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LOOKING INTO THE BOX:
SWEDISH SOCIAL CARE MANAGERS MAKE MEANING OF THEIR WORK AND ROLE
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Marie-Louise Österlind
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School of Education and
Environment, Kristianstad University and Department of Psychology, Lund
University, Sweden |
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Abstract
This paper reports on a participative project where
Swedish social care managers explored their work and their managerial role by
means of repertory grid interviews and collegial reflection. The qualitative,
phenomenological data analysis provides a multifaceted picture of what it means
to be a social care manager, seen from the managers’ perspective. The results
indicate that managers in this and other welfare organisations need to construe
and re-construe their managerial role in order to balance the contrasting
demands on their role, thereby accomplishing a personal equilibrium. The managers’ meaning-making process can
be supported by constructivist techniques such as those used in this project.
Keywords: Social care, managerial roles, personal construct psychology, repertory grid
interview, phenomenological analysis, participative research.
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INTRODUCTION
This paper reports on a participative project in which
constructivist techniques were used to explore the participating managers’
experiences of their daily work and managerial role. A detailed description of the
project, methods, and data was previously published in this journal (Österlind
& Denicolo, 2006).
BACKGROUND
In public human services organisations, first-line managers
are often considered to be of decisive importance to both the quality and
efficiency of the enterprise and the job satisfaction and well-being of its
employees. Because such organisations are responsible for large parts of the
social services apparatus, the activities of these managers have a decisive
impact on quality of life among the citizenry. Recent research (Ericsson, 2010;
Hjort & Aili, 2010), indicates that problems such as multiple and competing
goals, conflicting goals and interests, and efficiency requirements, which are
intrinsic to welfare organisations and have been described in classic works by
Lipsky (1980), Hasenfeld (1983), and Schön (1983), are at least equally present
in today’s organisations. Many first-line managers find themselves in a
particularly vulnerable position, with workdays characterised by heavy
workloads, indistinct goals, competing interests, and a lack of resources
(Petersson, 2006).
Swedish municipal social care managers and their staff
often feel inadequate in their efforts to live up to legal requirements, their
organisations’ quality goals, and their own professional ideals (Szebehely,
2000; Wolmesjö, 2005). Furthermore, the managers are often subject to explicit
demands that they implement politically determined change processes that are
expected to produce both higher quality and greater efficiency, but often bring
about negative effects in terms of productivity, quality, and work climate(Ragneklint, 2002). A considerable number of managers
leave the profession in response to overwork and lack of support, which causes
negative effects for their organisations and staff. The situation demands a
deeper understanding of what it means to be a manager in this type of
organisation.
THE LEADERSHIP
PROJECT
The Leadership Project aimed to contribute to new
academic knowledge about what it means to be a manager in a Swedish municipal
care organisation, as viewed from the managers’ perspective, in a process which
would sustain the development of leadership and praxis.
The project was initiated by participating managers (nine
women and two men) who experienced a difficult work situation and therefore
sought an opportunity to explore their situation and their role. The managers,
who contributed to the design of the project as well as sharing their views
within it, were all members of one managerial group. They were in charge of the
activities (aged care residence and home care service, or support and service
to persons with certain functional impairments) and comprised the staff in
their respective area. All managers had a university degree in social care,
nursing, or personnel management. Their periods of service within the
organisation and in leading positions varied considerably. The organisation had
a high manager turnover. Two managers left their positions, and two new
managers were recruited during the project.
The organisation had recently undergone a
comprehensive, politically driven change process, which aimed for improved
economic efficiency and service quality. In this process a new vision – The right quality in every meeting [interaction
between staff and care recipient] – and a new quality management system were
introduced. New managerial positions replaced previous levels, and ‘old’
managers aspiring for a ‘new’ position had to apply for these in competition.
The appointed managers were given responsibility over an increased number of
staff [50–70 staff members] as well as ‘new’ professional groups such as
nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists.
Methodology and method
The foundational precept of the project was that the
individual’s constructions of social reality orientate and mediate individual
action (Kelly, 1955). The participatory research approach (Heron & Reason,
2001) that was developed during the project proposed to support a scientific
way of knowledge creation, where the process, the personal growth of the
participating managers, and the development of praxis, understood as the
combination of ‘theory’ and ‘praxis’ that underpin the notion of the
‘reflective practitioner’ (Schön, 1983), were considered as valuable as the
results, that is, the generation of new general knowledge and theory.
Procedure – repertory grid interviews and group reflection
Repertory grid interviews (Kelly, 1955) facilitate the
exploration of how individuals and groups organise and interpret aspects of
their experiences through a process which engages the participants in a reflective
process (Fransella, 2005). A combination of repertory grid interviews and group
reflection was considered suitable for the dual purpose of (1) acquiring new
scientific knowledge about the participating managers’ perceptions of their
daily work and their roles as managers, and (2) contributing to the
professional growth and advancement of the participating managers.
Repertory grid interviews
The theme of the interviews was My tasks and responsibilities as a manager. The interviews took
place in the manager’s workplace and were recorded on audiotape. The process was
sustained by computer analysis software (Rep Grid II), and encompassed the
following steps:
1. | Identification and listing of tasks and assignments
performed (elements) | 2. | Reflection on similarities and differences
(construct poles) between triads of tasks addressing the questions: What do these tasks mean to you? Which
aspects can illuminate your tasks and your managerial role? | 3. | Sorting of remaining tasks on a range between the
two construct poles generated in step 2. | 4. | Conclusion of each interview
by a short feedback and discussion of the graphical representations of
the manager’s grid as generated by the programme, in order to validate and
amplify the results, as suggested by Smith (1995). |
Group reflection
The results from the first analysis of the interview
data were presented and discussed at a group session, allowing for feedback and
comments from the managers and a validation of the results on the group level. This
session relatively soon transitioned into a further exploration of the
managerial role which provided unexpectedly useful information. It also
provided a gateway to the second part of the project, in which the managers
deepened and developed the investigations of their own work situation and role through
a collegial meaning-creation process (Österlind, submitted).
Analysis
The data consist of (1) verbatim transcriptions of the
recordings from the interviews and the group session and (2) the managers’
individual grids [i.e. the graphical representations of the managers’ listings
and comparisons of their tasks generated by the computer program]. For a
detailed description, see Österlind & Denicolo (2006).
The data analysis was performed in the following
steps:
1. | Qualitative content analysis of the managers’ grids
in order to obtain an overview of the tasks performed by the managers, how
these were construed and related to each other and to the managerial role. | 2. | Qualitative content analysis of the interview
transcripts providing additional information from the interviews which did not
appear in the grids.
At this stage, the results from steps 1 and 2 were
reported and discussed at the group session | 3. | Qualitative content analysis of the transcript from
the group session.
Although the results from steps 1, 2, and 3 provided
useful information on the managers’ work situation, a deeper understanding of
what it means to be a manager in this type of organisation was still lacking.
Therefore a qualitative phenomenological analysis of the transcripts from the
interviews and the group session was performed. | 4. | This analysis,
based on principles formulated by Giorgi (2009) and Langdridge (2007), comprised several readings and re-readings of the
transcripts in accordance with the idea of the hermeneutic circle, that an understanding
of the parts requires an understanding of the whole and vice versa (Gadamer,
1997). The analysis was performed
in the following order: (a) Re-reading of the transcripts to obtain an overview
of the material; (b) Division of the text into meaning units; (c) Condensation
of the meaning units into concise formulations by omitting ‘superfluous’ words;
(d) Identification and selection of cores of significance focusing meanings,
modes, and aspects. | 5. | The analysis revealed two constructs [the face and
the box] that illuminated the essence
of the managerial position and role. The face-construct
appeared in an interview where the participating manager who used faces as a synonym for the different roles his tasks and
responsibilities induced him to play. The
box-construct appeared and was
elaborated at the group session. These elaborations encompassed the managerial role as: (I) a
framework for what happens, which
they were expected to both stay within
and hold together and (II) a portable storage compartment for their job duties [a case
with a handle, a beauty box, and
a toolbox]. The statements also
included wishes for support, development, and change expressed in terms of keeping a ladder or lift in the box, in
order to be able to get out of the ditch [when losing oversight and control
over the job situation]; getting help in
looking at what was in the box; cleaning out the box or even discarding the box and getting a new one.
| 6. | In the further
analysis, these constructs were used as analytical tools to achieve a deeper
understanding of the managers’ work situation and professional role. | 7. | The results from this analysis were arranged in
eloquent themes in order to illuminate the findings. The designations, inspired by the stated constructs,
were chosen with the purpose of enhancing the comprehension of the complexity
of the managers’ work situation and role. The results are interspersed with italicised quotes
from the managers’ statements. | 8. | In conclusion, the themes were related to earlier
research and theories attempting to attain wider commonality and to generate
hypotheses and theory. The outcomes of this process are presented in the final
part of this paper where the results are interleaved with earlier research to form
a broader frame of reference.
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THE MANY FACETS OF SOCIAL CARE MANAGEMENT The managers had a complex and often very demanding
(but also stimulating) work situation that was characterised by a large number
of varied job tasks and a multi-faceted managerial role involving extensive
responsibility for the operations, staff, and finances. Their workdays involved
parallel multitasking, intermittent work interruptions, a lack of time, and
problems in setting limits on their own work. The scarcity of resources often
made it difficult for the managers to live up to their own level of aspiration,
to the administrative management’s demands, and to legal requirements.
A large
and varied work content
During the interviews the managers generated a very
large and varied number of job ‘elements’ which, based on the managers’ constructs,
could be divided into two main groups: stimulating and demanding managerial
tasks and boring routine tasks that took time away [from their managerial
tasks].
The bulk of the managers’ job tasks were construed as consistent with their educational background
and managerial position, and of such a nature that they had to be performed by the managers.
These tasks were related to the managers’ three main areas of responsibility: (I)
operations, (II) staff and (III) finances. They were construed as varied, fun, stimulating, interesting, exciting, enterprising, creative,
and also as challenging and uncertain with regard to the future.
They required reflection and were demanding on the manager as a person.
Tasks that had to do with people required
both heart, i.e., commitment and
empathy, and brains, i.e., knowledge
of personnel administration and labour law regulations, and of the laws that
regulate the rights of the care recipients and the obligations of the municipalities.
In most cases, the managers were required to make assessments and prioritise in terms of what could be
accomplished within the framework of the applicable guidelines and budgetary
framework.
The managers also performed job tasks that were construed
as not being consistent with their
educational background and managerial position. These tasks were related to
administration, information, and management of buildings/premises. They were
construed as unchallenging, less interesting and boring, concrete and
practical, easy routine work that
can be performed by or in cooperation
with someone other than the manager. These tasks were often considered to prioritise
themselves and thus also to take time
away from the demanding and stimulating managerial tasks.
The issue of whether or not to delegate these
time-consuming tasks often became a topic of deliberation with regard to budget
restrictions, staff working conditions, and quality of the services performed.
While some managers attempted to solve this apparently impossible equation by trying
to get the staff to take on additional job tasks within the limited time frame,
many managers performed the tasks themselves in order to avoid further
burdening a staff that were already pressed for time by adding new tasks within
an unaltered timeframe. In some cases, it was considered inefficient to
delegate a task, since delegation initially takes more time than it frees up.
Some managers also performed routine tasks because it provided much-needed
breathing room and time to ponder over difficulties.
The managers’ personal strategies for balancing their
heavy workloads against demands that they be available to their staff and
colleagues included creating personal
routines such as setting aside the
first hour at work for being available for the staff and establishing
readiness to cope with the emergency situations that tended to crop up by making sure to have open time in the
calendar. Some strategies such as avoiding
taking extended leaves of absence so that tasks do not pile up too high and
taking work that require concentration
home in order to work on it undisturbed, could affect their private lives.
A vague action frame of reference
The managers’ position of team manager was introduced in the recently completed
organisational overhaul. The position was construed as a qualitatively different way of leading and organising the operations,
in which a sense of ‘we’, participation and cooperation between individual employees and between different
professional categories was emphasised and granted special status, in contrast to
the earlier ‘supervisor’ position, which was associated with the previous rules-based management. The senior
management’s intentions with the re-organisation were perceived as unclear, and
the new managerial position was found to be vague
and in need of definition. A number of managers sought clarification from
the management regarding their areas of responsibility and their roles. Newly
appointed managers in particular expressed concerns about not knowing all that
was expected of them and often advocated direct job descriptions. The lack of
clarity regarding the position was considered to cause heavier workloads, role
conflicts, and stress.
Faces portraying
the complex managerial role
The commonality of the managers’
construal of their professional role may be depicted by six faces,
which portray qualitatively different role aspects. Each manager embraced these
faces to a varying extent, as described in this section.
The self-employed portrays the manager as a pressed-for-time multitasker
with a large and varied number of tasks of various degrees of difficulty, who
often works considerably more than 40 hours a week and is available by mobile
phone 24/7/365. The self-employed has little opportunity to delegate job tasks,
and rarely if ever has anyone to go in and handle the manager’s tasks when
he/she is ill or absent from the workplace for some other reason. Absences lead
to accumulations of routine tasks that are found to be stressful and can negatively
impact opportunities to handle higher-level tasks. The situation can be
perceived as highly stressful in connection with extended absences, such as
summer holidays. The self-employed has the feeling of being ruled by the
managerial job duties, a feeling that is unsatisfying and stressful.
The
communication manager portrays
a manager who sits like the spider in the
web and guides the flow of information to and from the organisation, and who
has an extensive obligation to provide information and report upward within the
organisation. The role encompasses being a way
station that forwards incoming telephone calls to the right person within
the organisation, and a pilot and guide
within the municipal care service for citizens who find the administrative
organisation to be impenetrable. This manager collaborates and cooperates
with professional groups within the organisation, with representatives from
other caregivers, and with the relatives of the care recipients, and spends a considerable
time in meetings, training sessions, etc. Because this manager strives to live
up to the demands of the management and staff in terms of being an accessible
and available manager, the office door is always open, the telephones are on,
and the e-mail programme is up and running whenever the manager is in the
office. This leads to numerous intermittent and stressful interruptions that negatively
affect the opportunities to perform tasks that require reflection and
concentration.
The
managing director is
characterised as caring about people.
This person believes that the quality of the service is created and maintained
in large measure in the daily encounters between care recipients and staff,
making it important to be a manager who puts
people [the care recipients and staff] at
the centre. This manager construes the quality work as a continuous, ongoing process that is rooted
in the discussion of concrete problems experienced within the staff groups,
which leads to proposed measures to improve quality. The managing director may
find that personal views on quality stand in contrast to the administrative
management’s views, which she/he considers to be closely connected to the
recently implemented quality assurance system. This system is perceived to be taking time away from the staff’s
important primary task, working with the care recipients, since a new job task
– keeping comprehensive documentation for each care recipient – has been
imposed on the care staff within their already limited timeframe. The
administrative management’s demands in terms of high and ensured service
quality within the framework of an unaltered budget are particularly
problematic to cope with, as the general care needs of the care recipients have
grown considerably. In especially difficult situations, it may happen that the
managing director exceeds the budget in order to ensure that the care
recipients receive care of acceptable quality, and that the staff have a
tolerable work situation.
The staff manager is convinced that the staff constitutes the service’s greatest resource, making it
additionally important to be perceived as
a manager who puts people at the centre and under whom the staff will want to work. The staff manager has
overall responsibility for making sure
that the needs of the care recipients are met by skilled, competent, and
pleasant staff who are cooperating to the optimum extent. The staff manager
demonstrates a great deal of caring about the staff in general and the
individual employee in particular. This care extends to being a welfare officer to whom the staff can
turn to discuss and obtain support in matters of a more or less personal nature,
which can be emotionally burdensome. Caring
for the staff also includes acting as a department
of complaints in terms of taking on difficult discussions with care
recipients and their relatives in order to spare
the staff from unpleasant confrontations, and avoiding delegating
additional job tasks to staff groups that have heavy workloads, even if this
means that the manager’s own workload increases. The scarcity of resources often
makes it difficult for the manager to live up to a personal level of
aspiration, to the administrative management’s demands, and to legal
requirements. The manager’s heavy workload can force meaningful and time-consuming
job tasks to take a backseat to more urgent tasks that demand attention. In
some cases, this manager feels compelled to turn away from staff members in
need of immediate support in favour of other urgent tasks, leading to feelings of frustration and inadequacy.
The financial manager is characterised by a responsibility to economise the
limited resources in order to keep within
the budgetary framework, a managerial ideal in which the finances are at the centre, and economising is important. Even though this manager has overall
responsibility for the finances in the area, she/he also often performs routine
tasks such as ‘invoice management’ or ‘account-coding’, which is perceived as unsatisfying. The administrative management’s
expectations and the financial manager’s own aspirations in terms of being able
to live up to the requirements of a balanced budget, a qualitatively good
organisation, and a good work environment are found to be particularly
problematic in situations where the opportunities for achieving these goals are
severely limited by the leeway available in the budget. The financial manager is
also expected to stay loyal to the
administrative management and the politicians in situations where the staff
express disappointment over the manager’s inability to implement planned
improvement measures because of a lack of financial resources.
The colleague is characterised as a staff member who is subordinate
to the area manager and who is included, along with managerial colleagues, in
the management group, which is led by the area manager. The colleague/manager is
expected to ‘cooperate actively’ in both the management group and the
development and advisory groups initiated thereby. These groups sometimes make
decisions about joint strategies and measures, which result in new job tasks
for the manager or staff. The colleague most often construes the management group as a supportive environment, in which to get
to address important issues. However the full agenda leaves little or no room
for spontaneous deliberations. The informal collegial contacts are considered extremely valuable. Colleagues help to see new solutions and offer challenges that counteract the
tendency toward blindness to defects in the manager’s own work. The colleagues
are also a source of major support in
particularly difficult situations. However, during periods when the
position’s workload is particularly heavy, difficulties in living up to personal
and collegial expectations can lead to stress
and feelings of inadequacy.
Role problems
A number of indications of role problems
are present in the managers’ statements. Role overload in the form of
experiences where the demands and expectations of the managerial role exceed
the managers’ ability to perform that role and to live up to their own
aspirations and doing a good job occur frequently. Various types of role
conflicts are also common occurrences. For example, when the senior
administration express lofty expectations that managers should devote
themselves to enterprise-level issues without giving them the previously
promised relief from their routine tasks; when managers attempt to balance the
staff’s expectations of having a present and available manager against the
management’s and colleagues’ expectations in terms of participation in
activities outside of the actual workplace; when the expectations on the part
of staff, care recipients and the public related to the previous managerial position
are perceived as running counter to the administrative management’s intentions
with the new position; when the demands requiring managers to deal with a
volume of time-consuming routine tasks come into conflict with the demands for
high-level managerial work; when the demands and needs of the organisation and
staff cannot be balanced against the financial restrictions and the requirement
to stay within the budget. Personal role conflicts, in which the managers’
personal values are in conflict with perceived role expectations, occur when
the administration’s perceptions of quality of the services are found to be in
conflict with the managers’ personal and professional values. This is especially
evident in situations where the managers find that the care recipients’ quality
of life and the staff’s work environment are seriously threatened.
The managers’ perceived options to handle these
difficulties vary considerably. Managers with more extensive experience
emphasise the importance of developing a personal approach to the demands and
expectations, while those with less experience more often express a desire for
clear guidelines and direct supportive measures. Organised managerial support
was considered desirable for all managers, and essential for newly hired ones,
particularly during periods when major organisational changes were being made,
but also when handling emotionally burdensome situations.
DISCUSSION: MAKING SENSE OF MUNICIPAL CARE MANAGEMENT
The Leadership Project was intended to contribute to
new academic knowledge about what it means to be a municipal care manager, as
viewed from the managers’ perspective, in a process which would support the
participating managers and sustain the development of praxis.
The complexity
of municipal care management
The managers had a large and varied
work content and a heavy work burden. These results are largely consistent with earlier research (Wolmesjö,
2005) and work environment studies (Swedish Work Environment Authority, 2005),
that show that the expectations in terms of what municipal care managers are
supposed to achieve within the confines of their relatively limited resources
are often very lofty. Managers are given quantitatively and qualitatively
heavier workloads even as they are also expected to take on new tasks without
the addition of new resources. Drawing on Weick (1995) the great heterogeneity of issues that
many first-line managers have to deal with in their daily work life, is caused
by the equivocal inputs to the organisation and which the managers are required
to absorb in order for the organisation’s system to function. This could prove to
be an explanation as to why the managers to such a great extent felt governed
by their tasks.
The vague action frame of reference
was problematic to managers who were insecure in their managerial role and
therefore needed guidance and support, while it offered considerable freedom
for managers who were confident in their role. This is consistent with results
from Österlind, Denicolo & Johansson (2007).
Many of the managers’ reactions to
the recent organisation overhaul were related to Kelly’s (1955) construct of transition, such as anxiety, fear, and threat arising
from role conflict, ambiguity, and overload; guilt at failing to deliver on the
expectations of the role set; and aggression in coming to grips with the
demands of their role. This could shed light on the managers’ struggles, both
with ongoing organisational change, and with the personal transition of adding
the management role to their professional background in social care or nursing.
Anxiety can be
reduced by group learning processes (Schein, 1990), such as the ones performed in
the second part of the project (Österlind, submitted).
The many faces of social care
management
The complexity of the participating managers’
professional role was portrayed by six managerial faces. In accordance with Minzberg’s managerial roles (1971), these
faces may be said to constitute a gestalt, an
integrated whole, which reflects the participating managers’ constructions of their managerial position, and of
the obligations, demands, and expectations entailed thereby. This gestalt
illustrates the cross-pressures
(Hjort & Aili, 2010) among differing demands and expectations in which
managers and staff in public human service organisations often find themselves.
It is also comparable to Alvesson & Sveningsson’s (2003) description of
private sector managers caught between
two forces, where practical limitations, administrative requirements, and micro-management prevent them from
devoting themselves to the visionary leadership that is often seen as
desirable.
Schein (1985/1992) construes a role
as a set of expectations by stakeholders that gives rise to tasks. The
stakeholders’ (in this case senior managers, politicians, staff, colleagues,
clients, relatives, and the public) often divergent expectations give rise to
role conflict, ambiguity, stress, and overload. It is possible that another repertory
grid procedure, with stakeholders as elements, could yield insights that could
empower the managers to negotiate more effective relations with members of
their role set, especially if this process allows for a collegial comparison of
the grids, as suggested by Denicolo (1996).
Risk of occupational illness but also opportunities for a regenerative
job
The results indicate that the managers were in a
situation where the risk of occupational illness was significant, since vague
job boundaries and recurrent changes often result in the individual
experiencing uncertainty as to the demands being made, and as to whether the
work being done is good enough (Allvin et al., 2006). Heavy demands combined
with low perceived autonomy and a lack of support (Karasek & Theorell,
1990), along with role ambiguity
and role conflict can have negative effects on managers’ performance (Burkert, Fischer &
Schäffer) and
health and well-being (Christensen
& Knardahl, 2010).
The results also point out an existing potential to
develop better working conditions and, in the best case, a regenerative job,
i.e., one that is capable of re-creating people’s resources (Ericsson, 2010).
The challenging and demanding but also stimulating and interesting, varied
and creative job tasks that the managers in the present study construed as compatible with the position of manager exhibit
strong similarities with what Aronsson, Bejerot & Härenstam (1999) have
identified as being significant for college-educated individuals’ perceptions
of their jobs as healthy. However, given the managers’ complex work situation
and role, this presupposes that the managers are offered relief from time consuming
routine task and appropriate managerial support.
Applicability of
the methods and quality and relevance of the results
The repertory grid interviews yielded an unexpected
number of elements [tasks] for each manager, which provided valuable information
of the managers’ work situation to researcher and participants. However, the
listings and comparisons of tasks were time-consuming and therefore reduced the
time available for
a further exploration of the meanings that the managers gave to their work at
superordinate level, such as laddering. Performing a second interview, with
predetermined elements [tasks] generated from the initial interview and
negotiated among the managers, as one of
the managers put forward during the group session, would free up more time for
elaborations over the deeper meanings of these tasks. It would also facilitate
the appraisal of commonality between the managers’ constructs.
Empirical material and results from repertory grid
interviews have been discussed by Bell (2005) and Österlind & Denicolo
(2006) among others. The richness of information derived from the
transcriptions of the interviews performed in this study confirms both the
potential of the repertory grid process as a catalyst in conversations between
researcher and participant (Pope & Denicolo, 2003) and the potential which,
according to Cassell et al. (2000) and others, is inherent in qualitative
analyses of transcripts from repertory grid interviews.
The phenomenological analysis of the transcripts in this
project provided a multifaceted picture of the managers’ work situation, in
which the complexity of their positions and roles stood out more clearly. The
analytical tools [faces and roles] inspired by the managers’
constructs allowed for a manageable assessment of commonality of construing
which gave a
deepened understanding of what it
means to be a manager. The exhaustive descriptions of the results, interspersed
with quotes, provided an insightful example of what it can mean to be a manager
in this specific context, in keeping with what has been advanced by Alvesson
& Willmott (1996) and Alvesson & Sköldberg (2000).
The feedback of the individual grids at the end of
each interview provided an initial validation of the results at the individual
level. The group sessions provided an opportunity to identify and discuss the
interview results, as well as the process per se, and thereby allowed for a
validation of the managers’ professional construct systems and likelihood of
construct similarity within the managerial group, as suggested by Denicolo
& Pope (2001). The carefully described analysis process helped to
facilitate assessments of the reliability of the results in keeping with what
has been advanced by King (2000).
Contributions to personal and local development
Managers’ insights regarding their own work are of
major importance in terms of performance and efficiency (Minzberg, 1971) and
their personal health (Ericsson, 2010). The managers’ assessments show that both
the repertory grid interviews and the group reflection, originally intended for
feedback purposes, provided rare and valued opportunity for individual and
collegial reflection. From
a constructivist orientation, this could be of importance to the managers as,
according to Kelly “a person’s construction system varies as he successively
construes the replications of events” (Kelly, 1955, p. 50). In order to be able
to interact effectively, group members, such as colleagues in a managerial
group, need both commonality – that is, to share common ideals – and sociality
– that is, to be able to construe issues from the perspective of the views
generated by other group members. The group session supported the collegial validation
of the managers’ personal and professional construct systems, thereby providing
a greater potential for and likelihood of a closer relationship between the
managers and a closer construct similarity within their managerial group, as
suggested by Denicolo and Pope (2001).
The thorough descriptions of the process can serve to
inspire researchers and managers who wish to initiate similar projects.
CONCLUSIONS
This study contributes to our knowledge of how the intrinsic
problems of welfare organisations, described in classic works by Lipsky (1980),
Hasenfeld (1983), and Schön (1983), and more recently by Hjort & Aili
(2010), are manifested in a Swedish municipal care organisation, seen from the participating
first-line managers’ perspectives.
The results indicate that managers in such organisations
need to construe and re-construe their views on their managerial role and tasks
in order to balance the contrasting demands on the role, thereby accomplishing
a personal equilibrium. The managers’ meaning-making processes can be supported by the use of
constructivist techniques (Butt, 2008), such as the ones used in this project.
The unexpected transition of the group session, from a
feedback session intended to conclude the interview process into a collegial
exploration of the managerial role, demonstrates that openness to the unforeseen
and a readiness to leave the process to the participants can add value to the results
and to the process. In the Leadership Project this openness provided a gateway
to a collegial meaning-making processes in which the managers fulfilled their
mutual wish to look further into and think outside the box [the managerial
role] (Österlind, submitted). Such processes are found particularly valuable by first-line
managers in welfare organisations during times of transition and uncertainty (Ericsson, 2010).
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FUNDING
This study was financed by the
Universities of Kristianstad and Lund, and by the municipal care organisation.
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| ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Marie-Louise Österlind is junior lecturer at Kristianstad
University and doctoral student at the Department of Psychology, Lund
University, Sweden.
E-mail: marie-louise.osterlind@hkr.se
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REFERENCE
Österlind,
M.-L. (2011). Looking into the box: Swedish social care managers make
meaning of their work and role. Personal
Construct Theory & Practice, 8, 38-49, 2011
(Retrieved from http://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp11/oesterlind11.html)
Contact: Marie-Louise Österlind Högskolan Kristianstad, 29188 Kristianstad, Sweden E-mail: marie-louise.osterlind@hkr.se
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Received: 22 May
2011 – Accepted: 26 October 2011 –
Published: 6 November 2011
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