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This paper presents some key theoretical issues about trust, and seeks to demonstrate their relevance to understanding of, and research on, health systems. Although drawing particularly on empirical evidence from low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), the paper aims to stimulate thinking across country settings.

Drawing both on conceptual literature and relevant empirical research from LMICs, the paper presents an argument about the role of trust within key health system relationships and identifies future research needs.

Theoretical perspectives on four questions are first discussed: what is trust and can it be constructed? Why does it matter to health systems? On what is it based? What are the dangers of trust? The relevance of these theoretical perspectives is then considered in relation to: understanding the nature of health systems; issues of equity and justice in health care; and policy and managerial priorities. The identified research needs are investigation of: the role of trusting workplace relationships as a source of non‐financial incentives; the influence of trust over the operation of different forms of citizen‐health system engagement; approaches to training trustworthy public managers; and the institutional developments required to sustain trustworthy behaviour within health systems.

The policy and management actions needed to strengthen health systems within LMICs, and elsewhere, include: recruitment of health workers that have the attitudes and capacity for moral understanding and motivation; training curriculae that develop such motivation; and developing the institutions (e.g. communication and decision‐making practices, payment mechanisms) that can sustain trusting relationships across a health system. It is also important to recognise that distrust in some relationships may act to guard against the abuse of power.

Although the notion of trust has become of increasing importance in health policy debates in high‐income countries, it has received less attention in the context of LMICs. The papers adds to the very limited literature on trust in LMIC health systems and also opens new lines of thinking for those working in high income countries – particularly around the role of health systems in generating wider social value.

The aim of this paper is to draw together suggestions for future research from the papers and from the discussion that took place at the workshop.

The suggestions are summarised under four broad themes.

At an international workshop on trust organised by the UK MRC Health Services Research Collaboration there was broad agreement that trust was still a salient issue in diverse health care contexts. The workshop proceedings identified a number of important questions for empirical research and several key conceptual, theoretical and methodological questions relating to trust that need to be addressed in support of or alongside this. The collection of papers in this volume starts to address some of these questions.

Considers trust relations in health care from patient, clinical, organisational and policy perspectives.

The significance of organizational culture (OC) pervades all workplaces, extending even to health systems. While numerous studies have examined the perceptions of OC among nurses and physicians, there is a notable gap in understanding the perspectives of non-patient-facing health system employees. This study aims to fill this void by investigating the perceptions and drivers of OC among non-patient-facing personnel within health systems.

This study employed a mixed-methods approach, starting with a 31-question survey disseminated to health system employees through trade organizations to capture diverse perspectives on OC. Subsequently, employees were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. A total of 23 interviews were conducted to explore the underlying factors shaping employees’ perceptions of OC.

A total of 67 surveys were completed, with 61 used in the analysis. The results revealed a predominantly positive outlook, highlighting the significance of supportive leadership and involvement in decision-making processes. The qualitative analysis identified four key themes: effective communication and transparency, coordinated teamwork, supportive leadership and the impact of external factors like the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Effective leadership should prioritize open communication, employee autonomy and involvement in decision-making. These strategies foster a culture of trust, accountability and engagement, enhancing employee morale and job satisfaction while promoting a collaborative and innovative work environment conducive to long-term success and growth.

This research examines the often-overlooked perspectives of non-patient-facing health system staff, providing valuable insights and strategies for leaders to improve OC and create a more positive, inclusive and supportive work environment.

This study aims to offer a bibliometric analysis of the already substantial and growing literature on global virtual teams (GVTs).

Using a systematic literature review approach, it identifies all articles in the Web of Science from 1999 to 2021 that include the term GVTs (in the title, the abstract or keywords) and finds 175 articles. The VOSviewer software was applied to analyze the bibliometric data.

The analysis revealed three dialogizing research clusters in the GVTs literature: a pioneering management information systems and organizational cluster, a general management cluster and a growing international management and behavioural studies cluster. Furthermore, it highlights the most cited articles, authors, journals and nations, and the network of strong and weak links regarding co-authorships and co-citations. Additionally, this study shows a change in research patterns regarding topics, journals and disciplinary approaches from 1999 to 2021. Finally, the analysis illustrates the position and centrality in the network of the most relevant actors.

The findings can guide management practitioners, educators and researchers to the most meaningful clusters of publications on GVTs, and help navigate and make sense of the vast body of the available literature. The importance of GVTs has been growing in the past two decades, and Covid-19 has accelerated the trend.

This study provides an updated and comprehensive systematic literature review on GVTs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first systematic literature review and bibliometry on GVTs. It concludes by suggesting future research paths.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

The purpose of the article is to examine the experiences of workers with intellectual disability (WWID) and subtle discriminatory practices that hold these workers back from thriving at the workplace.

The research design employs the Shore et al. (2011) framework of inclusion supported by optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) (Brewer, 1991). These theoretical frames are used to examine the potential for WWID to become members of a work group and experience the opportunity to develop their unique selves, negotiate and thrive through their work for purposeful career outcomes. A qualitative case study approach was adopted through interviews and focus groups with a total of 91 participants: 41 WWID, 5 human resource (HR) managers, 5 duty/department managers (DMs), 24 colleagues and 16 supervisors.

The authors found that enhancing inclusion is underpinned by the positive impact of human resource management (HRM) practices and line management support for WWID feelings of belongingness and uniqueness that enable them to thrive through their work activities. The authors demonstrate that WWID need manager support and positive social interactions to increase their learning and vitality for work to embrace opportunities for growth. However, when WWID do not have these conditions, there are fewer opportunities for them to thrive at the workplace.

There is a need for formal HRM and management support and inclusive organisational interventions to mitigate discriminatory practices and better support WWID at work. There is an opportunity for HRM to design training and development around belongingness and uniqueness for this cohort of workers to maximise WWID opportunities to thrive through their work.

This study examines a cohort of WWID who are often forgotten and subtly discriminated against more so than other minority or vulnerable cohorts in the workplace, especially in terms of their development and reaching their full potential at work, which has an impact on their ability to thrive through their work. The paper makes an innovative contribution to the HRM literature through unpacking the processes through which Shore et al.'s (2011) conceptualisation of belongingness and uniqueness contributes to thriving for a marginalised and often overlooked cohort of workers.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).