First line supervision : Intermediate position, divided loyalty, and strategies of action in three organizations
(1997) In Lund Dissertations in Sociology- Abstract
- This doctoral dissertation concerns supervisors, i.e. first line mangers, in three different organizations within the public sector - a Samhall sheltered employment workshop, a municipality home-help service and a hospital clinic. The focus of my dissertation is the intermediate position of the supervisors and the strategies they use to manage their jobs in such a position. What all supervisors have in common is that they have operative responsibility for performing a number of tasks. To be able to fulfil this responsibility, supervisors try to create their own resources and give to their intermediate position a kind of autonomy. The strategies they choose to deal with various situations can then be looked upon as an attempt to gain some... (More)
- This doctoral dissertation concerns supervisors, i.e. first line mangers, in three different organizations within the public sector - a Samhall sheltered employment workshop, a municipality home-help service and a hospital clinic. The focus of my dissertation is the intermediate position of the supervisors and the strategies they use to manage their jobs in such a position. What all supervisors have in common is that they have operative responsibility for performing a number of tasks. To be able to fulfil this responsibility, supervisors try to create their own resources and give to their intermediate position a kind of autonomy. The strategies they choose to deal with various situations can then be looked upon as an attempt to gain some room to manoeuvre and a chance to control these situations. My main question has been formulated as follows: What strategies do the various supervisors develop in their intermediate position and how can these strategies be explained and understood? Data has been collected through personal interviews, studies of literature and of documents such as job descriptions, personnel plicy programmes, internal reports etc. Personal interviews were chosen, since my purpose was to arrive at the complexity of the supervisors´concrete everyday situations. In my dissertation it is the supervisors´views and experiences that I first of all want to describe. However, in order to reach a deeper understanding of their situation, I have also chosen to interview superordinate managers, employees and union representatives. In a way it can, of course be said that the supervisors in the three organizations I have studied are faced with similar problems in their work situation. They have been faced with situations where they have found themselves "in a tight squeeze" and with problematic situations containing contradictory elements. On the other hand, it was also evident that the problems they had to deal with in their daily work were of diverse kinds. They also had access to very dissimilar resources for dealing with these problems. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Popular Abstract
I avhandlingen presenteras en undersökning av första linjens chefer i tre organisationer inom den offentliga sektorn. Den första är en verkstad inom Samhall, där arbetsledarna på verkstadsgolvet står i fokus. I den andra organisationen - hemtjänsten i en kommun- belyses hemtjänstassistenternas arbetsledning. Den tredje och sista organisationen är en klinik, s k basenhet, på ett lasarett. Här studeras avdelningsföreståndarnas arbetsledningsstrategier. I varje verksamhet lyftes särdrag fram för att visa och skapa förståelse för arbetsledarnas hantering av vardagliga frågor. Arbetsledare befinner sig - på olika sätt i olika organisationer - i en mellanställning, och de handlingsstrategier de väljer kan ses som... (More) - Popular Abstract
I avhandlingen presenteras en undersökning av första linjens chefer i tre organisationer inom den offentliga sektorn. Den första är en verkstad inom Samhall, där arbetsledarna på verkstadsgolvet står i fokus. I den andra organisationen - hemtjänsten i en kommun- belyses hemtjänstassistenternas arbetsledning. Den tredje och sista organisationen är en klinik, s k basenhet, på ett lasarett. Här studeras avdelningsföreståndarnas arbetsledningsstrategier. I varje verksamhet lyftes särdrag fram för att visa och skapa förståelse för arbetsledarnas hantering av vardagliga frågor. Arbetsledare befinner sig - på olika sätt i olika organisationer - i en mellanställning, och de handlingsstrategier de väljer kan ses som försök att skaffa sig manöverutrymme och autonomi. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/18406
- author
- Richard, Elvi LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Professor Berglind, Hans, Stockholm University
- organization
- publishing date
- 1997
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- separated management, conscious management, divided loyalty, actors, resources, management strategies, autonomy, social rule systems, historical tradition, buffer, intermediate position, First-line manager, supervisor, reluctant management., Sociology of labour, sociology of enterprise, Arbetslivssociologi, företagssociologi
- in
- Lund Dissertations in Sociology
- issue
- 19
- pages
- 346 pages
- publisher
- Department of Sociology, Lund University
- defense location
- Carolinasalen, Lunds Universitet
- defense date
- 1997-10-31 13:15:00
- external identifiers
-
- other:ISRN: LUSAGD/SASO--97/1112--SE
- ISSN
- 1102-4712
- ISBN
- 91-89078-17-9
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 54de5633-4856-4c7c-8164-d528676a43c4 (old id 18406)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 16:29:35
- date last changed
- 2019-09-23 08:09:14
@phdthesis{54de5633-4856-4c7c-8164-d528676a43c4,
abstract = {{This doctoral dissertation concerns supervisors, i.e. first line mangers, in three different organizations within the public sector - a Samhall sheltered employment workshop, a municipality home-help service and a hospital clinic. The focus of my dissertation is the intermediate position of the supervisors and the strategies they use to manage their jobs in such a position. What all supervisors have in common is that they have operative responsibility for performing a number of tasks. To be able to fulfil this responsibility, supervisors try to create their own resources and give to their intermediate position a kind of autonomy. The strategies they choose to deal with various situations can then be looked upon as an attempt to gain some room to manoeuvre and a chance to control these situations. My main question has been formulated as follows: What strategies do the various supervisors develop in their intermediate position and how can these strategies be explained and understood? Data has been collected through personal interviews, studies of literature and of documents such as job descriptions, personnel plicy programmes, internal reports etc. Personal interviews were chosen, since my purpose was to arrive at the complexity of the supervisors´concrete everyday situations. In my dissertation it is the supervisors´views and experiences that I first of all want to describe. However, in order to reach a deeper understanding of their situation, I have also chosen to interview superordinate managers, employees and union representatives. In a way it can, of course be said that the supervisors in the three organizations I have studied are faced with similar problems in their work situation. They have been faced with situations where they have found themselves "in a tight squeeze" and with problematic situations containing contradictory elements. On the other hand, it was also evident that the problems they had to deal with in their daily work were of diverse kinds. They also had access to very dissimilar resources for dealing with these problems.}},
author = {{Richard, Elvi}},
isbn = {{91-89078-17-9}},
issn = {{1102-4712}},
keywords = {{separated management; conscious management; divided loyalty; actors; resources; management strategies; autonomy; social rule systems; historical tradition; buffer; intermediate position; First-line manager; supervisor; reluctant management.; Sociology of labour; sociology of enterprise; Arbetslivssociologi; företagssociologi}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{19}},
publisher = {{Department of Sociology, Lund University}},
school = {{Lund University}},
series = {{Lund Dissertations in Sociology}},
title = {{First line supervision : Intermediate position, divided loyalty, and strategies of action in three organizations}},
year = {{1997}},
}