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The objective was to elucidate hospital leaders’ understanding of the organisational structures and processes and their understanding of their leading role during an intensive period of reorganisation. From a qualitative exploratory study using semi‐structured interviews and thematic analysis four themes were identified: understanding the function of leadership and management, understanding organisational structures and processes, their own role as leader, and the outside world. The results indicate that the organisation is characterised by disintegration and erratic structures. The leaders perceive that they lead a learning organisation but in practical care work the organisation functions more like an organisation streamlined for mass production. This discrepancy between their understanding and practical daily care work led to dissatisfaction and existential chaos among the leaders. Our findings show an example of “clashes with the individual attractor pattern”, an urgent, but not yet very clear problem in health‐care organisations of today.

The present study seeks to present a case study over four years following an implementation process of total quality management (TQM) on an ICU (intensive care unit).

The aim was to describe consequences shown in the organisational climate, workload and staff wellbeing. A case study design was employed using a longitudinal method of data collection.

Downsizing due to diminishing resources was a parallel process probably disturbing the TQM implementation. The workload increased by 20 per cent, whereas organisational and individual variables remained stable over time. However, sick leave increased dramatically and was higher than the general level within the Swedish population. The ICU had the capacity to adapt successfully by regulating working hours to workload. It is speculated that another cause behind sickness absence exists other than the general opinion. The literature used for the discussion departs from the relation between people's understanding and acting, sensemaking, and organisational theories describing complex adaptive systems emphasizing attraction patterns. Organisational ambiguity was a main finding in an earlier study that was used for interpretation of the result in the present study. As ambiguity seems to be a major and increasing problem, it has consequences for management as well as for continuous quality development.

The implication of the study is the need to be able to successfully work in an ambiguous situation and use the quality system as a device in day‐to‐day work.

Seeks to identify physicians' perceptions of possibilities and obstacles prior to implementing a computerised drug prescribing support system. Details a descriptive, qualitative study, with semi‐structured individual interviews of 21 physicians in the Accident and Emergency Department of South Stockholm General Hospital. Identifies four descriptive categories for possibilities and obstacles. Concludes that gaining access to patient drug history enables physicians to carry out work in a professional way – a need the computerised prescription support system was not developed for and thus cannot fulfil. Alerts and producer‐independent drug information are valuable in reducing workload. However, technical prerequisites form the base for a successful implementation. Time must be given to adapt to new ways of working.

Describes 12 members of staff’s views of their job and tasks in an intensive care unit of a middle‐sized Swedish hospital. Open‐ended questions were asked and the interviews were analysed using thematic technique. The character of the work and the work tasks was the key variable in the analysis. The participants thought of intensive care as turbulent and ambiguous, powerful but also menacing and a concept comprised of a dichotomy of fundamental values. The work task of the participants was conceptualised in terms of managing the health status of the patient, seeking to appreciate the patient’s needs and ensuring that the staff worked harmoniously and effectively as a team. Speculates that the existence of a real dichotomy in fundamental values might be caused by the difficult medical reality on the ward. The study confirms a necessity for a two‐dimensional quality system where the deeper dimension deals with the disparate set of meaning status in the future perspective.

Improved quality and safety in drug use is a public health goal of major importance. In Sweden, local drug and therapeutics committees (DTCs) have adopted the task of working for safe and rational drug use. This study aimed to explore how chairs conceived the role of the DTCs, to explore how information officers conceived their own role, and to determine whether the respondents included patients in their answers.

Data were collected using questionnaires and the answers were analysed according to phenomenographic method to identify conceptions. “Patient awareness” was studied by content analysis.

In both groups the prescribers were the focus of attention, and only a few respondents mentioned patients. A variation of four conceptions was found among chairs and three among information officers. It would be beneficial if DTCs used this knowledge in their development.

The importance of “patient awareness” within DTCs must be further explored.

By using ethnographic data and family interviews from eight families in Taipei, Taiwan, this paper aims to delineate how multigenerational families implement parents’ child-rearing values, and how these strategies vary by social class. The primary focus is the child’s mother and her relationship with other family members. I ask the following question: How does a mother in a three-generation family implement her ideal parenting values for her child while being encumbered by the constraints of her parents-in-law? Additionally, how does this intergenerational dynamic vary with family socioeconomic status? To conceptualize this process in such a complex context, I argue that we must understand parenting behaviors as acts of “doing family” and “intensive mothering.”

From 2008 to 2009, I conducted a pilot survey in two public elementary schools to recruit the parents of sixth-grade students. All eight cases of multigenerational families in this paper were selected randomly after being clustered by the parent’s highest education level and family income levels. This paper utilized the mothers’ interviews as the major source to analyze, while the interviews of other family members served as supplementary data.

Two cases, Mrs Lee and Mrs Su’s stories, were selected here to illustrate two distinctive approaches toward childrearing in multi-generational families. Results indicate that white-collar mothers in Taiwan hold the value of concerted cultivation and usually picture the concept of intensive mothering as their ideal image of parenthood. Yet, such an ideal and more westernized child-rearing philosophy often leads to tensions at home, particularly between the mother and the mother-in-law. Meanwhile, blue-collar mothers tend to collaborate with grandparents in sharing childcare responsibilities, and oftentimes experience friction over child discipline in terms of doing homework and material consumption.

Via this analysis of three-generation families in Taiwan, we are able to witness the struggle of contemporary motherhood in East Asia. This paper foregrounds the negotiations that these mothers undertake in defining ideal parenting and the ideal family. On the one hand, these mothers must encounter the new parenting culture, given that the cultural ideal of concerted cultivation has become a popular ideology. On the other hand, by playing the role of daughter-in-law, they must negotiate within the conventional, patriarchal family norms.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the relationship between organizational change and sickness absence and to map and describe the prevailing “trends” in the field. In particular, the paper focuses on the indirect links between change and sickness absence and identifies knowledge gaps and novel research opportunities.

A scoping review was conducted seeking to generate a wide-ranging overview of relevant studies. To this end, research articles were collected through different sources of landmark articles, bibliographies and databases.

The association between organizational change and sickness absence is often explained by adverse changes in work characteristics. Such potential mediation or moderation effects, however, are rarely statistically tested. Including such variables in the analyses may represent an important avenue for future research. Additionally, earlier studies have mainly emphasized organization-wide episodic changes. Recently, however, researchers have focused on smaller and frequently implemented changes. Accordingly, the field of organizational change and occupational health may advance by incorporating greater diversity of change type.

The paper demonstrates that attention to the potential health effects of organizational change will remain important as the field of workplace health management proceeds. Research needs to develop beyond attributions of the relationship between change and sickness absence and focus more on statistical testing of linking variables. The unique contribution of this review is therefore that it identifies knowledge gaps and novel avenues for prospective research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between knowledge creation processes and the Six Sigma approach.

An integrated Six Sigma implementation process is proposed to explore knowledge creation opportunities within a Six Sigma program. A qualitative inquiry with thematic analysis which focuses on a TFT‐LCD (Thin Film Transistor‐Liquid Crystal Display) panel manufacturer and a glass substrates manufacturer is presented in order to identify how the Six Sigma program facilitates the knowledge creation process through the socialization, externalization combination and internalization (SECI) modes, and four types of space for knowledge creation, which are viewed as the different forms of ba, as proposed by Nonaka et al. , namely originating ba, interacting ba, systemizing ba and exercising ba.

This study contributes to integrating the domains of quality management and knowledge management research. The findings demonstrate the potential mediating effect of a Six Sigma knowledge‐creating system.

This study is limited in its research methodology, and the case studies are only two empirical illustrations of many other possible implementation processes. The author does not assume that these companies are paradigms or that their specific situations are applicable to all other business enterprises.

This architecture offers an initial model for an organization that wants to facilitate knowledge creation according to the prevailing Six Sigma approach, and further proceed with its knowledge management systems implementation to encourage the management of corporate knowledge and effectively enhance competitiveness.

Since organizational culture is undoubtedly critical in a highly competitive era, the purpose of this paper is to identify the core culture dimensions that exist within Greek public hospitals and examine inherent subcultures, based on employee characteristics.

The study took place in 20 Greek public hospitals, randomly selected in eight major cities, and provided 749 usable responses from front‐line employees. Statistical analyses used include descriptive statistics, t‐tests, and analysis of variance.

Surprisingly, employees in Greek public hospitals were found consider attention to detail, outcome and team orientation to be the least prevalent cultural characteristics of their employing organizations. After checking for potential variations in the way that employees view the operating organizational culture, significant differences were revealed based on age, job position and tenure in position. Nevertheless, gender, occupation and type of employment relationship do not seem to affect employee perceptions of culture.

Developing a culture which fosters service quality is a prerequisite when trying to achieve maximum patient satisfaction. It is a prerequisite, however, that organizational agents hold a clear view of subcultures inherent in the main culture, in order to effectively manage employees and achieve long‐term organizational survival and success.

This research fills the gap in the area of organizational culture and subcultures in Greek public hospitals.

This paper aims to analyze how organizational conditions, technology adoption, supplier relationship management and customer relationship management affect knowledge creation through socialization‐externalization combination, internalization (SECI) modes, and various ba, as proposed by Nonaka and Konno, in a supply chain.

A qualitative inquiry with thematic analysis, which focuses on a thin film transistor‐liquid crystal display (TFT‐LCD) panel manufacturer and an integrated circuits (IC) packaging and testing manufacturer, is presented in order to identify how these key factors affect knowledge creation in a supply chain environment through the SECI modes and ba.

The results show that these critical factors facilitate different types of knowledge conversion process in order to achieve successful knowledge creation in a supply chain. Knowledge of the significant factors that were found in this study may be applicable to countries or areas such as Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore or other developing countries, whose dominant businesses are similar to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)/original design manufacturers (ODMs) in Taiwan.

This paper considers the case study only as one empirical illustration of many other possible implementation processes. The study does not assume that these companies are a paradigm or that the specific situation is applicable to all other business enterprises. Future researchers interested in this field are therefore encouraged to triangulate its findings by examining variables generated from this study.

This study employs a quantitative approach to investigate critical knowledge creation factors for supply chain performance. Through empirical study, a better understanding of the dynamics of knowledge creation in a supply chain can be gained.