Logotyp: till Försvarshögskolans hemsida

Stressful conditions affect communities at different levels and may involve occupational groups not normally associated with issues of crisis and security. Teachers in the compulsory school system are members of such a group. The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ view of their own role as crisis management actors in a female-dominated occupation. A Grounded Theory approach applying a gender perspective was used as an analytical tool for data processing. In total, 16 informants from four different schools in two different municipalities in Sweden were interviewed. The analysis of these interviews shows that teachers’ perceptions of risk, crisis, and security are influenced and characterized by social and emotional regulation aimed at (a) reducing vulnerability, (b) increasing the sense of security, and (c) regaining or restoring a sense of order and control. These strategies have been discussed froma gender perspective as teachers do not regard themselves as legitimate crisis management actors.

The purpose of this thesis is to reach a deeper understanding of how boundaryspanners are bridging boundaries between uniformed bureaucraticorganisations and their environment, characterised by demanding conditions.The main part of this thesis is based upon empirical data gathered through 71interviews with Swedish civil and military informants from several uniformedorganisations. Four articles have been included in this thesis in order to addressthe overarching aim.

The results show that boundary spanners are crucial to the adaption ofuniformed organisations to demanding conditions. A number of aspects thatare included in the process of organisational adaption have been identified. Oneof the tasks is to balance between structuring and improvisation where much isat stake. The other task is to create confidence among the involved actors andcontribute in different ways to create a sense of symmetry between partners.Finally, the third task for boundary spanners is to recognise improvised rolessuch as spontaneous links in order to maintain stressful conditions and bridge agap in the bureaucratic organisation.

The present thesis contributes to sociological theory of emotions, disastermanagement and military studies through a common denominator, namely thedemanding context. Taken together, the findings increase awareness of howorganisations act towards their environments and how individuals, especiallyboundary spanners, adapt the organisation to its environment. For leaders andmanagers, it is important to make decisions, provide mandates andauthorisation, as well as invest confidence in boundary spanners. Thehierarchical chain may remain in existence, but it can be made shorter and moretransparent through this kind of knowledge.

Social and behavioral science has for decades studied and recognized leadership as a social exchange between leaders and followers. But leadership is rather complex, and as such, it tends to lead to an increased interest within and across different disciplines. This book is an attempt to provide theoretical and empirical framework to better understand leadership challenges in various contexts. The authors cover an array of themes that span from an individual level to an organizational and societal level. In this volume, two sections are presented. The first section based on individual level focuses on different leadership styles and abilities, and the other section provides theories to understand leadership in public administration, in industrial settings and in nonprofit organizations.

The development of gender differences as an area of research has been rapid over the last decades. Varieties of studies have focused on the gender differences as well as the similarities of women and men. The common purpose of the research attempt is to find out the possibilities and even the consequences of gender differences and the impact on human beings on one side, and social and cultural environment on the other. This book is an attempt to provide theoretical and empirical framework to better understand gender differences in various contexts and on different levels. Therefore, the contributions cover an array of themes that span from an individual level to an organizational and societal level.

This narrative is an autoethnographic study of how discrimination and prejudice counteract the academic meritocratic system. In Sweden, which is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, opposition to gender equality and prejudices against what is considered the Other can be hidden and thus reproduced in decision-making processes and structures. This narrative shows how a professorial recruitment process bypassed the meritocratic system i.e., the system in which qualifications and educational results in combination with the individual’s achievements should play the greatest role in the promotion process. This is a story about how the supposed meritocracy is twisted and manipulated within university contexts and how the “temperament” of a foreign female researcher is utilized to exclude her from entering through the coveted doors of academic departments. Different experiences, characterized by demanding conditions, have been analyzed with the help of gender theoretical perspectives, opposition to gender equality, intercultural perspectives, and a number of social psychological perspectives linked to prejudice. The description is interwoven with previous experiences from younger years, which together contribute to an increased understanding of the individual narrative and its specific context. 

The purpose of this study is to examine, explain and interpret concepts of gender in relation to information management, crisis communication and collaboration within the framework of (crisis) communicator tasks. Since the crisis management realm is malecoded and the communications profession is female-coded, there is reason to gain more knowledge of how these relate to each other. The ambition is to contribute to an underdeveloped area of theory. A total of nineteen participants joined the study. All the interviews were processed according to the guidelines for the thematic analysis method. Analysis showed that three themes are central to understanding the role of communicators in the crisis management system. These are a) crisis communication as a temporary organization; b) requirements imposed on, and expectations from, the role and the individual and c) organizational greed. Results are discussed theoretically from a gender perspective, and practical implications are given as well as proposals for further studies. 

This study aims to deepen the understanding of processes that affect collaboration between professions and organisations in the crisis preparedness domain from a gender perspective. A total of twenty-three Swedish duty officers participated in the study. The analysis of the interviews show that collaboration can be understood as (a) the militarisation of civil crisis management actors, which means that many of the work processes and cultures that originate in military organisations can now be found in the security and crisis management sector; (b) the masculinisation, which means that when male dominance appears to prevail, active strategies are used against women, civilian personnel and also inexperienced colleagues and (c) organisational exclusion which emerges particularly in situations where collaboration between female-dominated and male-dominated organisations are required. The findings are important for crisis preparedness research and practice and should work in favour of evening out asymmetries in collaborative crisis management.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of how leaders manage their own and others' emotions in professional crisis management organizations during severely demanding episodes. The empirical case is a hostage drama that occurred in a small Swedish town. Although staff at the local prison were situationally prepared and trained in incident exercises, two inmates with knives fled the prison after taking a warden hostage.

Design/methodology/approach - A grounded theory approach was used. In all, 14 informants from four Swedish authorities were interviewed on the basis of their involvement in the hostage drama.

Findings - According to the analysis, an emergency response leader's emotion management is framed by an organizationally embedded emotional regime which is summed up in two core themes: focus on the task and do not let emotions interfere; and provide the task force with maximum physical and psychological security. The leader's emotion management within this framework consists of two interdependent processes, one more organization oriented and one more individual oriented.

Research limitations/implications - Small sample, lack of representativeness, and lack of illumination of possible gender-related aspects.

Practical implications - The suggested model may be valuable in educational settings.

Originality/value - A new integrative, theoretical process model of leadership and emotion management in complex, stressful operations.

En ledares förmåga att leda påverkas i stor utsträckning av yttre omständigheter. Trots detta finns få böcker som denna som behandlar ledarskap, organisationsutveckling och medarbetarskap utifrån kontextfaktorer. I särskilt fokus är organisationer som arbetar i påfrestande kontexter. Författarna beskriver hur ledarskapet påverkas av exempelvis samhällsförändringar och yttre kriser såväl som av organisatoriska problem och andra typer av faktorer som omger ledaren.

När en kris inträffar ska en organisation kunna agera snabbt. Som ledare kan det finnas många mål och perspektiv att ta i beaktande, samtidigt som beslut måste fattas – ofta under tidspress och med bristande beslutsunderlag. I boken beskrivs ledarskapsutmaningar som uppstår till följd av kontextfaktorer i kombination med krissituationers ovisshet och oförutsägbarhet. Författarna presenterar också ett antal verktyg som stöd för analys och agerande i olika situationer.

Ledarskapets kontext vänder sig till personer som studerar ämnen relaterade till krig, kris och säkerhet, men även till yrkesverksamma i insatsorganisationer som vill fördjupa sig i faktorer som påverkar ledarens förmåga att verka under svåra och ibland farliga betingelser.

This article explores individual resistance related to a military organization’s gender equality work as expressed in online contexts. Resistance is explained as expressions of wider social conflicts, grounded in experiences of threats towards military masculinities, challenged by societal and political transformation processes perceived as feminine. The data consists of defence-related blogs and comments. A thematic analysis finds that individual resistance can be understood as blaming and shaming strategies. Five sub-themes are identified: blaming the “feminised” organization, blaming and shaming women’s abilities to serve, individualisation of structural problems, verbal violence and violations, and objectification of men working with and supporting gender equality initiatives. The analysis exemplifies how social conflict is transferred to organizations through individual resistance. As gender equality policies are questioned, organizations need to confront resistance also within the online context.

Systemic violence against women in the military has existed for decades, but they have mostly refrained from public resistance. However, in the context of the #Metoo‐movement in Sweden, 1768 women published a call for an end to violence and sexual harassment in the military. We analyze this call as a public resistance effort against the military and find that #Metoo is: 1) challenging the norms of the hyper‐masculine military organization, making resistance towards it visible, and 2) resisting the practices of sexual harassment and lack of responsibility in the military organization. The military organization is questioned when it comes to norms and practices, but there are variations in whether the social order of the military is truly challenged. Still, the call highlights the fragmentation of this “last bastion of masculinity”. More research is needed on the erosion of the militarized norms and practices and the effects of the call.

Artikeln problematiserar läraryrkets koppling till säkerhets- och krishanteringsfältet samt hur denna kan förväntas inverka på lärarnas arbetsmiljö. Baserad på litteraturstudier med fokus på yrkesgruppen lärares närmande till fältet säkerhet och krishantering, mynnar analysen ut i två potentiella utmaningar a) arbetsmiljöproblem relaterade till den nya lärarrollen och b) genusaspekter som uppstår vid kopplingen till säkerhets- och krishanteringsfältet. Lärarnas arbetsmiljö utmanas med anledning av nya krav att hantera kriser och agera som säkerhetsaktörer. Yrkesgruppen kan ställas inför nya uppgifter som traditionellt sett har hanterats av räddningstjänst och polis. I denna kontext aktualiseras föreställningar om genus kopplade till dessa tidigare separata yrkesgrupper. Kvinnodominerade yrkesgrupper riskerar här att underordnas. Kommunal resursallokering har hittills exkluderat lärare som kris- och säkerhetsaktörer vilket riskerar förstärka arbetsmiljöproblemen.

Armed forces in many Western countries have been facing societal change processes for more than twenty years; including value changes, government savings and, more recently, by the unstable security environment. The starting point here is that there is a relationship between processes of societal change and organizational challenges. The purpose of this study is to examine how military leaders manage and respond to different kinds of organizational challenges, focusing on resistance. The empirical material was collected using a grounded theory approach. Informants possessing wide experience of leadership participated in this study. The qualitative analysis describes the coping strategies, acceptance and resistance found among military leaders when dealing with organizational demands. Challenges caused by societal changes are experienced as negative aspects of organizational structure. This may be an explanation for why military leaders cope with them applying both resistance and acceptance. However, our main conclusion is that resistance to change stays within a culture of obedience.

Purpose

It has been claimed that job satisfaction is the most important and frequently studied attitude in organizational behaviour research. However, as most studies relate to lower hierarchical levels, the purpose of the present study was to gain a deeper understanding of job satisfaction and organizational commitment among high-level managers, military leaders in this case.

Design/methodology/approach

A grounded theory approach was used. The empirical material is based on 12 interviews, two of which were with women. The informants had wide experience of a number of leadership positions as well as participation in international operations. Their ranks ranged from Colonel to Brigadier General and they represented army and naval units, the Armed Forces Headquarters and Swedish Defence University.

Findings

The qualitative analysis resulted in a theoretical model that describes the job satisfaction of military leaders at the strategic level, which concerns establishing and balancing organizational commitment. This means that top level managers develop, manage and recreate a “sense of oneness” between themselves and the organization – a strong identification that is established, challenged, changed, and renegotiated in a continuous process. Establishing and balancing organizational commitment is built on two overarching categories: keeping up the organizational image and responding to organizational greediness.

Research limitations/implications

Small sample, lack of representativeness, and lack of elaboration on possible gender-related aspects.

Practical implications

The suggested model may be valuable in educational settings when evaluating the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of high-level officers. The model may have practical implications when it comes to selection, retention and leader development of high-level military officers.

Originality/value

A new integrative, theoretical model of job satisfaction and organizational commitment of high-level officers is developed and discussed.

Recruitment is one of the Swedish Armed Forces’ (SAF) main challenges today. Recruiting more women into the organization is one of the organization’s aims, as well as providing them with more opportunities for career development. The purpose of this article is to gain a deeper understanding of how female military officers perceive barriers and advantages on their way to higher leadership positions. A total of 10 women from a variety of backgrounds and positions in the armed forces were interviewed. Their ranks ranged from Captain to Colonel and they represented army, naval units and air force. The interviews were analysed using a Grounded Theory approach. The qualitative analysis resulted in two main themes: Supporting visibility of women as leaders and differentiation of women as leaders. The former concerns positive strategies on an individual and organizational level that support an increase in the number of female leaders in the SAF, and is a way of responding to political incitements and the SAF’s fundamental values. The second concerns ways how women are portrayed as different and divergent from the male standard. The suggested model may be valuable in recruitment, educational settings and leader development of high-level military officers from a gender perspective.

This study illuminates a deeper understanding of the processes of confidence building and emotion management among boundary spanners from organisations with a bureaucratic structure in a multinational civil-military operational context. Twenty-one informants (mainly military officers) were interviewed. They had a variety of experiences and occupational roles in civil-military collaboration contexts. A grounded theory analysis of interview data yielded a model according to which the most central aspects of civil-military collaboration are confidence building, maintaining existing confidence, avoiding distrust and rebuilding damaged confidence. The study shows that boundary spanners strategically utilise a variety of emotion management strategies in order to fulfil the demands laid upon them by their collaborating counterparts in the hostile environment and by their own organisation. Three interrelated dimensions of smoothness were identified: cultural, structural and smoothness in risky situations. By acting ‘smoothly’, an adaption to the dynamic environment can be achieved. The proposed model is compared to existing writings on emotional labour and self-presentation.

The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical understanding of leadership during a complex rescue operation following a major disaster in a foreign country. The analysis followed a grounded theory approach. Seventeen informants from three Swedish authorities were interviewed on leadership in the emergency handling of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A theoretical conceptualisation was developed which includes three superior categories: antecedent conditions, situational constraints and core aspects of leadership. Within the last-mentioned superior category a core variable was identified: a balance between the need for structure and the need for freedom. Leaders who strive to create structure at the expense of freedom of action are less inclined to delegate and more likely to wear themselves out. Conversely, those who strive to create great freedom of action bypass many links in the organisational chain, thus 'short-circuiting' the organisation as a whole.

The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of Swedish officers when serving as the only Swedes in a multinational staff context. The methodological approach was qualitative and inductive according to the Grounded Theory method, and the empirical material is based on twenty completed interviews. The informants possessed a wide range of experience in a number of leadership positions as well as extensive participation in international operations.The building of contextual self-esteem is the central theme that emerged inthe data analysis that may improve our understanding of officers serving as the only Swedes on an international staff. Contextual self-esteem and its structure can be understood through the following four processes: interpretation, adaptation, influence, and withdrawal. These occur to a greater or lesser extent depending upon both the individual and the context. Contextual self-esteem increases over time as experience of international operations expands. The longer the duration of a mission, the greater the influence becomes in contrast to adaptation, although all the processes are significant.The findings may be valuable in educational settings regarding challenges faced while serving alone during international military missions in multinational contexts.

Numerous societal change processes such as globalization, professionalization and social and technical acceleration have challenged military organizations. The aims of this study were to (1) gain a deeper understanding of coping strategies used by the military leaders at the strategic level to manage everyday organizational demands and (2) relate these strategies to multidisciplinary models of organizational challenges. Owing to an insufficiently developed base of research, an inductive approach was used. Interviews were performed with 23 Swedish brigadier generals and colonels. Five coping strategies were found for handling the negative organizational aspects: repair work, catching up, reproducing, using formal and informal strategies and managing loyalties. The theoretical concepts of narcissistic, anorectic and greedy organizations were used as a framework when interpreting the inductively generated coping strategies. It was suggested that the specific connection found between individual-level coping strategies and theoretically framed organizational challenges is new. The results of this study are discussed theoretically and may be valuable in educational settings when evaluating the working conditions and performance of high-level officers.

Denna studie syftar till att få en fördjupad förståelse för hur omgivnings­förhållanden påverkar militärt ledarskap under påfrestande förhållanden på olika hierarkiska nivåer. Studien genomfördes genom intervjuer med 28 officerare från de tre svenska jägarförbanden AJB, Amf 1 och K 3. Samtliga hade erfarenhet av starkt påfrestande episoder. Intervjuerna tog sin utgångspunkt i en modell över kontextuella förhållanden som påver­kar ledarskap. Resultatet visade att modellen stämde relativt väl samt att ett antal nya påverkansfaktorer tillkom. I flertalet fall där skillnader framkom mellan chefer på lägre och högre nivåer tycktes skillnaderna spegla högre chefers större ansvar för verksamheten respektive lägre chefers mer vardagliga fälterfarenheter. Vid en fördjupad kvalitativ analys kom de ”mjuka” aspekterna ”jägarkultur” och ”grupp­kli­mat och sammansvetsning” att dominera svarsmönstret. Här rådde också samstämmighet mellan chefer på lägre och högre nivå. Detta resultat över­ensstämmer med resultaten i den ursprungliga studien där den teoretiska modellen togs fram och visar att organisations- och gruppför­hållanden av mellanmänsklig karaktär tycks ha en likvärdig inverkan på ledarskap oavsett chefsnivå. Resultatet från studien av jägare behöver prövas bland fler typer av officerare. Om resultaten står sig innebär det att ledarskapsmodellen Utvecklande ledarskap bättre kan situationsanpassas för en given chefsnivå vid framtida ledarskapsutbildning.

I samband med covid-19 pandemins utbredning tvingades arbetsgivare ställa om sina verksamheter. Pandemin blev en sjukvårdskatastrof men också en kris med sociala och emotionella konsekvenser för arbetstagare. Syftet med denna artikel, som har ett emotionssociologiskt perspektiv, är att sondera förekomsten av hot mot det sociala självet inom arbetslivet som tar sig uttryck i termer som signalerar skam eller skamrelaterade känslor och beteenden, som kan kopplas till pandemin. Hotet mot det sociala självet kan vara avsiktligt eller oavsiktligt och bestå av beteenden och gester som upplevs som nedsättande och i termer av mobbning, kränkningar, förödmjukelser, trakasserier eller organisatoriska ingrepp och förändringar. 

In connection with the Covid-19 pandemic, employers were forced to change their behavior and adjust to new working life challenges. Firstly, the pandemic became a healthcare disaster and secondly a crisis with social and emotional consequences for workers. The purpose of this article is to investigate the presence of threats to the social self in the working life context. We are looking for shame or shame-related feelings and behaviors, which can be linked to the pandemic. The threat to the social self can be intentional or unintentional and consist of behaviors and gestures that are perceived as derogatory and in terms of bullying, violations, humiliations, harassment or organizational changes. 

The armed forces in virtually all countries are traditionally male-dominated organisations. Military rangers constitute an elite unit whose chief skills and capabilities centre on unconventional warfare and intelligence gathering in enemy territory, as well as conducting low-intensity warfare. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the process of becoming a military ranger and what it means to be one in this context from a masculinity perspective. The study was carried out with informants from three military ranger units in Sweden: the Army’s ranger battalion, parachuting rangers from an airborne battalion and intelligence battalion, and coastal rangers. In total, 28 informants participated in the study. All of them were men. A qualitative analysis resulted in a model where the core variable was labelled on becoming a ranger through reproducing masculinity as a form of emotional regime. This core variable is built up by three different strategies, each of which contains a number of actions: building social identity by means of coolness strategies, observing symbols and rituals to build a sense of pride and building cohesion to maintain group intimacy, and emotionally exclude the external environment

Grounded Theory (GT) is a research method that allows the researcher to make discoveries withouta priori knowledge, and allows an open mind not an empty head. The use of this method is also desirablefor serendipity to occur in the research process. This article therefore aims to chronologically presenthow serendipity has grown over time in the use of the GT method in a field of research focusing onhighly demanding conditions such as disaster management and military operations. We will discussa new concept, namely, reflexive serendipity, which encompasses the conditions required for makingdiscoveries in the interview analysis. These may be contextual aspects and the role of the researcher,which includes having an open mind and the necessary perseverance and discipline to be able tosucceed with GT and serendipity.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att få djupare förståelse för förskollärarnas och barnskötarnas upplevda organisatoriska arbetsvillkor så som de beskrevs i vittnesmålen i den 689-sidor långa förskoleuppropet #pressatläge. Studien baserades på anonymiserade vittnesmål från personal i barnomsorgen från hela Sverige. Analysen av datamaterialet resulterade i tre huvudsakliga teman: a) prekariserande arbetsförhållanden, b) förskolemiljön som en krisplats och c) barns utsatthet nu och i framtiden. Slutsatsen av studien visar att konsekvenser av dåliga arbetsvillkor i en kvinnodominerad yrkesgrupp är kortsiktiga i form av psykisk ohälsa men också långsiktiga vad gäller barnens bästa och verksamhetens framtida utveckling.

Artikeln problematiserar beslutsfattande i vård- och omsorgssektorn till följd av Covid-19 pandemin. Detta görs deduktivt genom att applicera en empiriskt framtagen beslutsmodell på nya data som utgörs av medieartiklar. Be-slutsmodellen kan delas in i två dimensioner; en medarbetarinriktad och en organisationsinriktad. Varje dimension anger beslutsriktningen och sträcker sig från anti till pro. Det innebär att beslut kan fattas pro/anti medarbetare/organisation. Vi har funnit belägg för tre av modellens fyra dimensioner, vilka är utgångspunkter för analys av vilka konsekvenser beslut kan få på medar-betare, på arbetslivet och på det det civila samhället i stort.