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2017
Political advisor to the Minister of Health
2016
Associate professor. Faculty of Business at the University of Iceland
2016
Chairman of the Icelandic Cancer Society
2013-17
Reserve member of parliament
2014
Associate professor. Faculty of Business, Bifröst University, Iceland.
2013
Deputy member of parliament, Althingi, Reykjavík, Iceland.
2012
Associate professor. Faculty of Nursing. University of Iceland
2010
Chair, Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, Iceland
2007
Assistant professor. Faculty of Nursing. University of Iceland.
2002-08
Research fellow and nurse leadership advisor. Landspítali university hospital, Reykjavík
1999-02
Head of Employee Health. Office of Human Resource Management. Landspitali university hospital, Reykjavík
1997-99
Head of quality management department. Office of CEO, Landspitali university hospital, Reykjavík
1993-95
Director, Health promotion department. Ministry of Health and Social Services, Reykjavík.
1992-93
Chair, Icelandic association of university educated nurses.
1987 -93
Nurse, head of unit and deputy chief nurse, Primary health care center, Seltjarnarnes.
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Areas of current research
Work environment, leadership, teamwork, job engagement, burnout, job satisfaction and well-being at work
Health care work environment, quality of working life and quality of patient care
Servant leadership
My field of research has been work environment with focus on communication, leadership and well-being at work. This started by my MS thesis 1998-2000. Currently I am leading some research projects in this area. I am also an active member of other research teams in the area, one local, one Nordic collaborative project and one in collaboration with a colleague in Holland. Below are summary points about four of my research projects (marked part A, B, C, D), starting with the most recent projects.
Starting 2008. Servant leadership, with special focus on health care, patient and staff outcomes.
A co-operative research project about the meaning of servant leadership in workplaces, for staff and patient outcomes. Methods are qualitative and quantitative where we use the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) in collaboration with its author, Dirk van Dierendonck, Erasmus University Holland. Various outcome measures have been used e.g. job satisfaction, signs of burnout and indicators for quality of care. Principle investigator is Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir (SG) in collaboration with MSc and PhD candidates. In total eight MSc research projects on servant leadership have been finalized and seven of them are part of a larger research project in collaboration with van Dierendonck (reported in seven MSc thesis 2008 – 2012). For this we gather data using the SLS instrument from participants working in different workplaces. The aim is to put all the Icelandic data together for a general analysis and comparison towards data from other countries. This thorough analysis is prepared as a PhD study and candidate there is Alda Margrét Hauksdóttir. Another large study will be conducted in November 2012 using the SLS at the LSH hospital. This is part of a Nordic collaboration (NOVO) funded by the Nordic Ministerial Committee and is one element of the doctoral research project of Birna Dröfn Birgisdóttir, PhD student at Reykjavík University. SG is on Birna´s PhD committee.
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2005
PhD. London University. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Department of Public Health & Policy. Health Services Research Unit. Thesis: Quality of working life and quality of care in Icelandic hospital nursing (mixed method study). Doctoral committee: Professor Anne Marie Rafferty, Dean Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery, King's College London; Professor Don Nutbeam, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney; Dr. Sean Clarke, Associate Director, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research and Assistant Professor of Nursing University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia and Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine anda research director in the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition.
2000
MS. University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing. Thesis: The wellbeing of workers in laundrey and kitchen room (qualitative study). MS committee: Dr. Kristín Björnsdóttir, professor Faculty of Nursing University of Iceland, Dr. Rannveig Traustadóttir, professor Faculty of Social Sciences University of Iceland and Dr. Vilhjálmur Árnason professor Faculty of Philosophy University of Iceland.
1986
BSc. University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing. BSc project: Eldery and Nursing homes (questionnaire survey). Supervisor: Vilborg Ingólfsdóttir, MS, Ministry of wellfare.
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2018
Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir, Kasper Edwards and Lotta Dellve. Improving health care organizations through servant leadership. In: Practicing Servant Leadership: Developments in Implementation. Van Dierendonck & Patterson (Eds). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
2017
Guðrún Yrsa Ómarsdóttir, Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir og Þorbjörg Jónsdóttir. Lyfjamistök og starfsumhverfi hjúkrunarfræðinga. Tímarit hjúkrunarfræðinga (The Icelandic Nursing Journal), (sérrit. Hjúkrun 2017. Fram í sviðsljósið.) 17-25.
2017
Dirk Van Dierendonck, Milton Sousa, Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir, Andrea Bobbio, Jari Hakanen, Armin Pircher Verdorfer, Emin Cihan Duyan and Raquel Rodriguez-Carvajal. The Cross-Cultural Invariance of the Servant. Leadership Survey: A Comparative Study across Eight Countries. Administrative Sciences, 7, 8; doi:10.3390/admsci7020008.
2015
Sigrun Gunnarsdottir and Thorbjorn Jonsson. Iceland. In Economic crisis, health systems and health in Europe. Country experiences. (Eds. Anna Maresso et al.). Copenhagen: World Health Organization, The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (WHO Regional Office for Europe), p. 401 – 404.
2015
Winkel, J., Edwards, K., Birgisdóttir, B.D. and Gunnarsdóttir, S. Facilitating and inhibiting factors in change processes based on the lean tool ‘value stream mapping’: an exploratory case study at hospital wards. Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, 3- 4 (3), 291 – 302.
2015
Hulda Rafnsdóttir, Ragnheiður Harpa Arnardóttir og Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir. Árangur og forysta í hjúkun: Viðhorf til þjónandi forystu, starfsánægju, starfstengdra þátta og gæða þjónustu á Sjúkrahúsinu á Akureyri. Tímarit hjúkrunarfræðinga 91(4), 8-16.
2015
Sólveig Reynisdóttir and Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir. Servant leadership and wellbeing of service workers. Journal of Business Faculty University of Iceland, 21st April 2015 (Vorráðstefna Viðskiptafræðistofnunar HÍ). p. 59-72. http://ibr.hi.is/sites/ibr.hi.is/files/vorradstefna/2015/rit19april.pdf
2015
Helga Bragadóttir, Helgi Thor Ingason and Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir. What happens during nurses´s medication work in acute care: an observational study from one hospital in Iceland. Vard i Norden, 35(1), 61-63
2015
Jarebrant C, Birgisdóttir B D, Edwards K, Gunnarsdóttir S, Harlin U, Johansson Hanse J, Ulin K, Winkel J (2015). Ergonomics Value Stream Mapping (ErgoVSM) - User Guide.
2015
Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir. The value of servant leadership for sustainable health care services. A NOVO Multicenter study. NOVO 9th NOVO symposium Sustainable health care production systems Trondheim november 12-13 2015. Abstract book: Sør Trøndelag University College Maurits Hansens gt 2, 7030 Trondheim.
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Since 2017
Supervisory teacher University of Iceland, School of Business, MSc course on wellbeing, work environment and leadership
Since 2013
Supervisory teacher, Bifröst University, Faculty of Business, BSc and MSc courses in servant leadership.
Since 2012
Supervisory teacher, University of Akureyri, School of Health Sciences, MSc course: Servant leadership, management and reflection in practice.
Since 2012
Teachers, University of Iceland, Department of Pharmacy, MSc course: Ethics and communication.
Since 2012
Teachers, University of Iceland, Department of Nutrition, MS course: Professionalism.
Since 2010
Teachers, University of Iceland, Department of Nutrition, BSc course: Clinical nutrition and pathology I.
Since 2009
Voluntary teacher and advisor, University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing, Nursing students voluntary society for prevention “Skjöldur”.
Since 2007
Teacher, University of Iceland, Faculty of Medicine, MS and PhD course: General research methods.
Since 2007
Supervisory teacher, University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing, BSc course: The profession and discipline of nursing.
Since 2007
Guest teacher, Nordic School of Public Health, MPH course: Health promotion. Göteborg, Sweden.
2006-07
Teacher, University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing, BSc course: The profession and discipline of nursing.
2004-06
Teacher and coordinator, University of Akureyri, School of Health Sciences, MS course: Health and healthcare services.
2004-07
Teacher, University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing, MS course: Nursing management.
2003-07
Teacher and coordinator, University of Iceland, School of Social Sciences, MPA course: Healthcare working environment and administration.
2002-08
Teacher, University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing.
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2009-11
University of Iceland, School of Health Sciences. Member, committee of education.
Since 2008
Chair, Center for Servant Leadership, Greenleaf Iceland
2008-11
University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing, BSc study. Member, committee of teaching
