Unfolding alignment - How top management work to align demand and capacity: an ethnographic study of resilience in a Swedish healthcare region.

This study explored how top managers work to align demand and capacity in a healthcare region in Sweden. It was shown how four categories of work; collaborative, preventive, supportive and contextualization work, together with a general approach; focusing on opportunities, building on a stable past and taking a reflective stance, constitute alignment in practice. More; the alignment work was done in the here and now, with both the past and future in mind. The ability to take action to benefit the whole is a possibility and a responsibility for top management. In the region studied, this was done by aligning demands with capacity based on past experiences and focusing on the available opportunities to connect knowledge needed within and across organizational borders.