AHEAD OF PRINT

Agile management thinking has influenced organisations in several ways, but the focus of this paper is on the deprojectification of agile software development. The new agile orthodoxy has been promoted by popular books, in blogs and by Spotify and other firms: agile teams should be aligned to products or domains (not projects); cover development, maintenance and operations (to reduce handover problems); and have a long-term character (to build trust, identity and domain knowledge). We first describe and contextualise the new agile orthodoxy and then, based on an empirical study of two different “agile cases,” we describe and analyse how employees and middle managers perceived the rationale behind the change to long-term teams, how they understood teams as the basic unit of the structure, their perceptions of the resource and disciplinary dimensions of the organisation and the decline of projects and project managers.

The year 2020 was challenging and demanding for humankind. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic compelled thousands of organizations to shift their operations online and millions of employees to work from home. Many have compared this crisis to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, another inconceivable incident that changed the way we think and act today. This study analyzes three leaders in the context of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, who proved to be role models of leadership during crisis situations and, thereby, have contributed to the evolution of crisis leadership. By doing so, it attempts to define the constituents of effective crisis leadership and fill the relevant gap in the existing literature on crisis leadership. The current study’s limitations, implications for practitioners, and suggestions for further research needed to shed light on cases of effective leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic are also discussed.

The decision to disclose or not disclose a diagnosis of mental illness (MI) is complex and influenced by a variety of factors. Research into MI disclosure has commonly focused on investigating the singular parts of the disclosure process, thus failing to capture an understanding of the individual’s holistic experience of MI disclosure. This paper seeks to gain an understanding of the phenomenon of workplace MI disclosure from the perspective of the disclosing employee. By doing so we gain an understanding of how they make sense of this experience which should help shape MI workplace policies and practices. Using a qualitative research approach and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), interviews took place with three Irish women who had previously disclosed a mental illness in the workplace. Within the findings, three superordinate themes emerged: (1) Antecedents of Disclosure, (2) Disclosure Outcomes and the Organisation (3) Disclosure Outcomes and the Self. Without an understanding of the consequent impact of disclosure on employees’ post-disclosure work-life, appropriate resources and supports cannot be developed.