Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Task-Environment fit, a special case of Person-Environment fit, has been suggested as the central mechanism through which Activity-Based Working (ABW) Environments support productivity and employee wellbeing, here operationalized as team functioning and concentration troubles. We extend previous work in this space by testing the asymmetric effect (where deficient supply is worse than excess supply) usually assumed, with a new statistical approach-cubic polynomial regression-capable of such tests. The complex models gained only partial support and none for a strict congruence effect. Results are more in line with previous work on P-E fit showing that higher levels of needs met are more valuable, and with previous ABW work showing that the supply of suitable environments has the largest impact on outcomes.

Most work on activity-based working centers on the physical environment and digital technologies enabling flexible working. While important, we believe the key components for implementing activity-based working are employee and manager behaviors. To measure the degree of enactment of activity-based work, based on workshops with experienced practitioners as well as previous literature, we have developed and validated a behavior-focused measure of activity-based working behaviors. In our initial sample (Sample 1, N = 234), three subscales were identified: task - environment crafting, workday planning, and social needs prioritization. In the replication sample (Sample 2, N = 434), this model also showed adequate fit. Moreover, task - environment crafting was related to general health and lower stress in sample 1 (multi-organization sample), but not in the single-organization sample (sample 2). Workday planning was associated with higher concentration in both samples and in the second sample with general health and work engagement; the latter was also related to social needs prioritization.

This paper examines the sources of knowledge workers’ work intensity and the self-leading strategies they apply to deal with it. The paper is based on focus group interviews with management consultants in a Danish management consultancy firm. Work intensity was identified as resulting from a combination of: (1) a results-only focus, (2) vagueness, (3) boundaryless work, and (4) low control of the quantitative load. A framework for self-leading strategies is developed based on the dimensions of reactive/proactive and self-focused/externally-focused strategies in different combinations. The results indicate that while consultants expressed a belief in internal self-discipline strategies of a more reactive nature, in fact, external and proactive strategies were the most effective in practice. In conclusion, the paper contributes to an extension of self-leadership theory to better account for current research on self-control.

Ostörd handlar om att värna om, prioritera och förvalta dina mentala tillgångar. Då kan de användas där de behövs som mest och dessutom är roligast att tillämpa i utmanande, kreativt, koncentrerat arbete. 

Complexity leadership theory (CLT) is about balancing formal and informal organisation to leverage dynamics of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and produce learning, creativity, and adaptation in organisations. Based on interviews with sixteen agile coaches (AC) at Spotify, this study examines how AC practice enabling leadership, a key balancing force in complexity leadership. Coaches practice enabling leadership by increasing the context-sensitivity of others, supporting other leaders, establishing and reinforcing simple principles, observing group dynamics, surfacing conflict and facilitating and encouraging constructive dialogue. The AC as complexity leader values being present,observing and reacting in the moment. Findings suggest flexible structure provided by an attentive coach may prove a fruitful way to navigate and balance autonomy and alignment in organisations.

In Activity Based Working Environment (ABWE) offices, employees are allowed increased autonomy and are expected to choose where, when, with whom, and to some degree with what, to work; in other words, employees are expected to self-lead to a higher degree and to coordinate and align with colleagues. Effects of these expectations on employees’ cognitive stress and performance are understudied. In the present study, Swedish ABWE workers (N = 416) are compared with workers in cell offices (N = 30) and landscape offices (N = 64), and relationships of self-leadership, information richness, and autonomy with cognitive stress and performance were examined using regression analysis. Results show no relationship between office type and outcomes. For cognitive stress, information richness had the largest negative relationship, followed by self-leadership: goal-setting and autonomy. For performance, self-leadership: goal-setting had the largest positive relationship, followed by information richness. This suggests that when organizational situations cannot be strongly structured – for example because the best work process is not known, or innovation or different collaboration constellations are needed – they need instead to be enriched so that employee orientation and coordination do not become too much of a burden on the individual employee, disrupting cognitive functioning and performance.

Being self-directed is one of the most sought-after employee attributes. The present study examines managers’ approaches to and conceptualization of employee self-directedness through semi-structured interviews with 13 managers from five companies in the Stockholm area. Analysis suggests two different emphases in trying to increase self-direction, with differing underlying assumptions: an evaluation emphasis where self-direction is conceptualized as an inherent property of the individual, and a cultivation emphasis suggesting a more interactionist perspective of self-direction as an emergent behavior based on the interaction of individual and situational characteristics. Further, a “seeing work”-skill emerged in all interviews, implicating situational judgment and attention as core to what is ultimately seen as successful self-direction. Managers with a cultivation emphasis mentioned as viable tactics those focused on supporting sensemaking and thus enriching the working situation to enable better discretionary situational judgements.