that the MPGQ provides a useful tool for further studies of men's sometimes polarized views of gender equality in male-dominated workplaces. Hence, MPGQ may allow researchers and practitioners to go deeper in their understanding of persistent and often hidden gender-based inequality at work.

Equality plans are difficult to fulfill if people do not know on which subtle mechanisms the concept gender-based inequality is founded. The MPGQ illustrates how they are manifested at a specific workplace. Because of the scarcity of this type of workplace measures, this study may make a contribution of concern to the literature. By measuring these sometimes polarized beliefs, management strategies aiming at decreasing barriers to gender equality at work could become more accurate and efficient.

Many British employers are less than enthusiastic about the Government's proposals to abolish the 26 wages councils which set statutory minimum wage rates for 2.5 million employees. In its response to the Department of Employment's Wages Councils: 1988 consultation document, the Institute of Personal Management continues to reject a “blanket” approach of total abolition of all wage's councils. The I.P.M.'s view, first formed in 1982 after a major review of the operation of wages councils, is in line with the recommendation of the House of Commons Employment Committee in 1985 that it is right to review and reform but not abolish wages councils.

Swedish healthcare has undergone continuous development over several decades. Today, legal responsibility is shared on the local and regional levels, i.e. between municipalities and county councils. The purpose of the present study is to gain a deeper understanding of boundary spanning roles and strategies involved in municipal and county council collaboration. A grounded theory approach was used. Fifteen informants from several Swedish health care authorities were interviewed. A tension exists between preserving boundary strategies that stifle collaboration and boundary spanning strategies that facilitate it. The way boundary spanners manage their role is assumed to influence the centre of gravity for this tension and thus the combination of favourable boundary spanning strategies and favourable boundary spanning roles is one way of getting the current form of collaboration to work.

The aim of this study is to describe how Swedish women, planned for vaginal birth, perceive the quality of intrapartal care that they receive and the subjective importance they ascribe to their care.

The study was nested within a Swedish national survey of intrapartal care. The women whose care was investigated were invited to participate in the current study by the midwife who attended the birth. A total of 1,173 women agreed to answer a questionnaire about “quality of general care” and “quality of specific intrapartal care” at two months postpartum. The questions were posed in two ways, the perceived reality (PR) of care given and the subjective importance (SI) the women ascribed to this care.

A total of 739 women (63 percent) returned their questionnaires. Scores for PR and SI for “quality of general care“ were in the main high (PR range 2.98‐3.81; SI range 2.85‐3.85, out of a possible 4) and also for “quality of specific intrapartal care” (PR range 3.15‐3.86; SI range 3.23‐3.86, out of a possible 4). A total of 12 items showed statistically significantly higher scores for SI than for PR. Of the women, 81 percent agreed fully or mostly that the birth of their child was a positive experience.

The way in which women answer questions about intrapartal care reflects the way in which the questions are posed. This study therefore has asked not only how care was perceived but also what importance individual women ascribed to different areas of their care. The questionnaire used in this study allows identification of areas where “what is, could be better”.

The study aims to explore how segmentation as a methodology can be adapted to the healthcare context to provide a more nuanced understanding of the served population and to facilitate the design of patient-centric services.

The study was based on a collaborative project with a national healthcare organization following the principles of action design research. The study describes the quantitative segmentation performed during the project, followed by a qualitative interview study of how segments correspond with patient behaviors in an actual healthcare setting, and service design workshops facilitated by segments. A number of design principles are outlined based on the learnings of the project.

The segmentation approach increased understanding of patient variability within the service provider organization and was considered an effective foundation for modular service design. Patient characteristics and life circumstances were related to specific patterns of health behaviors, such as avoidance or passivity, or a persistent proactivity. These patterns influenced the patients' preferred value co-creation role and what type of support patients sought from the care provider.

The proposed segmentation approach is immediately generalizable to further healthcare contexts and similar services: improved understanding of patients, vulnerable patients in particular, improves the fit and inclusivity of services.

The segmentation approach to service design was demonstrated to be effective in a large-scale context. The approach allows service providers to design service options that improve the fit with individual patients' needs for support and autonomy. The results illuminate how patient characteristics influence health and value co-creation behaviors.