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Aim. The current article aims to gain insight into (a) what characterises organisational resilience during an unexpected crisis such as COVID-19 and (b) how organisations respond to developments in their environments. Background. In times of societal crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the resilience of the healthcare organisation is tested. Method. This research is based on a case study in a university hospital and a county hospital in Sweden using surveys with both structured and open answers. Results. The result shows ambiguity and “polarised” experiences, emphasising flexibility vs. structure, clear hierarchical information vs. spaces for peer learning through dialogue, and focus on acute care vs. determination to continue with core operations. Conclusion. The article concludes that the pandemic resulted in paradoxes, tensions, and new experiences in organisational processes and interactions. These create opportunities for learning not only during crises but also for improving nursing management in both acute and planned care. Three relations are important in building organisational resilience in crises: resilience capability, resilience capacity, and sustainable resilience practices. Implications for Nursing Management. Organisational resilience under extraordinary circumstances, such as a pandemic, as well as enhancing the previous literature on nursing management that offer a more individually oriented perspective.

PurposeThis study was undertaken in order to show how talent management (TM) was performed in practice in a multinational organization as well as how the TM practices affected both different groups of workers and the perception of talent within the organization.Design/methodology/approachPerforming talent management was reassessed in the relationship between TM practices, view and identification of talent, attributed positioning and self-positioning of older and younger workers; retrieved from an exploratory single case study in a multinational organization, based on interviews.FindingsThe findings illustrate that despite the struggling to fill key positions with skilled workers, the studied organization adopted approaches to TM that excluded older workers' talent. First, central to performing TM was how talent was viewed and identified, and second, two types of positioning acts were important: the organizations (re)producing of talent management through attributive positioning acts on older/younger workers and older workers' self-positioning of their own talent. The two sides of performing talent management were complex and intertwined resulting in an age-based devaluation of talent at work.Practical implicationsThe study points to important issues in designing and performing TM that may be useful to HR and managers as a point of departure in the development of more inclusive approaches to TM.Originality/valueThe concept “performing talent management” was developed as an intertwined relationship between on-going positioning acts and (re)production of status, talent and age at work; recognizing preferences of what was viewed and identified as valued talent as main drivers made it possible to develop an understanding of exclusion and inclusion mechanisms in performing TM.

Gunilla Westman Andersson,1,2 Nanna Gillberg,3 Carmela Miniscalco4 1Department of Education and Special Education, Faculty of Education, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; 2Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; 3Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; 4Neuropsychiatric Department and Pediatric Speech and Language Pathology Department, Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital & Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, SwedenCorrespondence: Gunilla Westman AnderssonDepartment of Education and Special Education, Box 300, Gothenburg, 40530, SwedenTel +46 31 342 5970Email gunilla.andersson@gu.seBackground: In Sweden, children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as well as other children in need of special support, according to the law should be provided stimulation and support for their development in their preschools. Parents of children diagnosed with ASD have been shown to struggle to ensure the right to support for their child from society, including in preschool. This study reports parent expectations and experiences when having a child diagnosed with ASD in preschool.Methods: A questionnaire with 12 open-ended and 9 multiple-choice questions was completed by parents of 26 children (3 girls, 23 boys, mean age 4:3 years). The children had been diagnosed with ASD within the last year. The data were analyzed using a qualitative inductive approach with a content analysis of the open-ended questions.Findings and Conclusions: This study shows that parents expect competence and knowledge about ASD among preschool staff, including the principal. They need continuous dialogue between parents and the preschool staff and expect individualized support for their child. Concerns about their child in preschool frequently occurred.Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, children, parents, preschool

Previous studies of flexibilisation through employer-controlled flexible scheduling and off-site isolated work have shown how such practices have detrimental effects on workers’ wellbeing. This qualitative study, set in Swedish retail, adds to previous findings by showing how flexible scheduling practices that include irregular variation of work hours and headcount have consequences also for worker interaction in the workplace. Even on-site work can be experienced as isolating if workers are ‘spread too thin’ in efforts to reduce labour costs. Set in two different retail settings, the study demonstrates and discusses how inter-employee competition and co-dependency are created, respectively. The authors also discuss how the flexibilisation described in this study reduced possibilities for face-to-face meetings and communication between co-workers, between workers and managers, and between workers and union representatives. Finally, it is discussed how the kind of flexibilisation described in this study coincides with defeatism and barriers to collective voice as well as action.

The pandemic spread of COVID-19 grew inexorably to be the main topic of global news after it was first identified in 2019 in China. This article analyzes how heads of state and heads of government in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden framed the problems and solutions to the spread of the virus during the pandemic's initial phase. A Foucauldian-inspired method of problematization guides the narrative analysis, complemented by governmentality, risk communication, and taskscape theories. The results of the analysis show how the individual is conceptualized as a central actor and whose practices are framed as crucial to overcoming the crisis. Through invoking a sense of responsibility, sacrifice, and current life during the pandemic as a difficult time, the speeches allude to how people through changed behavior can/sould, contribute to the greater good. The individual is positioned as a key cause of, and solution to the problem; however, construing the individual as an indispensable actor to overcoming the crisis also means that the individual is laid open for reprehension. To facilitate the spread of the containment message and to support individual understanding of overt risk, the four countries' leadership also augment their conceptualization of the crisis with ideas of national identity to inspire the individual to contribute to the “battle” and “defeat” of the virus. The leadership does also embrace the important role of the national government in controlling the outbreak and the role of science, and trust in science, are also emphasized. The speeches analyzed in this paper can be understood as governance technologies; the spatial disciplining and self-governance demanded by the regimes create subject positions for individuals or groups. A debate on the rights and responsibilities of the citizen is another aspect that comes to the fore, considering how the containment strategies in all four countries proclaim the individual as a core agent in circumscribing the virus, and hence the individual's activities as potentially damaging to the fight against the pandemic. This throws into question the connection between individual autonomy as a democratic right and disciplinary mechanisms, sometimes phrased encouragingly and at other times in an enforcing way.

Organisation of health care for families with young children with autism in a multiethnic community in Gothenburg, Sweden In a project in a multiethnic district in Gothenburg a local collaborative model with a multiprofessional team for families with young children with autism has been running for three years. The model allows assessments and intervention planning close to the family's local environment. The project has revealed that the time from identification of problems to assessment and intervention has been considerably shortened compared to the situation before the local collaborative model was started.

Gunilla Westman Andersson, Carmela Miniscalco, Nanna Gillberg Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Background: Early support and interventions are suggested to be important for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental problems and their families. Parents are described to have a burdensome life situation where the child’s problems have a great impact on the family’s well-being. Aim: To obtain increased knowledge of parents’ experiences of support and interventions 6 years after their child was assessed for ASD. Methods and procedures: A semi-structured questionnaire was sent to all parents (n=101) whose preschool children (

Intuitive grasping of the meaning of subtle social cues is particularly affected in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Despite their relevance in social communication, the effect of averted gaze in fearful faces in conveying a signal of environmental threat has not been investigated using real face stimuli in adults with ASD. Here, using functional MRI, we show that briefly presented fearful faces with averted gaze, previously shown to be a strong communicative signal of environmental danger, produce different patterns of brain activation than fearful faces with direct gaze in a group of 26 normally intelligent adults with ASD compared with 26 matched controls. While implicit cue of threat produces brain activation in attention, emotion processing and mental state attribution networks in controls, this effect is absent in individuals with ASD. Instead, individuals with ASD show activation in the subcortical face-processing system in response to direct eye contact. An effect of differences in looking behavior was excluded in a separate eye tracking experiment. Our data suggest that individuals with ASD are more sensitive to direct eye contact than to social signals of danger conveyed by averted fearful gaze.