Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide background to this special issue and consider how critically oriented research can be applied to health and social care management. Design/methodology/approach – Basic principles of critical management studies are introduced briefly to frame...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the discursive construction of multimorbidity. The study illustrates how the social reality of multimorbidity and the agency of patients are discursively constructed in scientific articles addressing care for people with multiple...

Purpose – Not only does leadership produce changes, but those changes produce leadership in organisations. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical and empirical analysis of the transformation of leadership at two different historical points in a health care organisation. It leans...

Purpose – Finland represents one of the Nordic welfare states where the role of the public sector as the organiser and provider of health and social care is strong. However, the amount of voluntary work in social and health care services is surprisingly big. The strongest advocates for keeping...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse how accounts of collaboration practice were made and used to construct accountability in the empirical context of coordination associations, a Swedish form of collaboration between four authorities in health and social care. They feature pooled...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of reforms designed to address economic and demographic challenges in England with reference to the authors’ own empirical work providing a critique of their impact and suggesting a way to improve the quality of social care for...