Isabel Alexandra Brandenberger, Mervi Anneli Hasu and Monika Nerland
This paper aims to generate a better understanding of how challenges and opportunities for sustainable change during digitalization relate to the organizing work of change agents…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to generate a better understanding of how challenges and opportunities for sustainable change during digitalization relate to the organizing work of change agents mandated to facilitate technology adoption from within local work organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the work of welfare technology coordinators, health-care professionals who are mandated to facilitate the use of technologies in home-based services in a Norwegian city. Data comprise ethnographic observations of meetings and work practices, interviews and documents collected over one year. A practice-based approach was applied to analyze how the welfare technology coordinators go about integrating technologies with the work practices, and the forms of negotiations this work implies in their work community.
Findings
The analysis identified four sets of practices in the coordinators’ work: exploring and integrating new technologies into work practices, legitimizing aims and values, formalizing routines and responsibilities and critically considering existing and envisioned service practices. Through these practices, emerging problems and disconnections in the service organization were attended to in a continuous manner.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature by examining the work of internal change agents mandated to facilitate multiple and simultaneous technology adoption and demonstrates the importance of recognizing the continuous efforts and negotiations of these agents as significant to sustainable organizing.
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Satu Pekkarinen, Mervi Hasu, Helinä Melkas and Eveliina Saari
The purpose of this paper is to examine and reinterpret information ecology in the context of the changing environment of services, which has been strongly affected by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine and reinterpret information ecology in the context of the changing environment of services, which has been strongly affected by digitalisation and increasing citizen engagement. Here, information ecology refers to the interaction and co-evolution of technologies, human beings and the social environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The data consist of 25 thematic interviews conducted in a public Finnish organisation responsible for organising welfare services, and in its collaborating organisations. The interviews were analysed qualitatively. The analytical framework is based on Nardi and O'Day's five components of information ecology: system, diversity, co-evolution, keystone species and locality.
Findings
The analysis shows that these basic components still exist in the digitalisation era, but that they should be interpreted and highlighted differently, for example, stressing the openness of the information system instead of closed systems, as well as emphasising the increasing meaning of diversity amongst digitalisation, and the dynamic co-evolution between the elements of the system. New capabilities, such as the ability to combine various kinds of information and knowledge, are needed in this adaptation.
Research limitations/implications
The study illustrates a wider, updated information-ecology concept with the help of empirical research. Technology affects care organisations' information ecologies in numerous – often invisible – ways, which this study brings into light.
Originality/value
So far, information-ecology research has overlooked social and healthcare, but this study provides findings concerning this societally important sector.
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This paper analyzes how public servants who work with young people discursively cope with competing demands on their agency, defined as their orientation toward and capabilities…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyzes how public servants who work with young people discursively cope with competing demands on their agency, defined as their orientation toward and capabilities to influence their clients. Previous studies revealed how public servants treat their clients when facing competing demands but paid less attention to how public servants define their agency.
Design/methodology/approach
Micro-level discourse analysis is applied to analyze how public servants represent their agency in client relationships, drawing on interviews with nine individuals in a Finnish city who work with young people lacking jobs or school placements.
Findings
Instead of describing their agency coherently, the interviewees applied several discourses to represent their agency differently in relation to different demands. This ability to navigate contradictory discourses is discussed as reflexive discursive coping strategy, which enables public servants to maintain a positive image of their agency despite tensions at work.
Research limitations/implications
Although the method does not allow direct generalizations, it reveals discursive strategies likely to be found in many contemporary public organizations.
Practical implications
The study indicates a need to better acknowledge and nurture the multifaceted nature of agency to improve service quality.
Originality/value
The findings deepen the view on tensions in public servants' work and show that diverse discourses not only create anxiety but also help individuals dealing with contradictory work.
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Mervi Hasu, Laura Honkaniemi, Eveliina Saari, Tuuli Mattelmäki and Leena Koponen
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a workshop process to enhance the learning of employee-driven innovating (LEDI) and to evaluate in multiple ways the practical effects of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a workshop process to enhance the learning of employee-driven innovating (LEDI) and to evaluate in multiple ways the practical effects of the LEDI process, which aimed to enhance the employee-driven innovation practices at workplace level in a public organisation. Although front-line employees are increasingly encouraged to participate in innovation, organisations lack multi-level knowledge on the practices, outcomes and effects of participation.
Design/methodology/approach
A six-month development process (LEDI) was conducted to empower front-line hospital support service workers to learn to innovate and to apply this in the services they provide. The process consisted of different themes: future visions, current services, creating new services and evaluations of ideas and innovation embryos. The multi-method evaluation of the process included pre-evaluation of the generated innovation ideas, a developmental evaluation of the selected innovation embryos, a follow-up evaluation of the innovation ideas and an evaluation of the organisational level effect via a quantitative survey.
Findings
The intervention process had positive effects on employee participation and learning to innovate. The conclusion of the four evaluations is that the LEDI process developed a new kind of agency among employees and enabled significant improvements to services. The evaluation of the organisation-level effect revealed that the process had also improved the views regarding preconditions for development.
Originality/value
The intervention method is a practical application of employee-driven innovation conception that is validated as practical and effective at workplace level. The process is a viable method for enhancing workers’ innovation-related learning in service organisations. The novelty of the method is based on the multi-disciplinary combination of approaches that consist of theories of practice-based innovation, expansive learning and emphatic human-centred service design.
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Laura Honkaniemi, Mikko H. Lehtonen and Mervi Hasu
This paper focuses on employees’ motivation to participate in innovation at the workplace. The best arguments to persuade employees to renew their work were searched. According to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on employees’ motivation to participate in innovation at the workplace. The best arguments to persuade employees to renew their work were searched. According to the expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), a plausible link must be perceived for a motivational state to arise. The paper investigated the perceptions that employees, team-leaders and directors have about the relationships between innovativeness and well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
The data consisted of thematic interviews with 14 persons from knowledge- and labour-intensive organisations in the public service sector. Data included material from directors, team-leaders and front-line workers. The theoretical model of Huhtala and Parzefall (2007) was applied to analyse perceptions about links between well-being and innovativeness.
Findings
Results indicated that all eight possible links between well-being and innovativeness were perceived as plausible. The most common views were that high innovativeness connects to high well-being and vice versa. Additionally, low well-being was seen to decrease innovativeness. All organisational levels of knowledge- and labour-intensive organisations shared these views. More specifically, the interviewees shared the view that participating in innovation activities gives the employee opportunities to influence one’s work, which in turn leads to well-being. Another commonly shared perception was that if employees were encouraged and praised for their efforts, innovativeness would increase. These provide plausible arguments for leaders to persuade employees to participate.
Practical implications
Practical advice about effective arguments for motivating employees is given: tell them that innovativeness is desired for, time and space is allocated for innovations, the amount of change will be managed, and the innovation activities present an opportunity to have voice.
Originality/value
This paper shows potential motivational trigger points for enhancing the interaction between well-being and innovation.
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Vesa Peltokorpi and Mervi Hasu
The purpose of this paper is to hypothesize a curvilinear relation between transactive memory systems (TMS) and team innovation by integrating diverging conceptual and research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to hypothesize a curvilinear relation between transactive memory systems (TMS) and team innovation by integrating diverging conceptual and research findings in TMS research. While increasingly argued to enhance team innovation, TMS also have negative effects on team processes and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested the hypothesis through hierarchical linear regression analyses using data obtained from 124 technical research teams.
Findings
Logistic regressions support the hypothesis, showing an inverse U-shaped relationship between TMS and team innovation, measured by patents received.
Research limitations/implications
The average within team response rate was relatively low, and the findings are driven by a limited number of teams with patents.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that research teams with moderate levels of TMS are the most effective in terms of patents received.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to link TMS to team innovation and to test the potential counterproductive effects of TMS on team innovation.