Göran Ekvall’s research while affiliated with Lund University and other places

Part of managing for innovation is creating the appropriate climate so that people can share and build upon each other's ideas and suggestions. Yet, there are increasing pressures and potential unproductive levels of tension within organizations. This article points out the distinction between two forms of tension that appear within the research on organizational climates for creativity as well as the conflict management literature. The Debate dimension is described as reflecting a more productive idea tension and the Conflict dimension suggests a more non-productive personal tension. A series of studies, across multiple levels of analysis, are summarized and a new study is reported in order to highlight the finding that relatively higher levels of Debate, and lower levels of Conflict are more conducive to organizational creativity and innovation. A practical model for the constructive use of differences is shared, along with a few strategies for reducing the negative tension associated with Conflict and increasing the positive aspects associated with Debate.

The aim was to explore opinions on individual needs and other factors that may influence nursing staff turnover. High staff turnover is a great problem for many hospitals. It is shown to have a negative effect on the quality of nursing care and to increase hospital costs. In 2004 in a large university hospital in Sweden five focus group discussions (FGDs) including department heads (1), nursing managers (2) and members of nursing staff (2) were carried out. The questions to be addressed were 'Why do nurses leave?' and 'Why do nurses stay?' In addition, register data of staff turnover for 2002-2003 were analysed in relation to different facts about the units, such as number of employees, type of care and medical specialty. Categories of opinions identified in the FGDs were compared with results of the statistical analyses on the relationship between staff turnover and unit parameters to identify overall factors that may influence on nurse staff turnover. Four major factors were identified as having a possible influence on staff turnover: 'intrinsic values of motivation', 'work load', 'unit size 'and 'leadership'. Smaller units had lower staff turnover as well as outpatient units and day care. It was not possible to compare statements from participants from smaller units with those from participants from larger units. Two factors had diverging data, 'salary' and 'spirit of the time'. A surprising finding was the little mention of patient care in relation to staff turnover. It is important for managers to ensure that intrinsic values of nurses are met to minimise the risk for high turnover rates. Inpatient care must receive adequate staffing and nursing care could be organised into smaller units or work teams to avoid dissatisfaction and high turnover.

This study examines how nurse managers' leadership behaviour relates to job satisfaction and a creative work climate. The nursing shortage is a challenge for managers all over the world. Leadership is a core element of management and it is important to elucidate leadership behaviour in order to increase knowledge about attracting and retaining talented staff. We studied 770 subordinates at a large university hospital. Three questionnaires for assessing perceived leadership behaviour, creative work climate and job satisfaction were used. Subordinates with a manager perceived as 'super' have the highest rates on job satisfaction. The correlation between leadership and creative work climate is stronger than between leadership and job satisfaction. Between job satisfaction and work climate the correlation is strong. The study shows that the relationship between a creative work climate and job satisfaction is strong. A managers' ability to lead has a major affect on work climate. Nurse managers must work on developing their leadership behaviour towards being an all-round leader that cares about people, is concerned about productivity and can handle changes. Support of ideas and initiatives are important in order to enable subordinates to perceive their work as challenging.

The paper provides a research report on leadership styles studied in a range of countries, industry types and organization levels. Unequivocal evidence has been found for a three factor model of style, incorporating the well-known, task-oriented/people-oriented factors, and a change-oriented factor. The new factor is presumed to be a consequence of more turbulent environments. Further analysis of the leader reports (supplied by 3,857 respondent ‘followers’) found ten clusters of ‘blends’ of style, of which three - labelled super-leaders, gardeners and MBO leaders - were consistently rated more effective and most liked by subordinates. A significant theoretical implication is that the results showed no evidence of contingency effects, i.e. variations in effectiveness, across broad contexts such as branch, function or hierarchic level, although the clusters differed with regard to representation in the different contexts.

The idea of the suggestion scheme, its role and evolution, can be suitably examined in light of certain distinct mental models or currents of thought in industry and working life. Different perspectives can then be brought to bear on the subject.

The aim was to explore nursing leadership regarding what nurse managers and subordinates see as important and to explore subordinates' opinions of their nurse manager's performance in reality. Background The manager's style can be fundamental for subordinates' acceptance of change and in motivating them to achieve stated visions and goals and high quality of care. Nurse managers (n=77) and 10 of each included nurse manager's subordinates received a questionnaire to assess 'preferred' leadership behaviour in three dimensions: change, production and employee/relation orientations. The same questionnaire was used to assess subordinates' opinions of their manager's leadership behaviour. There are statistically significant differences in opinions of preferred leadership between managers and subordinates, especially related to production and relation orientation. The subordinates' perception of real leadership behaviour has lower mean values than their preferred leadership behaviour in all three dimensions. Subordinates prefer managers with more clearly expressed leadership behaviour than managers themselves prefer and demonstrate.

The study considers relations in a group of 95 managers, 41 women and 54 men, between managerial type and signs of anxiety and defense in the Defense Mechanism Technique modified (DMTm). Eight managerial types were distinguished, based on ratings of the managers by their subordinates in terms of the Ekvall and Arvonen (1991) leadership style dimensions of employee- centeredness, change-centeredness and production-centeredness. As expected, those classified as "bureaucrats" differed from the other managerial types in less often showing affect anxiety, identity anxiety and separation anxiety. Other findings related to predictions made were that a marked degree of introaggression 1 was typical of "idea-makers", marked repression 3 typical of "idea- makers" and "gardeners", and marked denial through reversal IV typical of "gardeners". Various defenses were also found to be more common in the managers studied here than in a group of university teachers investigated earlier. The Andersson (1991) model of the mind served as a tool for interpreting the results.

Two levels of creativity can be identified whether we look at the concept from the product, the person or the process point of view. The one is radical and revolutionary, the other adaptive and confirmatory. Are there organizational structures and practices that support lower level creativity but hamper higher level, or vice versa? Some research results on organizational climate and structure variables are presented that indicate differing influences on higher and lower level creativity. It is argued that the issue of innovation in organizations harbours a couple of basic dilemmas, the management of which requires understanding and taking into consideration the psychology of creativity.

More than 2,000 employees from different types of private and public organizations in Sweden and USA rated their managers with regard to actual and appropriate leadership style and the operation demands in the departments the managers were responsible for. Three aspects of these domains were measured, namely change, employees and production. The manager’s competence was also rated and used as a criteria for effectiveness. The results revealed that the subordinates do not experience much adjustment between actual leadership behavior and situational demands, but correlations between appropriate leadership style and organizational demands show that they observe a need for such adjustments. There are substantial correlations between rated actual leadership style and competence across situations. However, ANOVAs revealed some interaction effects of style and situation on competence for production-oriented leadership behavior. The results are viewed as support of the thesis that effective leadership is mainly universal.