Wellbeing at work inspires global interest (WHO, 1997, 2010) which shapes international wellbeing whilst ensuring national wellbeing initiatives are devolved. This study is set in…
Abstract
Purpose
Wellbeing at work inspires global interest (WHO, 1997, 2010) which shapes international wellbeing whilst ensuring national wellbeing initiatives are devolved. This study is set in Wales, UK; the findings, however, are of interest to the global community as they present ways in which health promotion practices that are essentially salutogenic in nature (Antonovsky, 1987; Mittlemark and Bauer, 2017), may be operationalised through leadership development. The study is contextualised during a time of perceived public service overwhelm, and the purpose of this paper is to explore how a salutogenic model (Gray, 2017) captures a leadership narrative shaped by workplace stress, informing what the authors know about the resilience and wellbeing of leaders.
Design/methodology/approach
The salutogenic model used in this exploratory study is based on the theories of Antonovsky (1979, 1987), and the conceptual work of De la Vega (2009). Participants were invited to take part in qualitative conversations, designed to explore leadership from a sense of coherence (SoC) perspective, and identify resilience and wellbeing descriptors across sectors. The data represented the lived experience of leader’s resilience and wellbeing within their work role. A purposeful sample of leaders (N=356) were invited to take part in the project, others were suggested as part of a snowball sampling approach (N=36). The overall participant numbers were N=68.
Findings
Using the SoC framework to explore resilience and wellbeing in terms of leadership, enabled participants to make sense of a stressful workplace environment, and share experiential knowledge that contributes to leadership development. The narrative that emerges is one in which leaders are feeling overwhelmed, and the broader influences of BREXIT, workforce and service user demographics, and organisational change are challenges to sustaining resilience. Participants suggest that leaders need to develop self-knowledge/awareness first, and role model the “resilient and well leader” to others.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this study relate to the fact that given the potential for participation was nearer 400 leaders, the N=68 participants could not be deemed large enough to generalise the findings. However, this was a scoping study exercise, designed to explore resilience and wellbeing through SoC conversations and to surface descriptors that would add to what the authors know about contemporary leadership. The study could be improved in the future by the collection of more descriptors, and where practical segmentation of descriptors may provide further insight in terms of comparison between professions/sectors.
Practical implications
The authors know that leadership is linked to positive and negative outcomes for employees; it is, therefore, prudent to consider how the authors can support both current and future leaders, to incorporate their own and others’ resilience and wellbeing into their leadership repertoire. This may well be best facilitated through health leadership which is known to have a positive association in determining the psychological climate of the workplace. Leadership authenticity means leaders should be able to ask for help, if leaders are struggling with that, then the authors need to examine leadership from a cultural perspective. In practical terms, the generalised resistance resources (GRRs) put forward by the participants may also form local as well as national wellbeing action plans for the future.
Social implications
Leadership is socially constructed within the organisational context, and the resilience and wellbeing of leaders is affected by the organisational health determinants in the working environment. If the authors are to consider how leaders are to develop an SoC for themselves and others, the authors need to attend to how the leader learns in the context. This is because their SoC is also shaped by the challenges they experience, and socio-constructed learning becomes neurologically embedded, so that ways of thinking, feeling and behaving are reinforced and exhibited over and over again.
Originality/value
This exploratory study demonstrates the efficacy of the salutogenic model to stimulate dialogue about a potentially sensitive subject. Many of the answers rest with the leaders themselves. The authors held conversations with leaders from the public services in Wales, identified “best self” and “peripheral” variables that leaders manifest across the various organisations they lead, and leaders produced a range of GRRs to support resilience and wellbeing across sectors in the future. There is a growing recognition that in terms of health leadership capability, there will be a premium on knowledge capital that pertains to improving the resilience and wellbeing of employees.
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Dee Gray and Katherine Fiona Jones
The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of a collaborative organisational development and learning (OD/L) programme for small and medium-sized enterprise’s (SME’s…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of a collaborative organisational development and learning (OD/L) programme for small and medium-sized enterprise’s (SME’s) and micro businesses (MB) to contribute towards business resilience and sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an ethnographic case study that utilised an iterative interpretative approach to data collection and analysis, which was conducted around key OD/L interventions.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that the provision of an OD/L programme that focused on collaboration and learning, had both an immediate positive effect on business owners and long term effect in relation to business confidence, clarity, and action.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of this study relate to the fact that the sample population is small so that the findings are not generalisable, and some of the challenges faced by SME business owners may be confined to socially deprived rural locations. Future research could focus on replicating the designed OD/L programme, or aspects of it, and a longitudinal study could be conducted over time.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this study are that it gives direction for those designing support for SME/MB’s to include tried and proven OD/L interventions.
Social implications
The social implications include that by demonstrating targeted support to SME business owners in socially deprived areas, the potential for growth in terms of survival and flourishing are increased and economic regeneration is positively influenced.
Originality/value
There are few studies in this area, the OD/L programme highlights that collaboration, and sustainable actions to develop resilience, have a part to play in supporting the SME/MB population, and a contribution to make towards a more buoyant economy.
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Serge Evraert and Ahmed Riahi‐Belkaoui
Provides a useful summary of research on value added (VA) reporting and shows how income statements can be rearranged to show gross or not (of depreciation) VA. Starts with…
Abstract
Provides a useful summary of research on value added (VA) reporting and shows how income statements can be rearranged to show gross or not (of depreciation) VA. Starts with descriptive research on its use in various countries, enumerates its advantages and limitations and goes on to review empirical research on VA firm performance, the informational content of VA (as against conventional) data in market valuation and its predictive ability. Suggests that VA disclosure should be mandatory in the USA and calls for further research on its usefulness.
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The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a study that illuminates how leadership can be engendered in one context and transferred to another.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a study that illuminates how leadership can be engendered in one context and transferred to another.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents some of the findings from a longitudinal study on individual and organisational learning from adverse incidents, action research was the overarching methodology. The study (fourth in a total of six) was developed out of and embedded within a series of action research cycles. The study is presented in two phases (interviews and field observation); the approach incorporates Goffman's frame analysis to identify whether espoused aspects of educational leadership would manifest if given the opportunity, and whether the principles of Bordieuan “values” placed by the participants on educational leadership would be a useful lever to support change.
Findings
The study findings demonstrated educational leadership can be inculcated and actioned by creating real life frames and reinforced through association with those already considered to be world leaders.
Research limitations/implications
The numbers of participants in this qualitative study limit the finding to an non‐generalisable population, suggestions for future research include replication of the principles of transfer to other contexts.
Practical implications
Practical implications from this research include identification of activities that will encourage change agent and leadership activities that are designed to impact on organisational performance.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper relates to identifying barriers to leadership in two different contexts (fields) and using frames to overcome these barriers to performance.
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This paper aims to discuss and present research findings from a proof of concept pilot, set up to test whether a teaching intervention which incorporated a dual reporting and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss and present research findings from a proof of concept pilot, set up to test whether a teaching intervention which incorporated a dual reporting and learning approach from adverse incidents, could contribute towards individual and organisational approaches to patient safety.
Design/methodology/approach
The study formed part of a series of six iterative action research cycles involving the collaboration of students (all National Health Service (NHS) staff) in the co‐creation of knowledge and materials relating to understanding and learning from adverse incidents. This fifth qualitative study involved (n=20) anaesthetists who participated in a two phase teaching intervention (n=20 first phase, n=10 second phase) which was premised on transformative learning, value placed on learning from adverse incidents and reframing the learning experience.
Findings
An evaluation of the teaching intervention demonstrated that how students learned from adverse incidents, in addition to being provided with opportunities to transform negative experiences through re‐framing learning, was significant in breaking out of practices which had become routine; propositional knowledge on learning from adverse incidents, along with the provision of a safe learning environment in which to challenge assumptions about learning from adverse incidents, were significant factors in the re‐framing process. The testing of a simulated dual learning/reporting system was indicated as a useful mechanism with which to reinforce a positive learning culture, to report and learn from adverse incidents and to introduce new approaches which might otherwise have been lost.
Practical implications
The use of a “re‐framed learning approach” and identification of additional leverage points (values placed on learning and effects of dual reporting and learning) will be of significant worth to those working in the field of individual and organisational learning generally, and of value specifically to those whose concern is the need to learn from adverse incidents.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to individual and organisational learning by looking at a specific part of the learning system associated specifically with adverse incidents.
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Jane Yann Ching Chang, Abdelhafid Benamraoui and Alison Rieple
The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of income generation projects as a pedagogic method to assess students’ learning about social enterprises. The authors are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of income generation projects as a pedagogic method to assess students’ learning about social enterprises. The authors are interested in how and why this innovative approach might improve students’ understanding of the different aspects and attributes of social entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used thematic analysis of qualitative data comprising the reflective logs of 87 students on an undergraduate entrepreneurship module in a university business programme. The major attributes of social entrepreneurship were identified from a review of literature, and the paper uses the logs to judge whether students had learnt about these attributes.
Findings
The results show that students developed an understanding concerning social enterprises’ diverse stakeholder environment, market needs, social enterprises’ ideological foundations, resource mobilisation processes and performance measurement – both social and financial. In addition, they developed skills in reflection and self-awareness, communication, empathy and the generation of new ideas.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited in that it focused on only one cohort of students, undergraduates. The authors cannot claim that the findings are generalisable to other students or contexts.
Practical implications
Students are better able to understand the needs and values of social enterprises. However, this is a resource intensive process for educators with implications for curriculum design and management.
Social implications
This study sheds new light on how experiential learning helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises.
Originality/value
This study sheds new light on how experiential learning in the form of income generation projects helps to raise students’ awareness of social enterprises. Its value lies in helping to develop a novel and effective pedagogy for entrepreneurial learning.
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Elizabeth A.M. Searing, Simone Poledrini, Dennis R. Young and Marthe Nyssens
This paper aims to examine the applicability of the benefits theory of nonprofit finance to an international sample of social enterprises (SEs).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the applicability of the benefits theory of nonprofit finance to an international sample of social enterprises (SEs).
Design/methodology/approach
This research analyzes the revenue sources of SEs through the lens of benefits theory. In particular, the authors test the links between revenue sources and the character of an enterprise’s mission. This study uses data on 545 SEs collected by the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models project, which was an international collaborative effort of more than 200 researchers. The authors use cross-sectional multivariate regression to identify the factors which influence the revenue portfolios of SEs.
Findings
The findings provide evidence of SE revenue portfolios that are nuanced and complicated. Benefits theory helps to illuminate this nuance. The application of benefits theory to SE goes beyond the traditional characterization of the publicness and privateness of goods and services to include the intended beneficiaries, the nature of benefits they receive and the management practices followed to assure distribution of benefits to intended beneficiary groups. By analyzing the public (and private) goals of SEs, such as employment generation and food security, the authors gain an understanding of what they really do, and hence, how they can be best financed.
Originality/value
This study provides empirical support to the applicability of benefits theory to SEs, which provides both theoretical advancement and practical implications.
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So What’s New? is a play that centres on the lives of four female characters, Dee, her daughter Mercedes, Thandi and Pat. The play text provides a structural oppressive and gender…
Abstract
So What’s New? is a play that centres on the lives of four female characters, Dee, her daughter Mercedes, Thandi and Pat. The play text provides a structural oppressive and gender specific framework exposing a social, political and economic background which demonstrates how African women used the informal sector in order to survive economically. It also provides a discussion about mothers and daughters and sexual activity. As the play progresses Mercedes talks to Thandi about the harm of selling illegal drugs to young people. The play centres on the impact of these relationships on the women and how they deal with their problems and fears. In this play African women’s experiences are not peripheral but are brought to the fore and celebrated with humour, pathos and admiration. Dike uses the play text to juxtapose two very different images of South Africa. One is the background of violence (perpetrated mainly by males) and the other is the lives of three women and one young girl centred round The Bold and The Beautiful, a soap opera (a feminine genre). Dike used the lives and stories of three women on which to base her play. All three women are independent and obsessed with the soap The Bold and The Beautiful. Dee’s daughter, Mercedes, is a schoolgirl who is politically aware and her boyfriend, Victor, is a political activist. These two characters provide the political background that underpins the fighting and the continuation of the struggle. By locating the play in a shebeen Dike is acknowledging the important role shebeens play in their communities.
This article analyzes the interplay between regulation and social and environmental reporting in northern Italian social enterprises. Specifically, it investigates how…
Abstract
This article analyzes the interplay between regulation and social and environmental reporting in northern Italian social enterprises. Specifically, it investigates how “non-accredited” social enterprises discharge voluntary accountability before and after the introduction of regulation making social and environmental reporting compulsory for “accredited-social enterprises.” By developing a content analysis on 170 stand-alone social and environmental reports, this article provides a longitudinal analysis of voluntary disclosures in a regulated context from 2006 (before regulation) to 2009 (after regulation). Based on the total number of disclosures and the average number of sentences per report, Italian “non-regulated” social enterprises showed increased voluntary disclosure on social and environmental matters from 2006 to 2009; however, when analyzing the average sentences per report, it emerges that the information contained in the stand-alone social and environmental reports decreased, especially disclosures related to “social-related issues.” This article looks beyond crude noncompliance analysis with legislation and analyzes if the regulation influences organizations’ voluntary disclosure. It analyzes all of the social and environmental disclosures provided by northern Italian “non-accredited” social enterprises before and after the introduction of regulation. The novelty of this article rests in the fact that it does not analyze the social and environmental disclosure of “legal social enterprises”; rather, it considers the whole voluntary disclosure context for “non-accredited” social enterprises in a regulated environment.