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Markus Hällgren, Oscar Rantatalo and Ola Lindberg examine the interface between research on extreme contexts and strategy as practice research. The authors argue that combining these two bodies of literature can help management and organization researchers to develop more impactful research. They start by discussing what an extreme context is, followed by an overview of how strategizing plays out in risky, emergency, disruptive and surprising contexts. Then, the authors provide an empirical vignette from their own research as an example of strategy work in a risky setting. This example uses incident command organizing to perform strategic work during extreme situations. The case study illustrates how strategic change entails a dynamic and political process during which actors within the same practice may act with different objectives. While the authors show that excellent work has already been done at the interface of extreme contexts and strategy as practice research, they suggest future research avenues that would allow reinforcing the bridges between these two areas of research.

This qualitative study protocol outlines a co-creation project between researchers and the Swedish police to improve cross-functional collaboration in online child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations. Online CSA cases are complex and require extensive collaboration between prosecutors, IT forensic expertise, and investigators with expertise in child sexual offenses. Despite the recognized need for cross-functional teamwork, research evaluating methods for such collaboration in crime investigations, especially in online CSA, is scarce. This project, funded by the Swedish research agency FORTE (2023-00085), addresses this gap by employing the ‘double diamond’ co-creation framework (discovery, define, develop, deliver) to co-create, implement, and evaluate a team-based intervention within three online CSA units in northern Sweden. Data collection will involve semi-structured interviews (n ≈ 35), participant observations of workshops, workshop appraisals, document analysis, and analysis of organizational metrics. The project aims to: (1) identify challenges and potentials for cross-functional teamwork in online CSA investigations; (2) co-design a team-based intervention to address identified needs; and (3) evaluate the intervention’s impact on efficiency and organizational outcomes. By working collaboratively with police practitioners throughout the research process, this project aims to generate practical and sustainable solutions to enhance the effectiveness of online CSA investigations.

This study explores the role of emotional management in professional education, specifically within the context of police death notification training in Sweden. Utilising the theory of practice architectures, the research examines how police students navigate emotionally charged situations during scenario-based simulations. Findings are based on observations of death notification training and semi-structured interviews with police students. The results reveal that the absence of clear protocols, combined with the emotionally intense nature of death notifications, presents significant challenges for students. This necessitates a balance between professional detachment and empathetic engagement. The findings highlight the dual practices of engagement and distancing that students employ to manage their own emotions as well as those of the bereaved next of kin. The research underscores the importance of incorporating emotionally demanding simulations in professional training to enhance emotional resilience and reflective practice among future police officers. This study contributes to the understanding of emotional management in professional education and offers insights into integrating emotional awareness into practice-oriented training frameworks.

This paper examines learning processes in crisis management organizations, focusing on Incident management and command in the military, police, and county administrative board in Sweden. Using a participation lens, we explore human interactions during high-pressure crises. Our research question is formulated as follows: How does the practice of training for crisis shape practitioners' habits regarding crisis management in organizations? To examine this, we conducted 19 days of fieldwork, including observations and 18 semi-structured interviews, enabled a comparative analysis of organising in incident management situations. We found that training groups influence organizational routines, suggesting that learning routines involve habit formation through repeated actions. This challenges traditional incident command training assumptions and highlights the need for training programs that prioritize relevance over realism.

This article investigates how participants in simulations of extreme events handle inadequacy, contributing to the discussion on workplace learning in high-pressure and unpredictable scenarios. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted across five simulations in three organizations (military, police, and county administrative board), involving 288 h of observations, ethnographic interviews, and 18 semi-structured interviews. The analysis focused on identifying episodes where participants encountered inadequacy, exploring how they recognized, attributed, and addressed it. Our findings reveal that inadequacy disrupts routine practices but also fosters opportunities for learning and innovation. Key conditions for effectively handling inadequacy include the voicing of inadequacy, which requires psychologically safe environments, and proactive responses such as improvisation or acceptance under urgency. Additionally, simulations, while controlled and artificial, effectively expose inadequacies, revealing gaps in preparedness that can inform future crisis responses. This article contributes to professional learning by highlighting inadequacy as a critical factor in both individual and collective learning, offering insights into how simulations can be designed to enhance preparedness for unpredictable, high-stakes events.

In this study, we examine the conditions for participation in criminal investigation practices among two professional categories: police officers and civilians. Specifically, we analyse how participation is shaped and conditioned through the use of symbols and symbolic actions in relation to doing gender and professional identity. The Swedish police have addressed staffing shortages by hiring civilians, predominantly graduate women, as criminal investigators. We interviewed 71 civilians and police officers, focusing on their perspectives on the nature of investigative work, civilian integration, and the distinctions between the two professional groups. Additionally, the data includes 11 days of ethnographic observations at five different investigative units. Using reflexive thematic analysis and a sociomaterial perspective, we constructed four ideal types of participation – defensive civilian, hybrid police, hybrid civilian and defensive police. We argue that these ideal types of participation are positioned in relation to orientations of doing gender and professional identity, and furthermore associated with different categories of symbols and symbolic actions. Our study enhances our understanding of relational power in workplace learning, particularly social ordering through legitimacy and status.

While there is broad agreement about their importance, courses in professionalism have proven difficult to teach and assess. Furthermore, there is currently a lack of knowledge regarding problems that are common across professional boundaries. The purpose of this article is to examine what teaching and assessing professionalism in higher education entails in three distinctly different professional education contexts in Sweden: medical, police, and social-work education. The study is qualitative and comparative, with data consisting of documents (curricula, syllabi, course content n > 200), interviews (n = 18), and participant observations (∼30 h) of how professionalism is taught and assessed in each programme. The results describe the practice architectures of teaching and assessing professionalism, where problems and dilemmas are made visible. The results also show a tension between the ambition to practise and the ambition to assess, which leads to what we call 'assessment avoidance'.

Online child sexual abuse (CSA) crimes have increased significantly in recent years, reflecting broader access to the internet and the global proliferation of CSA content. In response, national police forces have established specialized investigative teams. Notably, repeated exposure to CSA material has been identified as a significant stressor for police personnel, potentially increasing the risk of secondary traumatic stress and burnout. Therefore, understanding and addressing the impact of continuous CSA exposure on personnel’s wellbeing is essential within this area of digital policing. This scoping review aims to synthesize and report the existing empirical research on the wellbeing of police personnel involved in online CSA investigations. Following established guidelines, we searched four electronic databases—Scopus, Web of Science (Clarivate), PsycINFO, and SocIndex—for articles published between 2000 and 2024. We also conducted reference mining of the included studies. In total, 33 articles met the inclusion criteria: empirical studies published in English, in peer-reviewed journals, and focused on the wellbeing of personnel investigating online CSA. Findings reveal substantial variation in reported wellbeing. Individual coping strategies, as well as organizational resources and support, play a critical role in how personnel manage the demands of this work. Based on these insights, we recommend that online CSA police units implement clear and proactive strategies to safeguard personnel’s wellbeing.

The nexus between work and social categories is known to have an impact on how people develop in their careers. The purpose of this study was to examine the conditions for career work undertaken by civilian criminal investigators (CIs) who are currently entering police organizations, complementing police officers in criminal investigations. The empirical study encompassed 71 interviews conducted with both civilian and police CIs in the Swedish police. The conditions for career work were analyzed through a social-symbolic lens, recognizing the impact of both resource distribution and agency in a network of different actors. Furthermore, the contextual nature of career work was examined, highlighting tensions between civilian and police CIs, influenced by gender dynamics and cultural factors. The situatedness and cultural characteristics of the workplace, involving gender and academic and professional background, have divergent outcomes in career work. This research discusses the multifaceted nature of career development among civilian CIs, providing an extended understanding of career as a socially negotiated process and unraveling the mutual influence of organizational dynamics, cultural norms, and resource distribution in shaping individual career trajectories.