Many organizations are investing considerable resources in building and designing what are termed 'creative offices'. In this paper, we bring together two lines of academic enquiry that have attracted the interest of scholars from different disciplines: organizational creativity and the physical space of organizations. These lines of study use different concepts and lean on different ontologies; consequently, their relation is underexplored in the extant literature. To provide a better understanding of the ways in which physical space relates to creativity, we offer an integrative review based on a three-dimensional framework comprising (i) the elements of workspace, (ii) the social dynamics of space and (iii) the relation between space and creativity. This framework is used to review the physical context of creativity literature. Based on this framework and our review, we outline three directions for future studies on the physical context of creativity. These directions are based on a broader understanding of physical space that aligns better with the contemporary conception of creativity as a process.

Purpose

This article studies the tensions between universities' accountability and autonomy in response to the demands of public steering mechanisms coordinating higher education institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

Demonstrating the tension between accountability and autonomy, the impact and relevance of public steering mechanisms coordinating higher education are studied via a survey with selected representative Finnish universities. The response rate was an exceptionally high 94%. In addition to the statistical analysis of the survey, open-ended questions were also analyzed to give a more in-depth understanding of the findings. The study uses paradox theory and institutional complexity as its theoretical lenses.

Findings

The empirical analysis of this study shows a considerable gap between the experienced impact and the experienced relevance of the steering mechanisms in higher education. The authors' further analysis of the open-ended data shows that indicator-based funding allocation has undermined the perceived university autonomy. The authors highlight the paradoxical tensions of university autonomy and higher education institutions' steering mechanisms' requirement for accountability. Finding an acceptable balance between accountability and institutional autonomy plays an important role in designing higher education policies.

Originality/value

The authors found that even if a steering mechanism is experienced as impactful, it is not necessarily considered relevant. One of the key aspects in understanding the reasons behind this mismatch is related to university autonomy. Most impactful steering mechanisms become considered less relevant because they also endanger institutional autonomy. In this sense, it could be expected that steering mechanisms should better balance accountability and autonomy.

Purpose

Employing institutional logic and institutional work as its theoretical framework, this study analyzes scholars' reactions to performance measurement systems in academia.

Design/methodology/approach

Large datasets were collected over time, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements. The data were gathered from a two-wave survey in 2010 (966 respondents) and 2015 (672 respondents), conducted among scholars performing teaching- and research-oriented tasks in three Finnish universities.

Findings

The analysis showed statistically significant changes over time in the ways that the respondents were positioned in three major groups influenced by different institutional logics. This study contributes to the international debate on institutional change in universities by showing that in Finnish universities, emerging business logics and existing professional logics can co-exist and be blended among a growing group of academics. The analysis of qualitative open-ended answers suggests that performance measurement systems have led to changes in institutional logic, which have influenced the scholars participating in institutional work at the microlevel in academia.

Social implications

While most scholars remain critical of performance measurement systems in universities, the fact that many academics are adapting to performance measurement systems highlights significant changes that are generally occurring in academia.

Originality/value

While most extant studies have focused on field- and organizational-level analyses, this study focuses on understanding how the adoption of performance measurement systems affects institutional logic and institutional work at the microlevel. Moreover, the study's cross-sectional research setting increases society's understanding of institutional evolution in academia.

Over the past two decades, there has been a shift of paradigm in public administration and public sector accounting around the world with the increasing emphasis on outcomes as opposed to inputs and outputs focus. Understanding of how government departments and agencies develop and implement outcomes-based approaches to their services and programs to strengthen public accountability, financial scrutiny and good governance worldwide is limited.

Covering a selection of international practices on outcomes-based approaches to government departments, agencies and public higher educational institutions in developed economies, this comprehensive compilation provides an essential reading in the public sector accounting, accountability and performance management field. The contributions are grouped into three jurisdictions: Australasia, UK and Europe, and North America.

It incorporates outcomes-based practices in public services from advanced economies and will be of significant interest to global public sector regulators, consultants, researchers, and academic communities as well as academic researchers in public administration and development studies fields. The insights offered by a country-specific practice will also be useful to governments in other countries implementing similar systems and practices and facing similar socio-political environments. This book will also help to gain an understanding of the issues of government accountability from a management point of view as well as from a socio-political point of view.

Purpose This purpose of this study is to understand how the spread of audit culture and the related public sector reforms have affected Finnish universities' organization principles, performance measurement (PM) criteria and ultimately their reason for being. Design/methodology/approach Applying extensive qualitative data by combining interview data with document materials, this study takes a longitudinal perspective toward the changing Finnish higher education field. Findings The analysis suggests the reforms have altered universities' administrative structures, planning and control systems, coordination mechanisms and the role of staff units, as well as the allocation of power and thus challenged their reason for being. Power has become concentrated into the hands of formal managers, while operational core professionals have been distanced from decision making. Efficiency in terms of financial and performance indicators has become a coordinating principle of university organizations, and PM practices are used to steer the work of professionals. Because of the reforms, universities have moved away from the ideal type of professional bureaucracy and begun resembling the new, emerging ideal type of competitive bureaucracy. Originality/value This study builds on rich, real-life, longitudinal empirical material and details a chronological description of the changes in Finland's university sector. Moreover, it illustrates how the spread of audit culture and the related legislative changes have transformed the ideal type of university organization and challenged universities' reason for being. These changes entail significant consequences regarding universities as organizations and their role in society.

This study describes the current state of public sector logic from the perspective of healthcare professionals. More than 1500 healthcare professionals answered the survey concerning the way in which values, decision making and aims appear in the public sector. Healthcare professionals felt that the essential value in the public sector is still the respect for human life. However, they also argued that good care has become subordinate to financial values. In the current age of austerity, improving efficiency in the public sector is inevitable. However, it shouldn’t be done by jeopardizing professionals’ ability to work according to their professional logic.

The study examines municipal educational and cultural services as well as the changing work tasks of local educational and cultural leaders from the perspective of networks. The framework of the study is the so-called “future municipality,” which refers to municipalities after the implementation of the national health and social services reform. Local educational and cultural leaders as well as other experts were interviewed in order to understand the effects that the reform has on municipal educational and cultural services, on the one hand, and on networks in which educational and cultural leaders will operate in the future municipality, on the other. The reform requires that health and social services become the responsibility of regions, and educational and cultural services consequently become the largest remaining task for municipalities. The informants suggested that the reform causes network-based operations to continue to grow as municipalities’ resources decrease and as their knowhow becomes scattered. The analysis also suggests that network operations as well as their very nature are changing. Professional and operational networks are becoming increasingly important, while traditional hierarchical and formal networks are losing their relative importance. From the theoretical standpoint, the informants’ responses reflected collaboration – the deepest form of network relationship. However, the current practices that the informants described exemplify cooperation and coordination, that is, more traditional forms of network relationship.

Yliopistot ovat keskeisessä asemassa kun tarkastellaan tiedon tuottamista yhteiskunnassa (Välimaa, Papatsiba & Hoffman 2016). Tohtorit jotka lähtevät yliopistoista työskentelemään muualle, ovat tärkeässä roolissa siirtämässä tietoa yliopistoista muille sektoreille – sekä muihin yliopistoihin. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan tekijöitä, jotka työntävät ihmisiä pois yliopistoista, sekä vetävät heitä sinne. Kansainvälisessä tutkimuksessa tästä ilmiöstä käytetään käsitteitä ”push and pull -factors” (esim. Johnsrud & Rosser 2002; Zhou & Volkvein 2004).

Tutkimus liittyy nelivuotiseen Suomen Akatemian rahoittamaan hankkeeseen ”Exiting Academics in Networked Knowledge Societies, EANKS”, 2016–2020, joka toteutetaan Jyväskylän yliopiston Koulutuksen tutkimuslaitoksen ja Tampereen yliopiston johtamiskorkeakoulun yhteistyönä.

Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu haastatteluista sekä kyselyaineistosta. Haastatteluaineistona on 41 haastattelua, joissa on haastateltu yliopiston keskijohtoa, yliopistoista lähteneitä henkilöitä ja johtavassa asemissa olevia henkilöitä yksityisen ja julkisen sektorin organisaatioista. Sähköinen kysely toteutetaan helmikuun alussa 2018. Kysely lähetetään noin 4900 henkilölle, jotka ovat 34 vuosien 2005–2010 aikana olleet työsuhteessa suomalaiseen yliopistoon tohtorin tutkinnon suorittamisen jälkeen, mutta lähteneet työskentelemään muualle.

Haastattelujen alustavaan analyysiin perustuen voidaan todeta, että yliopistoista lähtemisen syyt liittyvät joko organisaatioon ja työhön, tai yksilön henkilökohtaisiin syihin. Nämä syyt ovat sidoksissa toisiinsa. Esimerkiksi palkkaus, resurssien puute, byrokratian määrä, lyhyet työsuhteet ja kilpailu ovat organisaatioon ja työhön liittyviä syitä. Yksilöllisiä syitä ovat esimerkiksi oma kiinnostuksen puute työtehtäviä kohtaan ja halu kokeilla jotain muuta.

In this study, we analysed stakeholders’ organizational role expectations for nurses. We defined organizational role expectations as a set of informal expectations in behavioural patterns and formal expectations in work tasks related to a certain position in the organization. A qualitative study was conducted, and content analysis was applied to 150 articles published in a Finnish nursing trade journal. We identified five general organizational role expectations of patients and their relatives, physicians and other healthcare professionals, the work community, the nursing association, and legislators in our analysis: “the alongside stroller,” “the patients’ advocate,” “the reliable colleague and team member,” “the expert and skills developer,” and “the organizational underdog.” This study explores these nursing roles and links stakeholder perspective to the organizational role expectations in professional services.