Public organizations increasingly navigate in a complex landscape of competing demands. Although paradox research has convincingly demonstrated how paradoxical tensions from competing demands can lead to both organizational stagnation and growth, we still know surprisingly little about the role of trust in constructive paradox management in public organizations. Based on 38 interviews and 60 hours of observation of a public hospital's top-leadership team, this study develops a framework outlining how trust can nudge virtuous paradox cycles. The results demonstrate how strategic management initiatives can cultivate and activate organizational trust, thereby enabling shifts from vicious to virtuous paradox cycles.
PurposeThis study examines how technology acquisition and development influence circular economy (CE) adoption in European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It further explores the moderating role of financial resources, internal expertise, and external support in this relationship while also assessing the direct impact of cultural factors on CE adoption.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyses a dataset of 12,778 European SMEs. By employing a hierarchical Probit model, it combines firm-level variables with country-level indicators.FindingsThe results highlight that both external sourcing of technological solutions and internal innovation capabilities are critical for SMEs' transition to the CE. Firm-level factors, including technological resources and internal capabilities, play a more decisive role in CE adoption compared to external support. At the national level, short-termism aligns with CE through pragmatic resource efficiency, while individualism fosters entrepreneurial approaches to sustainability. However, their overall impact remains secondary to firm-specific drivers.Originality/valueLeveraging the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theories, this study investigated technological orientation by differentiating between technology acquisition and development, offering a nuanced understanding of how SMEs adopt CE practices. It highlights the moderating role of financial resources, internal expertise and external support, showing that while financial resources facilitate technology acquisition, internal expertise is key to leveraging these solutions. Additionally, external support has a limited impact on firm-driven innovation. At the national level, the study provides new insights into the role of cultural dimensions, demonstrating that short-term-oriented and individualistic societies align with CE adoption, challenging prevailing narratives.
The past 30 years of research have documented the detrimental impacts of work-related gender-based violence and harassment (WR-GBVH) on employees and workplace environments. Most research recommends the development of enhanced prevention measures. This article presents a study of two new preventive workplace interventions - the Power Plays intervention methods - designed for workplace adaptation and collective engagement. Based on an intervention ethnography in five workplaces of care in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the article presents and analyses the intervention processes and the outcomes they engender. The analysis thematizes the research participants' recognition of WR-GBVH enablers in terms of the intimate locations of care work, the professional ethos, and the work-based power relations. The analysis also illuminates the research participants' identification of organizational response-ability as a core disabler of WR-GBVH. Based on this analysis, we identify four core components of WR-GBVH prevention and conceptualize this as WR-GBVH literacy, which offers a comprehensive conception of the complex dynamics and affordances of situated and capacity-building workplace interventions preventing WR-GBVH.
The feminist literature on care has identified a care crisis in Western societies, focusing especially on liberal welfare regimes. This article provides an overview of the care crisis literature and identifies its biases, with the goal of elaborating a refined concept of a care crisis for eldercare that can be applied beyond the liberal welfare state. This reconceptualisation views the care crisis along two dimensions-(1) the extent and (2) the content of care-and adds attention to context, the state and neoliberal care. The state, in taking responsibility for the governance of care, can formulate political strategies that can either ameliorate or exacerbate the care crisis. This reconceptualisation also refines our understanding of the content of care and its goodness by defining it as good-enough care and elaborating upon its characteristics. My method of theorising is a bricolage that brings together various feminist sources.
