Mid Sweden University

This study, grounded in Senge’s change theory, investigates the role of teachers’ knowledge in achieving inclusive and equitable quality mathematics education for all students. Specifically, it examines teachers’ understanding of concept-based mathematics teaching and their knowledge of the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs), revealing knowledge gaps that may impact educational equity. This study’s findings indicate that teachers’ familiarity with the SMPs and their understanding of concept-based mathematics teaching are limited, potentially restricting students’ access to rigorous mathematics education. Furthermore, many teachers equate solving real-world problems with having a conceptual understanding of mathematics—a misconception that may hinder their ability to promote rigorous mathematics education. To address these challenges, professional development initiatives are proposed for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4, that is, providing equitable, high-quality education. This study recommends a collaborative and continuous improvement approach to professional development that integrates Senge’s concepts of personal mastery and team learning to foster a shared learning culture. While focusing on the U.S. context, these findings have global relevance, suggesting that mathematics education leaders worldwide should assess the gaps among educational policies, resources, and teachers’ knowledge within their systems.

Purpose

In light of the current “triple planetary crisis”, referring to increased pollution, climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, what is called for is a transformative change of our ways of managing operations, relationships and resources. The facilitation of such a transformation cannot be limited to only one part of a supply chain or network but will have to be ecosystemic. The transformation will also have to include an important shift in mindset from just being sustainable (reducing negative impacts) to becoming regenerative (creating life-affirming outcomes that enhance flourishing for all concerned stakeholders, including local communities, wider society, and the interconnected fabric of life on earth) (Hutchins, 2022).In doing so, a promising new approach is the use of “ecosystemic enablers” (Hutchins, 2022), which is a team of people gathered from across the stakeholder ecosystem into a community of learning by playing an active sensing-responding role in the emerging living ecosystem.The purpose of this paper is to explore how regenerative skills, capabilities and a shift in mindset for ecosystem facilitation can be built together in a team of ecosystemic enablers.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on an ongoing research project including case studies and interventions in two interconnected ecosystems of stakeholders. The first ecosystem is2connected to the Swedish national resource centre for artisan food, and the second to a tourist mountain destination. The research project applies an interactive research process were two “practice teams”, consisting of ecosystemic enablers (Hutchins, 2022), have been gathered from the ecosystems, respectively. The ecosystemic enabler teams come together frequently in order to collectively sense into, learn, and transform the ecosystem by designing and conducting interventions, tests, and demonstrators. The data has been collected using a combination of qualitative methods including interviews, observations, and document reviews. The analysis of the data, making sense of and understanding the complex interrelationships and dynamics, have been done collectively together with the practice teams and within the research team.

Findings

The project presents insights from the collective journey concerning how skills, perspectives, and capabilities for regenerative ecosystem facilitation can be built together in a team of ecosystemic enablers. The insights concern the practical exploration of various facilitation frameworks and tools from for example Regenerative leadership, Theory U, Appreciative Inquiry, and Dialogic OD.

Practical implications

The paper contributes with new insights concerning how to practically face the challenge of simultaneously moving on the level of ecosystems, by building regenerative skills, shifts in mindset, and capabilities across the ecosystem of actors.

Relevance/contribution

The world is clearly calling for new regenerative ways of facilitating and leading, in sharp contrast to traditional mechanistic ways of command-and-control. This paper contributes to bringing such a shift into life in practice as it contributes with new insights on the use and gathering of “ecosystemic enablers” into communities that collectively facilitate ecosystem transformation.

There is a growing interest in arts-based innovation (ABI) in organizations to foster human capital as a value-added resource to achieve and sustain quality. As a co-creative process, arts-based practice stimulates out-of-the-box thinking and reflection essential to leading organizations in complex times. Transforming arts-based interventions into systemic organizational practice and understanding its value for the organization is one of the contemporary questions for leaders. This article presents an exploratory qualitative analysis of an arts-based intervention in a health care facility to explore new insights into understanding the value of arts-interventions for organizations. The current models for determining the value of ABIs lack a focus on the presence of systemic practice as a key variable to transforming individual experience into organizational value. Organizational learning theory provided a theoretical backdrop for understanding organizational growth as a socially derived process, defined by the interplay between the micro and the macro. The learning organization model served as an analytic framework to identify the presence of systemic practice through architectures for social interaction and deep learning that support the interplay between the micro and the macro.

PurposeResearch has underscored the significance of quality culture in relation to employee performance and stakeholder value. This study aims to develop and assess an extended quality culture framework to align quality culture with organisational values and further identify positions and transformations of quality cultures in organisations through behaviours. Through knowledge of the variation among employee behaviour preferences, it is plausible to increase the organisation's awareness of its current progress in quality cultural transformations.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a holistic multiple-case study design, encompassing three cases in a county that encompasses 12 municipalities. Drawing on prior research, an extended quality framework was tested through a survey to test and evaluate constructs that measure quality culture using vignettes based on organisational values operationalised as behaviours.FindingsThis study examines the relationship between organisational values and quality culture. It extends quality culture measurement research by operationalising an organisation's values as sustainable behaviours in practice. Combining preferences of behaviours with variations among employees across different values can increase the awareness of the organisation's progress in quality culture transformations with four different positions in terms of their status. Moreover, these four combinations follow different positions with respect to transformations along a quality culture continuum.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the discourse on interpreting and managing quality culture by focusing on organisational values and their expression as behaviours. Moreover, it contributes to the micro-level aspects of quality culture, linking values to the core operations to foster sustainable behaviour within organisations.

Purpose: Developing organizational adaptability to address sustainable development requires bold new management in education, school leaders are challenged to meet this paradigm shift amidst traditions of Newtonian views of organizing and industrial-based bureaucracy. Using Quantum physics as a theoretical lens, the authors introduce a model for leading schools as human-networked organizations, enabling them to become more responsive and adaptive to the evolving needs of students, businesses, and society.

Methods: The model is derived from an ethnography study of a private school in the United States, in which an existential-phenomenological approach, inspired by the work of Heidegger, was used to examine how educators describe the experience of working in a Human Networked Organization. The aim was to explore the phenomenon of magical energy that exists within this type of organizational structure to support its growth and sustainability over time.

Results: Findings highlight the critical role of teamwork, strong relationships, continuous professional development, trust, and respect with shared leadership for sustaining a culture of interconnections that can help schools thrive and be responsive in complexity. The model for leading schools as human networked organizations integrates six main features that are visualized using energy from the atom as a metaphor to reflect the interconnections between functions and culture to promote adaptability and responsiveness.

Discussion: Helping educational leaders shift from a Newtonian View of organizing to a System’s View requires knowledge about energy systems. Quantum physics contributes insights that will assist educators in acquiring the knowledge and skills for leading in the 21st century.

Purpose

This paper aims to explore how leaders can develop value-based leadership for sustainable quality development in Lean manufacturing.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative meta-analysis was conducted using data from a three-year study of Lean manufacturing in Sweden using the Shingo business excellence model as an analytical framework.

Findings

This study demonstrates that leaders can develop value-based leadership to support Lean manufacturing by defining and articulating the organization’s values and accompanying behaviors that are needed to support the strategic direction; creating forums and time for leaders to identify the why behind decisions and reflect on their experiences to be able to lead a transformative process; and using storytelling to create a coaching culture to connect values and behaviors, to the processes and systems of work.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes insights for developing value-based leadership to support a systemic approach to sustainable quality development in lean manufacturing. Findings are based on a limited case sample size of three manufacturing companies in Sweden.

Originality/value

The findings were derived using a unique methodological approach combining storytelling, appreciative inquiry and coaching with traditional data collection methods including surveys and interviews to identify, define and shape value-based leadership in Lean manufacturing.

The facilitation of transforming into a better world will have to be ecosystemic, taking into account complex living ecosystems of people, processes, technology, places, and relationships. The transformation will also have to include an important shift in mindset from just being sustainable, reducing negative impacts, to becoming regenerative in terms of creating life-affirming outcomes across the ecosystems. In contributing to that, this paper explores the potential role and function of using teams of ecosystemic enablers for regenerative ecosystem facilitation. Insights are shared from teams and interventions in two ecosystems in Sweden aiming to increase ecosystemic learning, improvement, and regenerative development. 

In recent years, the importance of working collaboratively with improvements through inter-organisational networks has gained attention from academics and practitioners for addressing complex issues. Inter-organisational networks provide a fertile ground for collaboration, as they bring together diverse perspectives, resources, and expertise. The central question explored by this research is what factors stimulate continuous collaborative improvement initiatives in rural development projects in Sweden.

A multisite case study methodology was used to study the start-up of two local development plan processes carried out by local community groups and businesses, facilitated by the local municipality, and financed through EU’s LEADER program. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, analyses of documents, and participant observations at local development workshops. 

The findings indicated that two primary factors were crucial to stimulating continuous collaborative improvement initiatives: 1) structure and processes, and 2) engagement and motivation. The interplay between structure and processes, and between motivation and engagement, was fundamental for stimulating continuous collaborative improvement initiatives. While structure and processes seem to provide the necessary framework and organisation, the study found that motivation and engagement appear to drive sustainable improvement activities. Participants’ motivation and engagement required a clear structure to channel their capacity effectively and point out direction, ensuring that enthusiasm and commitment were maintained. Future collaborative efforts should focus on maintaining this balance, with flexible and inclusive structures supported by trusted facilitators. This synergy has a potential to create significant impact, fostering sustainable and meaningful improvements in rural development projects that benefit the entire community.

This study emphasises that combining resources and expertise can potentially create value unattainable by individual stakeholders alone. These insights offer an understanding of the dynamics of collaborative improvement in inter-organisational networks, helping stakeholders better navigate and leverage collaborative initiatives to address rural challenges and drive sustainable development.

Indigenous systems offer a unique perspective on sustainability and regeneration, emerging from a profound understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the environment. At the core of indigenous cultures lies a way of being in respectful reciprocal relationships with the living.  

Right relations can then be seen as “an obligation to live up to the responsibilities involved when taking part in a relationship—be it to other humans, other species, the land or the climate”. Being in right relationships does then reach into a way of being based on an underlying mindset and awareness. It can therefore be seen as a vital and profound input, inspiration, and foundation for the regenerative transformational change ahead regarding humanity, organizations, and society.  

The need for such input is also currently stressed within the initiative and framework of inner development goals (IDGs). It is a framework that acknowledges that modern humanity seems to lack the inner capacity to deal with our increasingly complex environment and the challenges connected to caring for and sustaining life on this planet (https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/ ). In response to that, the IDG framework raises the importance of developing our abilities to relate to and care for others and the world. One of the most foundational shifts highlighted in the IDG framework is the notion of developing our “inner compass”, that relates to “having a deeply felt sense of responsibility and commitment to values and purposes relating to the good of the whole”. 

The purpose of this paper is to explore and propose how the development of ‘being in right relationship’ and the ‘inner compass’ in the IDG framework might be facilitated by generative questions in appreciative inquiry interview guides.      

This is a conceptual paper, focused on exploring and proposing generative questions to be used within Appreciative Inquiry Interviews. It is an approach that acknowledges the power of questions as fundamental for facilitating change. More specifically, when discussing generative questions in relation to appreciative inquiry, research propose that the generativity of the questions increases if: 1) they are surprising; 2) they touch people’s heart and spirit; 3) talking about and listening to these stories will build relationships; and 4) the questions force us to look at reality a little differently.  

As a result, the paper presents a practical output in terms of questions and question guides for appreciative inquiry interviews aimed to facilitate reflection, learning and transformation towards ‘being in right relationship’ and the ‘inner compass’ in the IDG framework.   

The abstract contributes and relates to leadership development and building capability for continuous improvement and transformation in relation to all of the SDGs. The abstract also relates strongly to the main topic of the conference, as it addresses and elaborates on the destroyed relationship of modern humanity and the notion of sustainability and regeneration as a way of being in right relationship, as practiced by indigenous communities since millennia.   

The paper is submitted to Track 10D and contributes with new insights about Indigenous Systems and Sustainability.