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- Kirchhoff, Jörg W., 1962-
(författare)
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De skjulte tjenestene - om uønsket atferd i offentlige organisasjoner
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on the work in primary health care enterprises within two municipals which have organised their services after new organisational models attuned to New Public Management ideologies. The organisational model, i.e. the purchaser – provider model, had features in common with tayloristic principles, including the separation between planning and execution of work, and it brought about a loss of opportunities for the employee’s flexibility. For this reason, the employee's control over their own work was focus of the study. Method The data are based on a comparative intensive case study of four organizations, i.e. enterprises that performed nursing and care services. The respondents in the study were home assistants, care workers, auxiliary nurses and registered nurses; all of which performed the work, i.e. practical assistance and primary health care services. The data was collected using participant observation, individual interviews and focus group interviews. Findings Employees often did more work than was expected by organisational standards. This work is called “hidden services” and categorised as organisational misbehaviour, since it was neither expected nor desired by the organisation. Five types of work were performed in addition to their expected work: surplus work, additional work, forbidden work, inappropriate basic work and collective work. The rationale for doing so diverged among occupations, since different occupations called upon dissimilar types of rules to legitimize their misbehaviour. Three types of rules legitimized the overriding of organisational rules, all based on distinctive work relations among employees, including employees’ work relations to clients. First, there were situational rules based on informal work relations with clients – situational work relations. Although these rules were established across all occupations in the study, situated rules were most active in long-lasting work relations between employees and clients. Second, there were collective rules, developed in consequence of employees’ social position at the workplace, bringing employees together in work teams and thereby establishing collective work relations. Collective rules included rules that modified organizational rules on how to provide service to clients, and rules that legitimized the breaking of administrative rules. Finally, professional rules, as a result of professionals’ socialisation through formal education and work relations among professionals at the workplace, provided the last distinct type of rules to legitimize organisational misbehaviour. Conclusion The thesis concludes that there are distinct work relations in the social structure of organisations that explains employees' execution of hidden services. Formal, private, collective and professional work relations are part of the social structure in organisations. These work relations generates mechanisms, i.e. norms, that modifies and legitimises the work in primary health care services
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| 2. |
- Øvrelid, Bjarne, 1958-
(författare)
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Nødvendigheten av fronetisk handlingskompetanse i sosialt arbeid
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study has partly been to explore how social work students develop their conception of relevant competence during their bachelor education. This part of the study is based on qualitative interviews with a sample of twelve students from Lillehammer University College interviewed individually focusing on the relationship between theory and practice, competence learned at the university and college and in practice placement and on the personal aspect of professional action. The most significant research finding was the ways in which the students changed their view on relevance after a period of practice placement during the second year of the bachelor program. The students consider competence experienced in practice placement as the "real thing" and competence learned in college as a secondary, but necessary competence for passing the final exam. Competence learned in practice placement was taken for granted and critical reflection on knowledge systems, practices and the relationship between welfare politics and professional action was outside the limits of what the students deemed relevant competence. From these research findings and interpretations I derived new research questions which I have investigated in five articles. Article 1 scrutinizes the strong impact of practice placement, article 2 explores the purpose of ethics in a context where social work tries to mediate between social control and users participation, article 3 is concerned with the necessity of moral competence in order to make good judgements in the application of the mandate given from the welfare state, article 4 asks to what extent the concept of empowerment requires certain techniques of intervention in order to make conform clients to conventional ways of living, while article 5 explores the potentials in Buddhism applied to relevant social work issues. The articles are situated in three different theoretical traditions. I use the traditions partly to challenge core elements within the traditions themselves, partly to challenge conventional viewpoints concerning competences in social work like arguments in favour of scientific knowledge because it contributes to the elevation of the status of social workers The first one draws on the tradition from situated learning and explores learning as participation in two different contexts (college and workplace). I challenge the notion that development of competence is about negotiations between contexts. I contend that the institutionalised practices in social work have a very disciplinary impact on the concept of relevant competence which is rather underestimated by our educational system. Article 2, 3 and 4 profit from Michel Foucault's governmentality-concept. His perspective on the ways in which the population in modern societies is governed. is used to explore how the welfare state uses its professions to combine social control with freedom and self-governing. In my interpretation, ethics is a part of a soft and subtle intervention strategy to transform social and structural issues to individual troubles and make clients cooperative and responsible. I also contend that the mandate given to social workers requires good judgement in their application of individualized strategies which actualize their phronetic competence. I also interpret empowerment as a strategy for intervention that makes clients conform to conventional ideals in society. This interpretation challenges the notion of empowerment as liberation strategy defined by the clients themselves. Article 5 is entirely devoted to the question of moral character, drawing heavily on core values from Buddhism. Buddhism is used to identify and suggest ways to overcome ego-related problems which are frequently occurring in social work (such as the problem of "burn-out" and the ways bureaucratic distance is used as a shield against demanding clients). I also suggest that Buddhism can be used as a strategy for promoting personal social engagement in social work. My empirical study as well as my articles identifies "phronetic competences" in social work as the most important ones. This concept is derived from the aristotelian "phronesis" meaning personal, experienced-based competence for making morally right judgements according to particular situations. I argue that phronetic competence is highly relevant because it includes capacities for actualizing moral aspects of a situation, critical analytical reflection and for scrutinizing knowledge systems, practices and impacts of welfare goals which tend to be taken for granted. I contend that the education of social workers must make a stronger effort to facilitate phronetic competences among social work students to prevent social work from being reduced to technical skills and social engineering.
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