Review: The role of first line managers in healthcare organisations – a qualitative study on the work life experience of ward managers

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 296-297
Author(s):  
Elaine Maxwell
Author(s):  
Mervyl McPherson

The paper draws on existing overseas research to present an argument for the importance of the role of individual managers and workplace culture in the successful outcome of work-life balance programmes in workplaces. Using findings from a recent Work-Life Survey of New Zealand employers by the EEO Trust, and other New Zealand based research, it looks at where New Zealand organisations are at I terms of the role of managers implementing work-life balance programmes. Additional information from employees’ perspectives on the role of managers in implementing work-life balance programmes is drawn from a qualitative study of mothers’ experience on combining paid work and parenting catties out by the author for the Families Commission (forthcoming) and other New Zealand research. The paper concludes with suggestions of how New Zealand organisations can improves outcomes from work-life balance initiatives by greater attentions to the role of mangers in the process.


Sociology ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Delbridge ◽  
James Lowe

Primary ethnographic research is drawn on in this paper so as to examine the nature of supervisory systems in two manufacturing organisations which have both, to varying degrees, implemented `new' manufacturing techniques such as just-in-time and total quality management and have organised around `teams'. Debates in industrial sociology and the labour process have understandably concentrated on the implications of such developments for workers; the important and problematic role of supervisors in realising managerial objectives has been largely neglected. This paper analyses the nature of supervision and the role of supervisors/first-line managers within contemporary manufacturing. In contrast to previous studies, which have sought to explain supervisory roles in terms of their link with structural factors such as technology, organisational size and formalisation (Perrow 1970; Woodward 1965), this paper highlights the importance of supervisors as social actors. The analysis demonstrates the dynamic and complex role of supervisors in implementing and adhering to managerial rules while needing to ensure a degree of operational flexibility that relies on informality, particularly in reaching accommodation with labour. These types of contradictory pressures have long been recognised in supervisory work (Roethlisberger 1945) but recent research into developments on the `new' shopfloor has failed adequately to report and conceptualise the increasingly complex position of supervisors and front-line managers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bonetto ◽  
Fabien Girandola ◽  
Grégory Lo Monaco

Abstract. This contribution consists of a critical review of the literature about the articulation of two traditionally separated theoretical fields: social representations and commitment. Besides consulting various works and communications, a bibliographic search was carried out (between February and December, 2016) on various databases using the keywords “commitment” and “social representation,” in the singular and in the plural, in French and in English. Articles published in English or in French, that explicitly made reference to both terms, were included. The relations between commitment and social representations are approached according to two approaches or complementary lines. The first line follows the role of commitment in the representational dynamics: how can commitment transform the representations? This articulation gathers most of the work on the topic. The second line envisages the social representations as determinants of commitment procedures: how can these representations influence the effects of commitment procedures? This literature review will identify unexploited tracks, as well as research perspectives for both areas of research.


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