What does it mean?

Surroundings are formal and informal factors outside the organization, which can affect the opportunities to exert leadership in the organization.

 

What do we study?

Formal structures:

• Law and other national rules
• Reforms
• General governance paradigms
• International governance structures  

Informal structures:

• National culture
• International and national professional norms and knowledge

Stakeholders:

• Politicians
• Citizens
• Trade unions
• Researchers
• Interest organizations

What does it mean?

​Organizational factors are structural (formal or informal) factors that can affect the opportunities for exerting leadership. The factors are relatively stable, but not unchangeable.

 

What do we study?

Formal:

• Steering in the organization, accountability mechanisms
• Organizational structure
• Span of control

Informal:

• Organizational culture
• Governance paradigms as translated to the organization (including the specific mix)   

What does it mean?

Formal and informal activities that challenge the participants through knowledge, reflection and training of action. 

 

What do we study?

• Formal training/education
• Other leadership development, including experimental treatments
• Informal leadership training, including socialization

What does it mean?

​Leader phenomena going across the specific situation and work role/position. These leader characteristics are stable, but not necessarily unchangeable (not totally static).

  

What do we study?

• Occupational background and basic education
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Gender and gender identity
• Social identity
• Health
• Personality
• Personal values
• Abilities and intelligence

What does it mean?

Employee phenomena going across the specific situation and work role/position. These employee characteristics are stable, but not necessarily unchangeable (not totally static).

 

What do we study?

• Education
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Gender and gender identity
• Social identity
• Health
• Personality
• Personal values
• Abilities and intelligence

What does it mean?

Actions indented to create results together and through others.

 

What do we study?

Many different forms of leadership behavior exist. Some of them are:

• Transformational leadership
• Distributed leadership
• Professional development leadership
• Positive contingent feedback
• Contingent sanctions
• Risk management. See for example the ph.d. project: Risk Management in the Public Sector
• Ethical leadership. See for example the ph.d. project: Ethical Leadership in Public Organizations
• Boundary spanning leadership
• Employee involvement. See for example the ph.d. project: Employee Involvement in Health Care Goal Setting   
• Data-informed leadership. See for example the center project: Data-Informed Visionary Leadership
• Relation-oriented leadership
• Change management
• Reputation management
• Recruitment/dismissals
• Leading upwards
• Personnel administration/HR

What does it mean?

​A state is a temporary way of being for persons with formal leadership responsibility (i.e., thinking, perceiving and feeling) while a trait tends to be a more stable and enduring characteristic. We use the word “state” to emphasize that we focus on dynamic characteristics in this part of the center model. “Internal” means that the phenomena cannot be directly observed. Unlike the other conceptual groups in the model, internal leader and follower states focus only on internal phenomena. 

 

What do we study?

• Leadership identity
• Motivation to lead (MTL)
• Leadership values
• Job satisfaction

What does it mean?

A state is a temporary way of being for persons (i.e., thinking, perceiving and feeling) while a trait tends to be a more stable and enduring characteristic. We use the word “state” to emphasize that we focus on dynamic characteristics in this part of the center model. “Internal” means that the phenomena cannot be directly observed. Internal follower states are employee’s motivation, attitude and perception in their work life.

 

What do we study?

• Motivation (and needs)
• Extrinsic motivation
• Intrinsic task motivation
• Public service motivation
• Self-Determination Theory needs and need for meaning
• Employee perceived leadership identity
• Job satisfaction
• Commitment
• Work engagement
• Well being
• Turnover intention
• Perceptions of governance initiative, leaders and leadership (e.g. perceived leadership identity and trust)
• Perceived value congruence

What does it mean?

Compatibility between person and work context.

 

What do we study?

• Value congruence (between organizational values, leader values and employee values)
• Alignment (especially in distributed leadership)
• Person-group fit, person-job fit, person-organization fit, person-supervisor fit, person-profession fit

What does it mean?

Behavior of employees, teams etc. intended to – or with relatively direct consequences for – doing the tasks of the organization.

 

What do we study?

• Effort
• Rule compliance
• Organizational citizenship behavior and contributions to organizational learning
• Sickness absence
• Sickness presence
• Behavior (e.g. prescription behavior for GPs). See this study for example. 

 

What does it mean?

The degree to which the unit of analysis attains the goal(s) of the most important stakeholder groups.

Stakeholders can be political sponsors, users, citizens in general, employees/professions, local interest groups. The evaluation of the relative importance of the stakeholder groups is evaluated in each research project, but politicians will normally be important in all public organizations.

 

What do we study?

• Outcome (effects on citizens and society).

• Goal attainment (e.g. exam grades, stay within budget (but can also be output), cured patients, new useful knowledge operationalized as published journal articles for universities)
• Well-being (for citizens, while employee well-being is an internal follower state)
• User satisfaction (direct and indirect users)
• Professional quality