This paper summarizes and elaborates the findings of a research project on leadership as an enabler of professional agency and creativity in information technology organizations. The synthesis in this paper is based on a summary of three primary studies. Each of the studies approached leadership, creativity and/or professional agency with a specific focus. Leaning on a mixed‐methods and ethnographic approach, including various empirical data collection and analytical tools, the project investigated the relationship between professional agency and creativity; issues that frame professional agency and creativity; and the meaning of leadership practices for the enhancement of agency and creativity. The findings highlight a strong connection between professional agency and creativity and their context‐ and situation‐specific manifestations. The findings also address creativity that manifests itself in interaction, processes and collaboration. Further, the findings discuss the role of agile human resource development for professional agency and creativity, and show that flexible leadership practices are necessary in supporting professional agency and creativity.

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This paper addresses the professional learning that occurred in an identity coaching programme. The arts-based programme aimed to enhance the participants' professional learning, notably through helping them to process their professional identities. Professional learning was seen as resourced by the participants' professional agency, and by the promotion of such agency. Via interviews, we investigated what the participants perceived they had learnt during the programme, and the potential differences in learning outcomes between professional groups from university and hospital contexts. The findings showed that the programme was perceived as a rich learning arena in the domains of the professional self (involving a crafted professional identity), professional relationships (involving increased knowledge of colleagues and becoming an active participant in the work community), and professional competencies (involving socio-emotional knowledge and skills). The professionals (academics and administrative personnel) from a university learnt more during the programme than did the nurses and physicians working in a hospital. The findings suggest that the primary emphasis in professional learning should be on professional identity and agency within the social relationships that exist in training and work settings. The paper also presents our theoretical considerations regarding the connection between professional agency and learning.

Purpose Although there has been an increase in workplace studies on professional agency, few of these have examined the role of emotions in the enactment of agency at work. To date, professional agency has been mainly conceptualised as a goal-oriented, rational activity aimed at influencing a current state of affairs. Challenged by this, this study aims to elaborate the nature and quality of emotions and how they might be connected to the enactment of professional agency. Design/methodology/approach Data are collected in the context of a leadership coaching programme that aimed to promote the leaders’ professional agency over the course of a year. The participants (11 middle-management leaders working in university and hospital contexts) were interviewed before and after the programme, and the data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Findings Findings showed that emotions played an important role in the leaders’ enactment of professional agency, as it pertained to their work and to their professional identity. The study suggests that enacting professional agency is by no means a matter of purely rational actions. Practical implications The study suggests that emotional agency can be learned and enhanced through group-based interventions reflecting on and processing one’s own professional roles and work. Originality/value As a theoretical conclusion, the study argues that professional agency should be reconceptualised in such a way as to acknowledge the importance of emotions (one’s own and those of one’s fellow workers) in practising agency within organisational contexts.

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This paper summarises the findings of a research project on interprofessional collaboration in the emergency unit of a major Finnish hospital. The findings are discussed through a broad conceptual framework which involves work process knowledge and interprofessional collaboration. The project, carried out from 2010-2012, investigated different forms of, prerequisites for, and barriers to, collaboration, and the aim was to develop the work together with staff at the unit. An ethnographically informed research strategy was utilised, with observations and interviews as the main data collection methods. On the whole, collaboration in the emergency unit was found to function rather well; i.e. patients receive good-quality treatment within the ideal time frame. We found that in the unit, the most suitable form for the majority of collaborations is multi-professional collaboration, in which professionals exchange information but still adhere strongly to their own professional groups. More interprofessional collaboration is required particularly in leadership and management, to create further improvements in i) the coordination of work as a whole, and ii) the implementation of organisational changes and new professional roles. Obstacles to interprofessional collaboration in particular appear to be: i) diverging professional values and core professional identities, and ii) power relations that create inequality.

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