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Drawing on previous research into evaluation use and sustainable development, this article investigates to what extent and how a national evaluation system can advance sustainable development. The data comprise interviews with key actors, observations at seminars where evaluations were discussed, and analysis of evaluation reports. The actors were divided into three categories (i.e. central, proximal, and peripheral) to indicate their closeness to the national policy cycle. The results indicate that the evaluations were used mainly by central and proximal actors, primarily because the evaluation knowledge met most of their knowledge needs, and very little used by peripheral actors, such as environmental and business organizations. The evaluation system's main influence was to consolidate environmental work and provide guidance on the environmental dimension of sustainable development at the national level. The evaluation system also served as a recurring reminder for stakeholders about the national objectives, their achievement, and everyone's responsibility for their implementation.

This article investigates what can be achieved by one particular management by objectives system – i.e. the Swedish National Environmental Quality Objectives system and its evaluation function. A critical programme theory analysis is first developed to reconstruct the programme theory of the National Environmental Quality Objectives system. Next, the robustness of the programme theory is analysed in terms of internal consistency, theoretical support and empirical support. The results indicate that, while some assumptions underlying the National Environmental Quality Objectives system are valid, the National Environmental Quality Objectives' programme theory has low validity in several respects. The evaluative knowledge the system produces is only partly relevant to or useable by local actors and industry. While the state of the environment is observed and measured in the monitoring and evaluation reports, the direct effects of environmental policy and work are not evaluated, which is a main weakness of the National Environmental Quality Objectives system. It is unlikely that the current evaluation function can effectively support achievement of the National Environmental Quality Objectives environmental objectives. The article suggests that evaluations in support of network governance are more likely to support National Environmental Quality Objectives achievement and sustainable development.

This paper is concerned with the interlocking of democratic values and evaluation systems. A central issue in evaluation has been adherence to democratic values by speaking truth to power or taking an inclusive approach to evaluands. In parallel with these democratic endeavours, evaluation design has increasingly moved from ad-hoc evaluations toward evaluation systems. The question we raise in this paper is how compatible the democratic endeavours of evaluation are with the rise of evaluation systems as the modus operandi. We apply this question to the case of the Swedish school system and its built-in evaluation system: systematic quality work (SQW). In order to explore the research question, school principals were asked to articulate how the democratic mission is visible in their SQW. The results indicate that prominent managing logics at different school levels seem to affect how well democratic values are incorporated into the SQW, highlighting the need to address the institutional and governing setting of evaluation systems in combination with the actors' roles and decisions in accordance with the democratic evaluation literature.

This article studies the organisational view inherent in a public management and leadership development programme. Organisational views are important to study as they guide and frame the actions of the members of the organisation. In the management and leadership development programme under investigation the organisational view was a linguistic-discursive representation that was empirically inept, but which nevertheless was offered as a guide to the managers. Inspired by Clifford Geertz's notion of religion we suggest conceptualising the presented organisational view as the deep organisation. The analysis contributes to the literature on public management and leadership development programmes by calling attention to the implicit concepts of organisation that on the one hand provide managers with the motivation and authority to carry out their daily ordering of the constantly fluctuating empirical organisation, while to some extent making managers immune to experience-based learning on the other. The notion of the deep organisation expands our understanding of the layered nature of assumptions about organisations, through which seeming contradictions can be handled. In the discussion we outline three important implications of the analysed organisational view.

This paper is concerned with the interlocking of democratic values and evaluation systems. A central issue in evaluation has been adherence to democratic values by speaking truth to power or taking an inclusive approach to evaluands. In parallel with these democratic endeavours, evaluation design has increasingly moved from ad-hoc evaluations toward evaluation systems. The question we raise in this paper is how compatible the democratic endeavours of evaluation are with the rise of evaluation systems as the modus operandi. We apply this question to the case of the Swedish school system and its built-in evaluation system: systematic quality work (SQW). In order to explore the research question, school principals were asked to articulate how the democratic mission is visible in their SQW. The results indicate that prominent managing logics at different school levels seem to affect how well democratic values are incorporated into the SQW, highlighting the need to address the institutional and governing setting of evaluation systems in combination with the actors' roles and decisions in accordance with the democratic evaluation literature.

This paper is concerned with the interlocking of democratic values and evaluation systems. A central issue in evaluation has been adherence to democratic values by speaking truth to power or taking an inclusive approach to evaluands. In parallel with these democratic endeavours, evaluation design has increasingly moved from ad-hoc evaluations toward evaluation systems. The question we raise in this paper is how compatible the democratic endeavours of evaluation are with the rise of evaluation systems as the modus operandi. We apply this question to the case of the Swedish school system and its built-in evaluation system: systematic quality work (SQW). In order to explore the research question, school principals were asked to articulate how the democratic mission is visible in their SQW. The results indicate that prominent managing logics at different school levels seem to affect how well democratic values are incorporated into the SQW, highlighting the need to address the institutional and governing setting of evaluation systems in combination with the actors' roles and decisions in accordance with the democratic evaluation literature.

Followership research has increased recently, but little attention has been paid to the complexities and challenges of creating a followership identity. Researchers typically portray followership as a safe alternative to leadership identity, but we challenge this assumption by using naturally occurring workplace interactions to identify active contributions as well as risks associated with a follower identity. In this study, we use conversation analysis to examine how people collaboratively construct identities, and how identity development shapes and organizes interactions between people. The findings reveal the risks of misidentifying the task at hand, of being too authoritative, and of claiming too much knowledge. Also, our analyses highlight that leader and follower roles remain abstract in workplace interactions and, instead, people focus more on negotiated, task-oriented, practical identities.

Leadership is generally seen not only as an inspiring and motivating force but also as having important organizing properties. Despite this common assumption, the organizing properties of leadership have not yet been clarified sufficiently or demonstrated empirically. In this study, such organizing properties are revealed through a detailed analysis of one single work episode, drawn from an ethnographic study of leadership in a bank. Using conversation analysis, the study shows that leadership, understood as an interpersonal influence process, enables and facilitates organizing processes. As expected, this involves establishment of episodic closures, but also resistance to such. Further, the study shows important influence and organizing functions of situated collective identities-in-interaction, which render the involved individuals interdependent.

Healthcare organizations are challenged by complexity in structure and knowledge, and heterogeneity in deliveries and patient demands. Reductionist managerial approaches fall short in resolving the quality issues of healthcare, but Scientific Management and New Public Management (NPM) nevertheless has a strong hold on leadership thinking in hospitals. Increasing demand for adaptive and collaborative capacity emphazises the need to rethink the way we organize and lead these organisations. We conducted semi-structured interviews, examining the organizational and leadership thinking of 14 key decision makers, hospital directors and ward leaders, holding a key role in planning and implementing new organisational structures in the Region of Southern Denmark. Informants stress the organizational complexity, and the need for better coordination and collaboration across boundaries. In contrast, they present leadership discourses that are grounded on hierarchical positions and individual agency. Hospitals are complex organisations characterised by extensive bureaucracy, struggling with quality issues, attributable to rigid organisational boundaries and the dominant SM and NPM thinking. We show that an organisational change meant to address this problem is not accompanied by a similar change in leadership constructs, and we offer ideas of complexity leadership, enhancing relational coordination, adaptability and flexibility.