Organisations and Leadership
Short description
The status, identity, development, working conditions, self-esteem, health and well-being of workers are shaped in organisations and in encounters with managers/leaders, colleagues, customers and clients. As well, it is in and through the organisation of work that stakeholders in the organisation, such as owners, employees and customers, can attain various goals, whether profits, jobs, or the supply of goods and services.
Our entire society is based on the existence of organisations and people who are willing and able to lead them. In and through organisations, people can affect conditions outside the private sphere and these organisations are where various intentions and actions are coordinated towards the attainment of goals.
Organisations may offer affinity, respect and appreciation, but may also be places where people are exhausted, exploited and excluded. Organisations are thus arenas that contain multiple interfaces of interaction wherein a variety of interests and trends converge – which are conducive to conflict, but also to meaningful experiences of coordinated endeavour.
Organisations work in a context and are influenced by many external factors, such as globalisation, technical progress, markets and power structures, where these factors are reflected in various conditions in workplaces and can thus be feasibly studied. Work is assigned and controlled in the organisations and they are where power is apportioned and people’s lives are affected. It is for these reasons that social scientists need to study organisations and leadership.
How can conflicts in the workplace be constructively resolved? What organisational conditions do managers in municipal administrations need to perform their tasks? What does ethical leadership entail and are there differences between men and women, countries and industries? How can patient flows be organised that provide for both efficiency and worker health and safety? What roles do professions and professional logics play in organisational change? These are examples of questions currently being studied at the Department. The common denominator is that all research is conducted in cooperation with organisations in the private and public sectors.