This chapter provides an introduction to the role of academia in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 8 – to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. Diversity and inequality between and within countries is well documented. This makes achieving SDG 8 complex. Action is needed at both global and local levels and by many actors, including governments, policymakers, the private sector and civil society. Knowledge generation to support such actors with evidence is crucial. In this book we emphasise the important contribution that higher education institutions can and should make to achieve SDG 8. The book provides a critical analysis of the SDG 8 targets and indicators to reveal biases, contradictions and sometimes links to other SDGs. It offers a synthesis of research on each target, making it accessible to other researchers, students and policymakers. The book brings together researchers from a range of disciplines, who applied their tools and critical analysis to illustrate how academia can contribute to fulfilment of SDG 8. We argue that higher education institutions share common values, which we list even if they are contested and under threat. We argue that defending these values, in particular academic autonomy and freedom from political interference, is even more urgent in times of increased populism, de-democratisation and societal questioning of scientific knowledge and academic freedom. Among these values is universities’ commitment to education and research in the public interest. This value motivated a response to the call for action around achieving the SDGs. To achieve this, we argue that working across disciplines and in a transdisciplinary manner – that is, with stakeholders – is essential both when it comes to the identification of challenges and in the methods used to address them. Our aim with this book is to provide a compilation from various viewpoints that will be of use to policymakers, scholars and students interested in how economics, innovation, work science, public health, sociology, occupational and environmental medicine, human resource management, migration and tourism research can contribute to the achievement of SDG 8. 

Global labor market shifts have spurred the need for innovations and adaptations in workplace norms. This evolution demands a workforce with technical and soft skills to meet sustainability and industry advancements. The paper aims to elucidate the complex challenges related to the ambition to develop a socially sustainable, competitive, and green industry subjected to an accelerating pace of change. It outlines the findings of a Delphi study conducted in Sweden, which integrated workshops, interviews, and surveys with experts from various sectors to identify 14 key challenges. These challenges were synthesized into five themes: innovative competence supply management practices, resilient organizations and production systems, analytics for improvement and learning, socially sustainable work, and green transformation practices. The study provides a set of propositions within these themes, offering a strategic roadmap for future research to foster the growth of industries that are socially responsible, competitive, and committed to environmental sustainability. A practical implication of the study is the recognition of the larger competence ecosystem of which industrial companies are a part. This community must work together to create the knowledge needed to manage the shift to a green, sustainable, and digital working life. 

Background: The use of welfare technology is gaining ground in municipal eldercare and is increasingly being integrated into everyday routines. However, the meanings that eldercare personnel attach to welfare technology in the care of older recipients, and thus the domestication of welfare technology, remain largely underexplored. This study explores how eldercare personnel understand and ascribe meanings to welfare technologies in their daily work, with the aim of understanding their domestication. Methods: The empirical material comprised 181 photographs, each paired with corresponding text, from 61 participants across four municipalities in southern Sweden. The empirical material was thematically analysed, focusing on different categories of welfare technologies and their ascribed meanings. In our coding “convenience” and at times “inconvenience” were interpreted as recurrent patterns. Their repeated presence across various contexts and the meanings ascribed to different welfare technologies prompted deeper interpretive engagement, leading us to adopt it as a key theme. In the final step, the codes were synthesised through the lens of “convenience” to better understand the meanings participants attached to welfare technology in eldercare work. Results: The participants ascribed meanings to welfare technology that resonate with broader societal and cultural understandings of technological solutionism, while aligning with national policies promoting welfare technology as a means of supporting safety, activity and independence for older adults. Welfare technology was often understood as both convenient and an act of care. Our analysis uncovered different dimensions of “convenience”, which we labelled as: “remote surveillance convenience”, “logistics convenience”, “communication convenience”, “safety convenience”, “comforting convenience” and “activation convenience”. Yet, in some cases, welfare technology was also seen as a hindrance to care, being inconvenient due to its inflexibility, technical difficulties and the tendency to create duplicate tasks. Conclusion: This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the domestication of welfare technology in eldercare. Our study found that eldercare personnel engage with and interpret welfare technologies by ascribing meanings related to perceived convenience — a concept not widely explored in this context. Welfare technologies were often seen as convenient substitutes for physical proximity and relational care, such as “remote surveillance convenience” through cameras and “comforting convenience” via robotic pets. However, convenience, while central to the participants’ experiences, should not be understood as inherently “good” or positive but as part of the domestication process, shaped by socio-technical contexts and the political economy of eldercare, which prioritises effectiveness and efficiency. By shedding light on these dynamics, our study examines how the domestication of welfare technology is shaped by and reinforces broader discourses of technological solutionism, raising questions about its long-term impact on care practices.

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic was a major challenge for health care and eldercare service all over the world, regarding prevention of spread of contagion to both the elderly and care workers. This study used a mix method design, aiming to identify important conditions for Occupational Health and Safety Management (OHSM) in practice in home care and nursing homes, in general and regarding the prevention of spread of contagion. The result show how conditions for OHSM differed according to eldercare setting and had stronger importance in homecare, both pre-pandemic and in pandemic. Routines and standardized procedures of OHSM was introduced and improved during the pandemic. The routines and standardized procedures had importance for OHSM and COVID-specific OHSM, especially in homecare (r2: 0,86) but also in nursing homes (r2: 0,39). Team communication of risks, work adjustments and equality climate were also of importance. The OHSM work in homecare was understood as Rooms for re-constructing standardized guidelines to un-standardized settings. The practice of safety work was formed by room for elders’ independent decisions of forming their homes and by room for groupthink shaped by employees’ earlier knowledge experiences and norms. Supportive conditions with equal climate, explicable routines, visual instructions and reflections of OHSM have stronger importance where work environments are unstandardized and work and organizational conditions underdeveloped (i.e. homecare). To better bridge the gap between work as imagine and done in unstandardized contexts, conditions in general and specifically the opportunities to reflect and adapt routines together need to be improved. 

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a radical transition to work from home. Recent studies have focused on the individual employee’s cognitive, physical, and mental resources, lacking the interactions between human, technology, and organization (HTO), and teams handling of the radical transition. This study explored the sensemaking processes of the narratives of teams’ radical transitions to work from home. Chronicle workshops with seven teams and 13 semi-structured interviews with managers were thematically analysed in narratives and through HTO interactions. The narratives showed how crisis boosted development of efficient human - technology interactions and increased possibilities for individuals’ work-life balance and flexibility. Organizational priorities and strategies were not adapted in time to support sensemaking processes of the teams. Thus, the study indicates that interactions between human and organization could have been accelerated during COVID-19 to support sensemaking and development of remote leadership practices for a sustainable post-pandemic work-life.   

The aim of this design project is to explore ways of co-designing instructional videos, together with representatives from the elderly care sector, that show how to use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) related to the Covid-19 pandemic and how to follow basic hygiene routines. We have used Design Thinking (DT) and Research through design (RtD) methodology. The results show that the main improvements derived from using a co-design process were input on the details needed to make the video more realistic and reflective of real-world scenarios.

The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for universal design of manual assembly workplaces. Workplaces that are adapted to different individuals, regardless of gender, language, background and functional variations, also support the fundamental goals of the Industry 5.0 concept and an accessible, safer, productive and error-proof work environment. The study included: 1) a qualitative study on key factors for universal design and comparison with universal design theory; 2) improvement suggestions to the company based on observations, interviews and theory; 3) a framework for universal design. The framework included the following areas: personalisation and context, activities/tasks and output, and methods/standards and factors were suggested so that companies could start their analysis work for the design. The study resulted in new insights and empirics regarding universal workplace design. [Submitted 13 November 2022; Accepted 13 April 2023]

The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for universal design of manual assembly workplaces. Workplaces that are adapted to different individuals, regardless of gender, language, background and functional variations, also support the fundamental goals of the Industry 5.0 concept and an accessible, safer, productive and error-proof work environment. The study included: 1) a qualitative study on key factors for universal design and comparison with universal design theory; 2) improvement suggestions to the company based on observations, interviews and theory; 3) a framework for universal design. The framework included the following areas: personalisation and context, activities/tasks and output, and methods/standards and factors were suggested so that companies could start their analysis work for the design. The study resulted in new insights and empirics regarding universal workplace design.

This report presents the findings of a Delphi study coordinated by Linköping University (LiU) in collaboration with RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and the Chalmers University of Technology. The study was carried out in 2022 as part of a Vinnova-funded planning project aimed at establishing an interdisciplinary research environment to prepare an application for a new competence centre focused on building a long-term, sustainable Swedish industry. The Delphi study aimed to identify key challenges related to the ambition to develop a socially sustainable, competitive, and green industry subjected to an accelerating pace of change. The Delphi study was based on an interactive research approach to facilitate the cocreation of knowledge for the dual purpose of advancing long-term theory development and innovation processes. The consortium and its reference groups consist of industrial companies (such as AstraZeneca, Ericsson IndustryLab, Rimaster, Saab Aeronautics, Scania, Volvo GTO and Volvo Cars), intermediaries and educational actors (such as Skill, IUC Sverige and Linköping Science Park), labour market organisations (including IF Metall, Industriarbetsgivarna, Unionen, and Teknikföretagen), governmental agencies (the Office for Sustainable Working life), and researchers from LiU, Chalmers, and RISE. There are key industrial targets forming the starting point for the Delphi study that also guide policies and investments in strategic agendas for the industrial stakeholders. For the Swedish industry to be resilient and sustainable, new competence and organisational abilities are required to decrease the dependency on fossil energy in production. Transformation towards electrification, circular economy, and digitalisation are key enablers, and these transitions are ongoing and accelerating at a fast pace. Furthermore, new and constantly emerging targets require organisational resilience, like managing new requirements and targets within energy consumption and supply of competence. The findings of this report include a total of 14 identified challenges. To organise and create conditions for flexible work for all To successfully manage crises and drastic external events To successfully drive and contribute to the green industrial transformation To facilitate employee-driven innovation and organisational learning To attract, develop and retain employees with the right skills To take advantage of and exploit the opportunities of digitalisation To create inclusive workplaces and utilise diversity To organise competence development To collaborate with external parties to ensure the availability of competence To design for socially sustainable work considering efficiency and good health in a dynamic environment To organise the creation of added value for and together with customers and suppliers To systematically drive continuous improvement work in parallel with long-term development work To develop leadership that creates better opportunities both for a climate-neutral footprint and a competitive industry with good working conditions To transform research- and policy-based knowledge into practice The 14 challenges were further analysed according to perceived importance and ability and presented in a priority matrix. According to the priority matrix, the 14 challenges were then synthesised into six main research themes: A. Innovative competence supply practice, B. Resilient organisations & production systems, C. Analytics for improvement & learning, D. Socially sustainable work, E. Green transformation practices, and an open and undefined research theme labelled as Future challenges. The research themes are also presented together with six main analytical and theoretical perspectives in a matrix that can be used to intersect and interweave the research themes to guide the research agenda in a potential future research program.

Syftet med projektet var att utveckla metodstöd för ledarskap och organisatoriskt lärande i produktionsteam för att åstadkomma välmående företag och medarbetare, med innovationsförmåga och en utvecklande organisatorisk och social arbetsmiljö. Projektet avsåg att belysa a) Vilka förutsättningar finns det för ledarskap i produktionsteam givet den pågående teknikutvecklingen; b) Vilka förutsättningar finns det för organisatoriskt lärande i produktionsteam givet den pågående teknikutvecklingen; c) Vad krävs av ett metodstöd för ledarskap och organisatoriskt lärande i produktionsteam för en god organisatorisk och social arbetsmiljö?

Intervjuer och observationer synliggjorde motstridiga förutsättningar och förväntningar där produktionsledarna förväntades främja lärande, stödja ständiga förbättringar, problemlösning och medarbetarnas utveckling. Produktionsledarna använde liknande beskrivningar men observationsstudierna synliggjorde ett gap mellan förväntningar på ledarskapet och förutsättningar att utöva det i praktiken. I merparten av företagen präglades produktionsledarnas arbetsdagar av stark uppgiftsorientering, mycket interaktion och reaktiv problemlösning med ansvar för många medarbetare som var spridda på olika arbetstider. Det saknades forum, tid och plats där produktionsledare tillsammans med kollegor kunde utbyta erfarenheter och reflektera kring det ledarskap som utövades. Personalomsättningen bland såväl produktionsledare som operativ personal samt återkommande organisationsförändringar, högt tempo i produktion med brist på tid för förbättringsarbete och reflektion hindrade kontinuerligt lärande inom och mellan team.

I den interaktiva utvecklingsprocessen valde företagen olika aktiviteter för att främja dialog, lärande och en hållbar arbetssituation. De lärande utvärderingarna som gjordes pekar på hur utvecklade arbetssätt stärkt ledarskapets förutsättningar vilket främjat välbefinnande och i sin tur lärande. En första version till metodstöd har tagits fram baserat på teori och erfarenheter i företagen med delar om vad som a) karakteriserar en verksamhet som kontinuerligt lär och utvecklas; b) påverkar gruppers lärandemiljö; c) krävs för en hållbar arbetssituation samt d) kännetecknar ett ledarskap som främjar lärande och utveckling. Vidare inryms en processbeskrivning för att ta sig från målbild till praktik för att stärka ledarskap och lärande med exempel från företagen.