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The psychologist profession has been characterized by an attitude to education for employment, and often employment in the public sector. The outside world has changed and so also the labour market for the psychologist. Today, it's not as obvious to the psychology program only to prepare students for a working life as an employee, but also for a working life with elements of self-employment and entrepreneurship. The aim of this paper is to describe how we developed one course in the education of psychologist to meet this challenge.

The purpose of this course has been to influence attitudes towards entrepreneurship and to develop skills to apply entrepreneurship. To meet this challenge as educator, cooperation between the Department of Psychology and Umeå School of Business and Economics (USBE) were initiated for the course on the Masters Programme in Sports Psychology. To our knowledge this is unique in educating future psychologists in Sweden.

One important aim with the course is that the students are going to learn how to combine their knowledge in psychology with entrepreneurship and use it in an applied way. One main moment of the course is to stimulate their creative ability and innovation to increase their opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial orientation and risk willingness. To achieve this the students are encourage to create their own business ideas, where they take their knowledge in psychology and generate a new service or product to use in the field of sports and health. At the end of the course they present their business idea in front of bankers, business consultants and business angels. Results from our measurements and evaluation go in the same direction as proposed by Fayol (2001), and that entrepreneurship can be taught. After the course the students are better prepared for the future working life as a clinical psychologist, both as employed and self-employed. This approach should also be considered for other educational programs, because the working life is changing for them as well. One benefit for the students has been the interdisciplinary collaboration between psychology and business administration.

The main objective of this study was to provide a contribution to the entrepreneurship education field through evaluating and describing changes in students' attitudes towards entrepreneurship. A pre-test and post-test design was used to evaluate a course design where sport psychology was the main topic with an embedded element of entrepreneurship education. The course was part of university program in Masters Programme in Sports Psychology or Physical Trainer Programme. Sport psychology-students are not the traditional group of students that are selected and trained to get both skills and a positive entrepreneur mindset. There were 39 students completing both the pre-test and post-test questionnaire (response rate 84.4%), mean age 23 years (SD=2.90). Both the pre- and post-test results showed that the sport psychology students had positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, and the embedded course design have significant effect on students' subjective perception of their ability to create and commercialize new ideas. The results from this case study shown that an embedded course design with sport psychology and entrepreneurial education make it possible to strengthen students' entrepreneurial attitudes. The positive results point out that it is important to continue examine embedded coursed designs between entrepreneurial education and non-traditional areas (e.g., physiotherapists, dentists, architects, e.g.).

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the impacts of Management by Objectives (MBO) on upper secondary school education in Sweden. In particular the goal is to increase our understanding of how the implementation of MBO affects the schools and the role of head teachers. In addition this work seeks to generate new knowledge about the factors that influence the performance of head teachers. This dissertation includes four separate, but interconnected articles, each addressing a different aspect of the impact of MBO on schools and head teachers, it begins with an overview of all material.

A multi-theoretical approach is taken here, using insights from diffusion theory, goal setting theory and role stress theory to guide the research. Even though qualitative methods are used the quantitative methods dominate the dissertation and most of the data is collected from a mail survey of head teachers. The results confirm the findings of other research that the diffusion of new ideas (in this the context MBO) stalls when it is introduced into local environments within which day to day work takes place. Goal setting and role stress theory are integrated, which makes it possible to show that role commitment had both functional and dysfunctional effects. It shows that efficacy plays a mediating role between stressors and performance and that the relationship between stressors and self-efficacy is not linear. Finally, the nature of the different stressors are described and role design has an impact on the level of them. All of these findings have practical implications for those responsible for education and school policy.

The first article in the dissertation looks at how well MBO has been implemented in the upper secondary scools and its impact on student performance and school effectiveness. The results of the stydy are that head teachers report that the effects of MBO have declined over time. Its implementation appears not to have influenced student performance. On the other hand, it seems to have rediced teacher stress, but increased head teachers´ sense of frustration.

The second article argues in contrast to previous research that goal commitment can have both a positive and negative effect on rple performance and conceptualizes self-efficacy as a mediator between commitment and performance. The findings of the study show that self-efficacy does act as a mediator and that high commitment can have both positive and negative consequences. In particular, high commitment can improve performance by reducing role ambiguity, but it also drives role overload, which can reduce performance.

The third article builds on the findings of article two in order to deepen our understanding of the impact of self-efficacy on head teacher performance. In contrast to most of the literature it shows that stressors might have positive effects and that self-efficacy is involved in these relationships. The research presented in the article confirms that both role conflict and role ambiguity influence self-efficacy in a non-linear way.

The focus of the final article focuses on the design of the role of the head teacher and how this impacts stress levels. The results show that when the head teacher´s role includes significant economic responsibility and more space to maneuver, or less, they experience role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload differently. Overall, the results suggest that it would be beneficial to take the factors that this study has shown to be important for head teacher´s performance into consideration when the role is designed.

Purpose - Purpose – This paper seeks to explore how principals use their time when the requirement exceeds the activities are desirable. In the scholarly debate it has been pointed out the heads think that too much time is devoted for the financial and administrative issues, or to solve acute problems. This means that there is not enough time to work with educational issues. The purpose of this study is to clarify how principals use the time they have devoted for the educational area and what activities they prioritize. It will also increase our knowledge of reasons behind their prioritizing and reflect on some of the consequences. Results relate to the question if introduction of performance measures has increased a short term perspective on student performance or if it works as a suitabel tool for the principals to achieve the schools goals and to create more effective schools in the long run. The question if stakeholders can get required insight by the performance measures as they are designed today and if the principals got the right incentives is raised.

Design/methodology/approach - Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative approach is used and a mail questionnaire was distributed to the principals in all upper secondary schools in Sweden and a comparative cross-sectional study was conducted

Findings - Findings – Principals' perceptions suggest that, their prioritization when working with educational issues is influenced by a more short term perspective and that they prioritize teaching, which have a much faster impact on student outcome, over long-term school development which facilitate the conditions for the former. These findings increase our insight into the need, for as well stakeholders as principals, to develop performance measures to stimulate change when needed.

Practical implications - Practical implications – These findings have implications on the direction of the development of performance measures. The result points out the lack of transparence for stakeholders and uncovers the need to know when change and long term development is ongoing or not. The study show how principals need incentives for prioritizing these activities and that this can be done by the stakeholder by designing required measurements for as well teaching as long term school development when change is needed or to maintain a successful process.

Originality/value - Originality/value – This paper fulfills an identified need to study how the performance measures of today can be complemented with measures for stakeholders for increased insight in ongoing activities with development and required change for long term school success.

The Anglo-Saxon countries have implemented Management by Objectives (MBO) complemented with school-based management (SBM) fairly rapidly. Although these countries are considered something of a benchmark of stability, research on principals reveals that they experience high levels of stress and that this is associated with poorer job performance. These findings raise the question of whether increased stress and poorer performance are the result of the new SBM role. In this article, empirical research on Sweden is used to address this question. While Sweden has not come as far as England in the implementation of SBM, it is farther along than other European countries. Paying specific attention to the SBM role, the article uses a qualitative method to describe the implementation of MBO in two cases with different characteristics, one centralized and one decentralized. A quantitative method is also used to conduct a large scale study of stress levels among all principals in upper secondary schools in Sweden. The results indicate that the choice of whether to retain the traditional principal role, developed at a time of centralized management by rules, or to replace it with a new SBM role influences the level of stress that principals experience, although in different ways. The practical implications of these findings are discussed in the final section of the paper.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on the test of a pedagogical intervention to enhance students' entrepreneurial mindset on a university course.

Design/methodology/approach – The course where the authors tested the new course design is a mandatory one in the business school’s undergraduate business program. Pre- and post-evaluations of the students’ opportunity recognition (OR) and individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) were carried out to measure the effects of an intervention aimed at enhancing these capabilities.

Findings – The results from paired-samples t-tests indicate significant positive changes (enhancements) of the students’ OR and IEO. The positive effects of the intervention methods are accounted for as evidence of the benefits of applying pedagogical methods that fit the learning style of young adults.

Practical implications – The findings suggest that students’ mindsets can be positively affected by an intervention tailored to enhance their OR and IEO capabilities. The findings have implications for curriculum development because the strengthening of these capabilities is a precondition for further development of the participants’ innovative and creative thinking, as well as their entrepreneurial orientation.  Since innovative and entrepreneurial activities have a positive impact on economies worldwide, the authors encourage the adaption of the intervention methods applied in this study in other settings.

Originality/value – This paper reports the results of a pedagogical intervention aimed at enhancing students’ entrepreneurial mindset. The findings from the study demonstrate that the applied intervention method supports the development of functional skills, which complement the conceptual knowledge gained from other courses in the undergraduate program.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of intervention methods in an entrepreneurship education (EE) course that was designed to enhance the students' entrepreneurial mindset by targeting their opportunity identification, creativity and risk management capabilities (RMC). Design/methodology/approach - The authors formulate hypotheses on enhancement of opportunity identification, creativity and RMC, and they test them using data collected from pre- and post-tests of three courses: one treatment course group and two control course groups. Findings - The pretests and posttests of the treatment course demonstrate that the applied intervention methods have a positive impact on how the participants perceive their opportunity identification and creative capabilities. The participants in the control groups, which used a traditional course design, reported no such effects. Combined, the authors' findings suggest that the new intervention methods positively affected the participants' entrepreneurial mindset. Originality/value - This study contributes to extant EE literature by examining the question of how certain pedagogical intervention methods enhance the participants' self-efficacy with regard to possessing opportunity identification, creativity and RMC. The findings reported in this paper have implications for EE scholars, program evaluators and managers who seek methods to enhance the entrepreneurial mindset of people in their organizations.

This study sets out to examine schools principals’ perception of the importance of school-based management (SBM) and instructional leadership tasks and their assessment of the performance of those tasks in Swedish upper secondary schools. A review of the literature on SBM and instructional leadership results in a list of twenty one tasks grouped into administrative, firefighting, and instructional leadership. Analysis of the survey responses from 234 principals shows that 80% of administrative and 75% of firefighting tasks were seen as highly important and performed well, while 68% of instructional leadership tasks were perceived as of having lower importance and performance. Implications for school principals and policy-makers are discussed and venues forfuture research are outlined.

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore how managing by objectives (MBO) has been adopted in Swedish schools and to reflect on some of the consequences in a longitudinal study. Results relate to whether introduction has increased student performance and whether it works as a tool for the principals to create more effective schools. Design/methodology/approach – A comparative cross-sectional study was made on the adoption of MBO as perceived by principals in upper secondary schools in Sweden. Initially, a mail questionnaire was distributed to every principal in Swedish upper secondary schools, which determined the extent to which mandated MBO practices were being implemented. Ten years later, the study was replicated, which made initial and subsequent practices comparable. Findings – Principals' perceptions suggest that the effects of MBO have diminished over the ten-year period. Ancillary measures of student performance correlated to MBO practices appeared statistically insignificant, or perhaps even negative. Thus, the change appears to have produced unimproved student performance, frustrated principals and perhaps somewhat less stressed teachers. Practical implications – These findings have implications on the direction the management of upper secondary schools subject to central direction may take. Although MBO may improve efficiency in staff performance, it appears to have little effect on effectiveness, if student performance is used as a criterion. Originality/value – Adoption measures of MBO have been obtained and associated with student performance for the first time.

This study integrates the goal-commitment and role-stress literatures in a model to reveal functional and dysfunctional influences of goal commitment on role performance. In a sample of headmasters, we found empirical support for a role-clarifying process suggesting that high commitment reduces role ambiguity and is ultimately positive for role performance. Our model also supports the dysfunctional effect of commitment through a role-complicating process in which commitment drives role overload, which is negative for role performance. By including self-efficacy in our model, we were better able to understand the positive and negative experiences of highly committed individuals. Contributing to the existing literature on role stressors, this study's results indicate that self-efficacy mediates the influences of role stressors on role performance.

This study suggests that stressors can be productive for self-efficacy and that the influence of stressors on self-efficacy is nonlinear. Analyses were conducted with ordinary least squares regression on a dataset covering responses from 311 deans in Swedish secondary schools. Results support the hypothesized U-shape relationship between role conflict and self-efficacy and the inverted U-shape relationship between role ambiguity and self-efficacy. Thus, findings offer evidence for nonlinear effects of stressors on the level of incumbents' self-efficacy. This research has implications for further research focused on the association between role stressors and self-efficacy.