Influence at Work tied to Materiality in Danish Care Work

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.129222

Keywords:

Health, Working Environment & Wellbeing, Organization & Management

Abstract

Influence at work is known to be an important factor for workers health. Researchers have called for studies on influence at work as a contextualized phenomenon. Based on individual interviews with managers and focus group interviews with employees in three care workplaces, the article shows how the materiality of the work setting ties employees’ influence to perform tasks in both hindering and enabling ways. We show that a work environment where employees’ influence is hindered produces negative experiences in the work environment, while an environment where employees’ influence is enabled produces positive experiences. Additionally, we study how employees influence the material aspects of their workplace.We present a view of influence at work as constituted by materiality and social organization in sociomaterial assemblages. This study reintroduces materiality as a concern in psychosocial work environment research and contributes a sociomaterial view on influence at work and materiality.

Author Biographies

Peter Aske Svendsen, National Research Centre for the Working Environment

Research Assistant. E-mail: pea@nfa.dk

Johan Simonsen Abildgaard, National Research Centre for the Working Environment

Senior Researcher

Lene Tanggaard, Design School Kolding

Rector

Ida Elisabeth Huitfeldt Madsen, National Research Centre for the Working Environment

Senior Researcher

Malene Friis Andersen, National Research Centre for the Working Environment

Researcher

References

Abildgaard JS and Nickelsen NC. (2013) Making materials matter - a contribution to a sociomaterial perspective on work environment, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 3: 63-84. doi: 10.19154/njwls.v3i4.3073

Ajslev JZ, Johansen HH, Andersen MF, et al. (2019) Occupational identities and physical exertion in (re)configurations of new technologies in eldercare, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 9: 19-37. doi: 10.18291/njwls.v9i4.117778

Andersen MF, Ajslev J, Tanggaard L, et al. (2020) Skakmat – kan prisen for indflydelse blive for stor? Skyggearbejde og workarounds blandt ansatte i psykiatrien [Checkmate – Can the cost of influence become too great? Shadowwork and workarounds among employees in psychiatry], Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 22: 9-24.

Amble N. (2013) Autonomy and control when working with humans - a reflection on sociotechnical concepts, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 3: 45-62. doi: 10.19154/njwls.v3i4.3072

Aronsson G. (1989) Dimensions of control as related to work organization, stress, and health, International Journal of Health Services 19: 459-468. doi: 10.2190/n6kq-hwa0-h7cj-kupq

Bolin M and Olofsdotter G. (2019) Bringing organizations back in: going from healthy work to healthy workplaces, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 9: 3-17. doi: 10.18291/njwls.v9i4.117779

Boyatzis RE. (1998) Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development, Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Bradbury-Jones C, Sambrook S and Irvine F. (2009) The phenomenological focus group: an oxymoron? Journal of Advanced Nursing 65: 663-671. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04922.x

Brinkmann S and Tanggaard L. (2015) Kvalitative Metoder. En Grundbog [Qualitative methods. A text-book], København: Hans Reitzel.

Broberg O. (2010) Workspace design: a case study applying participatory design principles of healthy workplaces in an industrial setting, International Journal of Technology Management 51: 39-56. doi: 10.1504/IJTM.2010.033127

Broberg O. (2011) Enabling Objets for Participatory Design of Socio-Technical Systems. In: Culley, SJ.; Hicks, BJ; McAloone, TC; Howard, TJ; Badke-Schaub, P (ed) DS 68-7: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 11), Impacting Society through Engineering Design. Lyngby/Copenhagen, Denmark.

Broberg O and Andersen SN. (2016) Brugerdreven simulation i design af arbejdssystemer i hospitalssektoren: Et nyt virkemiddel i den forebyggende arbejdsmiljøindsats [User-driven simulation in design of work-systems in the hospital sector: a new tool in preventative work evironment work]. Danish Technical University (DTU).

Cassell C and Symon G. (2004) Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, London: SAGE.

Clausen T, Burr H and Borg V. (2014) Do psychosocial job demands and job resources predict long-term sickness absence? An analysis of register-based outcomes using pooled data on 39,408 individuals in four occupational groups, International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 87: 909-917. doi: 10.1007/s00420-014-0936-7

Clausen T, Madsen IE, Christensen KB, et al. (2019) The Danish Psychosocial Work Environment Questionnaire (DPQ): development, content, reliability and validity, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health 45: 356-369. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.3793

Clausen T, Nielsen K, Carneiro IG, et al. (2012) Job demands, job resources and long‐term sickness absence in the Danish eldercare services: a prospective analysis of register‐based outcomes, Journal of Advanced Nursing 68: 127-136. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05724.x

Cox A, Zagelmeyer S and Marchington M. (2006) Embedding employee involvement and participation at work, Human Resource Management Journal 16: 250-267. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-8583.2006.00017.x

De Croon EM, Sluiter JK, Kuijer PP, et al. (2005) The effect of office concepts on worker health and performance: A systematic review of the literature, Ergonomics 48: 119-134. doi: 10.1080/00140130512331319409

De Spiegelaere S, Van Gyes G and Van Hootegem G. (2016) Not all autonomy is the same. Different dimensions of Job Autonomy and their relation to work engagement & innovative work behavior, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries 26: 515-527. doi: 10.1002/hfm.20666

Ertner M. (2019) Enchanting, evoking, and affecting: the invisible work of technology implementation in homecare, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 9: 33-47. doi: 10.18291/njwls.v9iS5.112690

Flyvbjerg B. (2006) Five misunderstandings about case-study research, Qualitative Inquiry 12: 219-245. doi: 10.1177/1077800405284363

Gardell B. (1977) Arbetsinnehåll Och Livskvalitet: En Sammanställning Och Diskussion Av Samhällsvetenskaplig Forskning Rörande Människan Och Arbetet [Job Content and Quality of Life: A Collection and Discussion of Social Science Research Concerning People and Work], Stockholm: Prisma.

Gardell B and Svensson L. (1981) Medbestämmande och Självstyre: En Lokal Facklig Strategi för Demokratisering av Arbetsplatsen [Influence and self-management: A local, professional strategy for democratizitation of the workplace], Stockholm: Prisma.

Giddens A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hackman J and Oldham G. (1976) Motivation through the design of work: test of a theory, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 16: 250-279. doi: 10.1016/0030-5073(76)90016-7

Hasle P. (2014) Lean og professionel autonomi på hospitaler, Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 16: 67-82. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v16i1.108955

Hasle P and Sørensen OH. (2013) Employees as individually and collectively acting subjects - key contributions from Nordic working life research, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 3: 9-30. doi: 10.19154/njwls.v3i3.3009

Hvid H. (2009) To be in control — vejen til godt psykisk arbejdsmiljø, læring og innovation? [To be in control – the road to beneficial mental working environment, learning and innovation?] Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 11: 11-30. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v11i1.108763

Jacobsen K. (2011) Velfærdens Pris: Arbejderbeskyttelse og Arbejdsmiljø gennem 150 år [The price of Welfare: Worker protection and Work Environment through 150 years], Copenhagen: Gads Forlag.

Kamp A. (2011) Mening i arbejdet — for lidt, for meget, til forhandling? [Meaning in work – too little, too much, too be negotiated?], Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 13: 8-27. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v13i2.108883

Kamp A and Dybbroe B. (2016) Struggles of professionalism and emotional Labour in standardized mental health care, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 6: 67-86. doi 10.19154/njwls.v6i1.4886

Karasek R. (1979) Job Demands, Job Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain: implications for Job Redesign, Administrative Science Quarterly 24: 285-308. doi: 10.2307/2392498

Karasek R, Baker D, Marxer F, et al. (1981) Job Decision Latitude, Job Demands, and cardiovascular disease: a prospective study of Swedish men, American Journal of Public Health 71: 694-705. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.7.694

Karasek R and Theorell T. (1990) Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity, And The Reconstruction Of Working Life, New York: Basic.

Katz D and Kahn RL. (1978) The Social Psychology of Organizations, New York: Wiley.

Kirkegaard T. (2015) Stress as a sociocultural phenomenon: exploring the distributed nature of stress in an organizational context. 1. ed. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. doi: 10.5278/vbn.phd.hum.00013

Kirkegaard T and Brinkmann S. (2016) “Which coping strategies does the working environment offer you?” a field study of the distributed nature of stress and coping, Nordic Psychology 68: 12-29. doi: 10.1080/19012276.2015.1045543

Kivimäki M, Nyberg ST, Batty GD, et al. (2012) Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data, The Lancet 380: 1491-1497. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60994-5

Latour B. (2005) Reassembling the Social, an Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.

Laulainen S and Hujala A. (2016) Material construction of care workers’ identity, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 6: 7. doi: 10.19154/njwls.v6i1.4883

Leonardi PM. (2012) Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems: What Do These Terms Mean? How are they different? Do we need them? In: Leonardi PM, Nardi BA, & Kallin, J (eds) Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Madsen, I. E. H., Nyberg, S. T., Magnusson Hanson, L. L., Ferrie, J. E., Ahola, K., Alfredsson, L., . . . Kivimäki, M. (2017). Job strain as a risk factor for clinical depression: systematic review and meta-analysis with additional individual participant data, Psychol Med 47(8), 1342-1356. doi:10.1017/s003329171600355x

Mazmanian M, Orlikowski WJ and Yates J. (2013) The autonomy paradox: the implications of mobile email devices for knowledge professionals, Organization Science 24: 1337-1357. doi: 10.1287/orsc.1120.0806

Mogensen M. (2012) The organization(s) of well-being and productivity: (re)assembling work in the Danish Post. Ph.D.-serie 38.2012. 1 ed., Copenhagen: PhD School of Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School.

Nickelsen NC. (2008) Subjektivitet, materialitet og ledsmerter – om ANT-analysers bidrag til organisationspsykologi [Subjectivity, materiality and joint pain – on ANT-analyses contribution to organizational psychology], Psyke & Logos 29: 238-260.

Nielsen MB and Knardahl S. (2020) The impact of office design on medically certified sickness absence, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health 46: 330-334. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.3859

Nord C and Högström E. (2017) Caring Architecture: Institutions and Relational Practices, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publisher.

Orlikowski WJ. (2005) Material works: exploring the situated entanglement of technological performativity and human agency, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 17: 183-186.

Orlikowski WJ. (2007) Sociomaterial Practices: exploring technology at work, Organization Studies 28: 1435-1448. doi: 10.1177/0170840607081138

Orlikowski WJ. (2010) The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research, Cambridge Journal of Economics 34: 125-141. doi: 10.1093/cje/bep058

Orlikowski WJ and Scott SV. (2008) Sociomateriality: challenging the separation of technology, work and organization, The Academy of Management Annals 2: 433-474. doi: 10.5465/19416520802211644

Parsons HM. (1976) Work Environments. In: Altman I and Wohlwill JF (eds) Human Behavior and Environment: Advances in Theory and Research, Boston, MA: Springer US, 163-209. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4684-2550-5_5

Ravn I. (2008) Mening i arbejdslivet — definition og konceptualisering [Meaning in the work life – definition and conceptualization], Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 10: 59-75. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v10i4.108735

Rice AK. (1963) The Enterprise and its Environment: A System Theory of Management Organization, London: Tavistock.

Roessler KK. (2012) Healthy architecture! Can environments evoke emotional responses? Global Journal of Health Science 4: 83-89. doi: 10.5539/gjhs.v4n4p83

Rugulies R, Aust B and Madsen IEH. (2019) Occupational Determinants of Affective Disorders. In: Bültmann U and Siegrist J (eds) Handbook of Disability, Work and Health, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 1-28. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-75381-2_10-1

Sasser M and Sørensen OH. (2016) Doing a good job - the effect of primary task quality on Well-Being and Job Satisfaction, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries 26: 323-336. doi: 10.1002/hfm.20648

Sasser M and Sørensen OH. (2017) Kerneopgaven på dagsordenen [The primary task on the agenda]. Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 19: 78-93. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v19i1.109079

Semmer N, Jacobshagen N, Meier L, et al. (2007) Occupational Stress Research: the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” Perspective. In: Houdmont J and McIntyre S (eds) Occupational Health Psychology: European Perspectives on Research and Practice. Ismai publishers, 43-60.

Simonsen TP and Duff C. (2020) Healing architecture and psychiatric practice: (re)ordering work and space in an in-patient ward in Denmark, Sociology of Health & Illness 42: 379-392. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13011

Simonsen TP and Duff C. (2021) Mutual visibility and interaction: staff reactions to the ‘healing architecture’ of psychiatric inpatient wards in Denmark, BioSocieties 16: 249-269. doi: 10.1057/s41292-020-00195-4

Spencer DG. (1986) Employee voice and employee retention, The Academy of Management Journal 29: 488-502. doi: 10.5465/256220

Sørensen O, Buch A, Christensen P, et al. (2007) Indflydelse i vidensarbejdet - kan man få for meget af det gode? [Influence in knowledge work – can one have too much of a good thing?] Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv 9: 38-54. doi: 10.7146/tfa.v9i2.108610

Sørensen OH. (2008) Arbejdets Kerne: Om at arbejde med Psykisk Arbejdsmiljø i Praksis [The core in work: working with mental working environment in practice], Copenhagen: Frydenlund.

Theorell T, Hammarstrom A, Aronsson G, et al. (2015) A systematic review including meta-analysis of work environment and depressive symptoms, BMC Public Health 15: 738. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-1954-4

Theorell T and Karasek R. (1996) Current issues relating to psychosocial job strain and cardiovascular disease research, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 1: 9-26. doi: 10.1037/1076-8998.1.1.9

Thorsrud E, Emery F and Trist E. (1964) Industrielt Demokrati: Representasjon på Styreplan i Bedriftene? Noen Norske og Utenlandske Erfaringer [Industrial Democracy. Representation on Managerial Level in Industry? Some Norwegian and International Lessons], Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Trist EL and Bamforth KW. (1951) Some social and psychological consequences of the Longwall Method of coal-getting: an examination of the psychological situation and defences of a work group in relation to the social structure and technological content of the work system, Human Relations 4: 3-38. doi: 10.1177/001872675100400101

Tufte P. (2013) Is there time enough? Temporal resources and service performance in the Danish home care sector, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 3: 97-112. doi: 10.19154/njwls.v3i2.2552

Tufte P and Dahl HM. (2016) Navigating the field of temporally framed care in the Danish home care sector, Sociology of Health & Illness 38: 109-122. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.12343

Väänänen A and Toivanen M. (2018) The challenge of tied autonomy for traditional work stress models, Work & Stress 32: 1-5. doi: 10.1080/02678373.2017.1415999

Wilhelm JJ and Battisto D. (2020) Architecture and Health: Guiding Principles for Practice, New York: Routledge

Downloads

Published

2022-06-20

How to Cite

Svendsen, P. A., Abildgaard, J. S., Tanggaard, L., Madsen, I. E. H., & Andersen, M. F. (2022). Influence at Work tied to Materiality in Danish Care Work. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.129222

Issue

Section

Articles