Fragmentation in managerial work - A study of first- and second-line managers in health care.

• This is a study on health care managers’ work. Ten first- and second-line managers from different types of health care settings were shadowed and interviewed for four days each. Three additional managers were interviewed and observed during meetings. The study contributes to both the managerial work activities and health care management research traditions with its analysis of how fragmentation and processes of power mutually and dynamicly constitute each other in everyday work, a relationship that has previously been unexplored. Scheduled and unscheduled meetings, communication activities, and deskwork consume the majority of managers’ work time. Many short activities, with rapid changes between tasks, characterize their workdays, which can be seen as evidence of work fragmentation. In taking a pragmatist and non-idealist perspective on the processes of power, this study also shows that even when the managers gave accounts of fragmentation, they typically took part in collective negotiations to choose and legitimize their activities. The managers used a narrative of fragmentation to negotiate in order to gain and/or maintain control over selected activities and to legitimately reduce their accountability for those activities. Thus, the managers’ narrative of fragmentation was related dynamically to disciplinary power processes. The qualitative method of interpretation used in the study generated results which are generalizable with respect to the development of useful concepts and a new vocabulary for the study of managerial work.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Managerial work

power

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)