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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.

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.

This article seeks to investigate the ideological visions embedded in the political formulation of the Swedish drug problem and in the bureaucratic management of the Swedish drug treatment services during the years 1960‐2000.

The empirical basis for the analysis consists mainly of parliamentary material from the Swedish Parliament (403 parliamentary bills, 66 government bills, 198 parliamentary records, 14 government letters and 159 standing committee statements) as well as archival materials produced in the application process of 73 aspiring treatment homes from the years 1960‐2001. The empirical material is partly analyzed from a theoretical understanding of political consensus as a doxa and political debate as permeated by naturalizing ideologies.

The article examines drug consumption as a political problem and its ideological undertones. It shows how drugs and drug consumption often have been subordinate in problem descriptions that have fulfilled other political purposes. Worries about politically radical youth, foreign religions or incomprehensible music have been understood as a drug problem. In the Swedish parliament the drug problem has been described in terms of capitalist class oppression, Americanism or cultural superficiality. Modernity, urbanization and industrialization have also been criticized in the name of the drug problem. In the treatment centres and within the ruling bureaucracy it was also elucidated that the drug problem was an ideological problem. The effective treatment method has been elusive, but the effective method has also played second fiddle in the choice of treatment solutions. Other values have been awarded, such as rural romanticism, Swedishness, solidarity and diligence. Individualism, Americanism and profit making have also been opposed within the ideological treatment sector. At the end of the research period such assessments however became subordinate to an overarching ideological quest to make substance abuse treatment a market among others.

A focus on the ideological content both in political discussions and bureaucratic management might enrich the understanding of both politics and bureaucracy as well as the formulation of the drug problem and the suggested solutions. Ideology is not the opposite of facts or evidence‐based solutions; ideology permeates every aspect of problem formulations and solutions. To recognize the drug issue's ideological disposition should therefore not be seen as way of avoiding discussions about the actual dilemma with drugs, it is rather an opportunity to seriously start a discussion on how to solve the problem.

The analyzing of naturalized and apparently self‐evident ideology as part of the rational argument rather than its very opposite would be useful both for further research on the topic as well as for deepening the democratic discussions on, for instance, evidence‐based methods within the drug treatment services.

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.

Fashion advertising as a contemporary ideological form has the power to deliver semiotic messages, which frames individuals' perception. Promoting perfection in consumer culture has resulted in the creation of unrealistic self-image and negative effects that led to psychological illnesses and pathological behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ideology behind the contemporary fashion advertising that embraces imperfection and is linked to consumer subjective well-being.

Nine fashion ads were selected based on the WGSN consumer report Embracing Imperfection. A sample of images was analysed applying semiotic analysis combined with the criteria of content analysis.

The results supported the notion that some contemporary fashion communication brands are challenging the conventional idea of perfection. Five themes were identified as the characteristics that bridged the visual surface of advertising with its hidden ideologies of imperfection. By supporting “anonymity”, fashion brand communication is against excessive self-focus and helps reducing anxiety due to being imperfect. By promoting “rawness”, it encourages authenticity and uniqueness. “Banality” rejects materialism and promotes the beauty of the boring day. “Ugliness” advocates for removal of the single standards and celebrate individual differences, and “spontaneity” is interchangeable for humanity, freedom, openness and acceptance of self.

This study is among the few attempts to conduct semiotic analysis of fashion advertising images aiming to identify the visual components and ideologies that could potentially be linked to subjective well-being in fashion communication.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research agenda to underpin leadership development activity in the social housing sector, in the light of an identified need for effective leadership in this sector owing to the continual reform and changes it faces.

A literature review is conducted by searching a number of business and management, along with social sciences, databases and texts with the primary focus being leadership and management in social housing. Secondary focus is based around public sector organisations and agencies such as the police and education owing to lack of research in social housing.

There is a pressing need for leadership development in social housing, yet there is a limited evidence base from which to develop effective development interventions. The most relevant models of leadership appear to be those which focus on inter‐organisational and cross‐sector collaboration, but further research is required to develop a clearer picture of the nature of the leadership challenge within this sector.

The paper is only seen as a first stage as it attempts to draw from what has been already published. The paper develops the own research agenda for a second phase of empirical research in order to continue the debate further.

The paper adds to the discussion and debate around leadership in general but more crucially brings to the surface a number of questions not posed previously that involve the starting‐point for detailed empirical research. Relevant case examples exist within the National Health Service and education, but social housing has remained immune from this up until now.

The present paper explores Generation Z university students' clusters based on the consumption of daily fruits and vegetables in an emerging market economy, indicating young people's reasons to adopt a healthy diet.

Using cluster theory, the authors analyse Generation Z university students who consume fresh fruits and vegetables, highlighting aspects of a healthy diet, in compliance with the WHO recommendations and challenges.

Data collected from over 459 Generation Z university students point out the possibility of typologizing them into nine clusters: three consuming fresh fruit and six consuming fresh vegetables. Most cluster members are aware of the value of regular fresh fruit and vegetable consumption in order to maintain health and overall well-being, but the authors also identified a cluster called “urban, but sick humanists at the beginning of their professional careers”, for whom a healthy diet based on fruits and vegetables is not a priority.

Although this research only refers to consumers in the emergent economy Romania, it also allows the delimitation of specific categories which can be utilized by sector stakeholders, in order to identify issues addressed by each cluster member and to find the most appropriate solutions for encouraging/promoting a healthy diet.

The paper also raises awareness of the importance of fruit and vegetable consumption in other emerging economies, given the advancement of processed food and reduction of time available to cook healthy dishes.

The results contribute to extending studies conducted on emerging markets concerning fruit and vegetable consumption among Generation Z university students, highlighting the importance of a healthy diet, and the proper targeting of these consumer clusters by fresh fruit and vegetable producers and distributors.

This study attempts to elucidate the role of key influencers impacting the student decision-making process of enrollment for higher education in India from the lenses of Stephen Covey's theory on circles of life.

A sample of 556 students of Delhi NCR, India was selected based on a multi-staged sampling method. PLS-SEM was subsequently applied for statistical data analysis.

This quantitative finding voiced the relationships among the constructs in the proposed theoretical framework, i.e. Stephen Covey's circle of life theory. Additionally, it tinted the crucial role of “College attributes” in reconnoitering the relationship dynamics between key influencers (Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern) and student college choice (Circle of Control).

The present study incorporates only the first-year student population of undergraduate management courses in private universities from Delhi NCR, India limiting the generalization of findings substantially.

The study garners the attention of education policymakers on the cognizance of the role played by parents and cohorts in driving the student's decision-making process of college choice under the circle of influence.

This study is pioneering research disseminating a comprehensive outlook of the circle of life theory of great Stephen Covey engrained upon a compendious conceptual model which enlightens the landscape of the decision-making process of student on enrollment under the influence of key influencers.

With various challenges in the digital era, stakeholders are expressing growing interests in understanding the impact of emerging and disruptive technologies on freight transportation. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the current state of affairs as well as future trends and aims to support stakeholders' decision-making in logistics management in the era of disruptive technologies.

Several recent and representative articles from academic, industrial and governmental perspectives were investigated to set the scene for this research and to serve as a baseline for electing nine emerging technologies, which were then used to conduct a systematic literature review covering the literature within the area during the past twelve years.

3D printing, artificial intelligence, automated robots, autonomous vehicles, big data analytics, blockchain, drones, electric vehicles and the Internet of Things were identified as the emerging technologies. The current state of existing research and potential future opportunities were analyzed.

Since the potential literature body is almost impossible to fully cover, a tradeoff between the number of emerging technologies and the related literature reviewed has been performed. However, the paper provides a novel approach to select the emerging and disruptive technologies and a systematic literature review to fill the identified research gap in the related literature.

The research support various stakeholders to better capture the current status of and the future opportunities in freight transportation and gain a clearer understanding of the disruptive technologies as well as to guide them in how to deploy these initiatives in future decision-making.

By providing a systematic literature review on the trends, themes and research opportunities in the era of disruptive technologies, the papers bring about broad and comprehensive review on the impact of disruptive technologies on logistics and transportation as well as opportunities to support management decision support in the logistics industry.

This paper aims to develop a deeper understanding of what (un)sustainable food behaviours and values are transmitted across generations, to what extent this transference happens and the sustainability challenges resulting from this for individuals and households.

A total of 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews are analysed regarding the value of inherited food, family food rituals, habits and traditions, aspects of food production and understanding of sustainability.

Intergenerational transferences are significant in shaping (un)sustainable consumption throughout life, and those passed-on behaviours and values offer opportunities for lifelong sustainable change and food consumption reappraisal in daily life, beyond early years parenting and across diverse households.

Participants were limited to British families, although the sample drew on multiple ethnic heritages. Future research could study collectivist versus more individualistic cultural influence; explore intergenerational transference of other diverse households, such as multigeneration or in rural and urban locations, or whether sustainable crossover derived from familial socialisation continues into behaviours and values beyond food.

The findings show the importance of families and intergenerational transference to the embedding of sustainable consumption behaviours. Mundane family life is a critical source of sustainable learning, and marketers should prioritise understanding of the context and relationships that drive sustainable consumer choices. Opportunities for intentional and unintentional sustainable learning exist throughout life, and marketers and policymakers can both disrupt unsustainable and encourage sustainable behaviours with appropriate interventions, such as nostalgic or well-being communications. The paper sheds light on flexible sustainable identities and how ambivalence or accelerated lives can deflect how policy messages are received, preventing sustainable choices.

The findings provide greater understanding about the mechanisms responsible for the sustainable transformation of consumption habits, suggesting intergenerational transferences are significant in shaping (un)sustainable food consumption throughout life. The study shows secondary socialisation can play a critical role in the modification of early behaviour patterns of food socialisation. The authors found individuals replicate food behaviours and values from childhood, but through a process of lifelong learning, can break formative habits, particularly with reverse socialisation influences that prioritise sustainable behaviours.