Search results

1 – 6 of 6
Per page
102050
Citations:
Loading...
Access Restricted. View access options
Article
Publication date: 19 February 2024

Anne Stouby Persson and Line Revsbæk

This paper aims to answer report how mentors who onboard newcomers to a high-stress social work organization can learn about their onboarding practice by treating onboarding as a…

407

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to answer report how mentors who onboard newcomers to a high-stress social work organization can learn about their onboarding practice by treating onboarding as a wicked problem that escapes definitive formulation and final solutions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors follow an action research approach with three iterations of learning about onboarding with mentors in a Danish social work organization struggling with an employee turnover exceeding 30%.

Findings

The authors unfold the authors’ emerging sensitivity to wickedity over the iterations of learning about onboarding with the mentors. As the authors foreground the wickedity of the authors onboarding in the last iteration, three lessons learned could be derived: it warrants the mentors’ continuous inquiry; opens inquiry into the ambivalence of mentoring; and convenes responsibility for inquiry to a community of mentors.

Research limitations/implications

This study of problematic onboarding to high-stress social work shows the value of fore-grounding wickedity instead of hiding it with a positive framing. This wickedity rests on situated grounding and is only transferrable to other organizations with the utmost caution.

Practical implications

High-stress social work organizations without the capacity to systematically sustain best practices for onboarding may, instead, increase attention to the wickedity of onboarding as a motivation for continuous inquiry by a broader community of mentors.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to present an action research study of problem wickedity to motivate mentors’ inquiry into onboarding newcomers to high-stress social work.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Access Restricted. View access options
Article
Publication date: 11 August 2020

Wafa Said Mosleh and Henry Larsen

The purpose of this paper is to present researcher's reflexive writing about emergent events in research collaborations as a way of responding to the process-figurational…

317

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present researcher's reflexive writing about emergent events in research collaborations as a way of responding to the process-figurational sociology of Norbert Elias in the practice of organizational ethnography.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing parallels between Norbert Elias' figurative account of social life and auto-ethnographic methodology, this paper re-articulates the entanglement of social researchers in organizational ethnographic work. Auto-ethnographic narration is explored as means to inquire from within the emerging relational complexity constituted by organizational dynamics. Writing about emergent events in the research process becomes a way of inquiring into the social figurations between the involved stakeholders; thus nurturing sense-making and increasing the awareness and sensitivity of the researcher to her own entanglement with the relational complexity of the organization under study.

Findings

In the paper, we argue that the writing of auto-ethnographic narratives of emergent field encounters is a process of inquiry that continuously depicts the temporal development of the relational complexity in organizations. Viewing that from the perspective of Elias' concept of figuration, we find a common commitment to the processual nature of research processes, which insists on moving beyond objectifying empirical insights.

Originality/value

This paper encourages awareness of the interdependency between ourselves as social researchers and field actors as we engage with the field. It moves beyond simplifying the ethnographic research agenda to that of “studying” and “describing” organizations. It offers unique insights into the organizational context, and increased sensitivity toward the social entanglement of the experiences that we, ourselves, as researchers are part of.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Access Restricted. View access options
Book part
Publication date: 21 January 2019

Christian Harpelund

Abstract

Details

Onboarding: Getting New Hires off to a Flying Start
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-582-5

Access Restricted. View access options
Book part
Publication date: 21 January 2019

Christian Harpelund

Abstract

Details

Onboarding: Getting New Hires off to a Flying Start
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-582-5

Access Restricted. View access options
Article
Publication date: 12 November 2024

Britta Moeller

This paper aims to examine uncertain situations with potential for learning in care work. While the dominant learning strategy in elderly care is lecture-based education, learning…

69

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine uncertain situations with potential for learning in care work. While the dominant learning strategy in elderly care is lecture-based education, learning from and during daily care work routines is crucial and suitable. However, little is known about the potential for learning in daily work in elderly care.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a doctoral study conducted in Danish nursing homes. Shadowing care workers led to the construction of care work vignettes, which were analyzed and validated in analytic dialogues with field practitioners. Here, a selected vignette forms the empirical base for analyzing uncertainty through the lens of Dewey’s philosophy of learning.

Findings

The results suggest labeling uncertain situations as noisy, as they are sensorily felt, prompting doubt and perplexity and, hence, reflection and learning. Noisy situations cause breakdowns in action experienced as a tension that triggers reflection, often with colleagues, alongside work. A critical discussion draws attention to silent situations that proceed undisturbedly, according to routine, and, hence, often without reflection. To handle uncertainty, either noisy or silent, care workers must be considered as learning actors. Space and time for reflection are mandatory.

Originality/value

By focusing on uncertainty in care work, this study contributes to the understanding of workplace learning potential by clarifying the characteristics of situations useful for systematic exploration and collaborative learning from specific instances in work.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 June 2023

Silvia Gherardi

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are…

2009

Abstract

Purpose

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are ephemeral and elusive – like affect, aesthetics, atmosphere, intensity, moods – and proposes to explore affect as spatialized and space as affective.

Design/methodology/approach

Fluidity is proposed as a conceptual lens that sits at the conjunction of space and affect, highlighting both the movement in time and space, and the mutable relationships that the capacity of affecting and being affected weaves. It experiments with “writing differently” in affective ethnography, thus performing the space of representation of affective space.

Findings

The article enriches the alternative to a conceptualization of organizations as stable entities, considering organizing in its spatial fluidity and in being a fragmented, affective and dispersed phenomenon.

Originality/value

The article's writing is an example of intertextuality constructed through five praxiographic stories that illustrate the multiple fluidity of affective spacing in terms of temporal fluidity, fluidity of boundaries, of participation, of the object of practice, and atmospheric fluidity.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

1 – 6 of 6
Per page
102050