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Innovations on a shoestring : consequences for job quality of public service innovations in health and social care
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Mathieu, Christopher, Wright, Sally, Boethius, Susanne and Green, Anne E. (2020) Innovations on a shoestring : consequences for job quality of public service innovations in health and social care. European Journal of Workplace Innovation, 5 (2). pp. 1-27. doi:10.46364/ejwi.v5i2.603
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.46364/ejwi.v5i2.603
Abstract
The article examines the innovation-job quality-employment nexus in social and health care in the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively. Through seven case studies carried out with a common methodological and analytical framework in the two countries, it shows how the constraining factors of fiscal strictures derived from budgetary regimes and chronic labour shortages have two key consequences for innovation. The first is that in the absence of room for manoeuvre with regard to extrinsic job quality, intrinsic job quality becomes the primary innovation arena. Here the activation of feelings and ideologies of empathy towards patients and clients and occupational/professional pride are central. The second is that most of the innovations found aimed at addressing labour shortages are ameliorative rather than solutions, leading to the development of the concept of “coping innovations.” Both of these processes are symptomatic of “innovation on a shoestring” due to structural conditions. Certain, arguably beneficial, aspects of these constraints are identified, such as activities directed towards enhancing person-centred approaches to clients/patients and colleagues, less ‘technologisation’ of care contact, and opening up opportunities for non-traditional occupational and social groups in health and care work. Nonbeneficial aspects of these constraints include heightened work intensity and employee turnover, an overtaxing of the Florence Nightingale ethos, and incomplete or unsatisfactory training and career development programmes.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Institute for Employment Research | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Human capital , Medical care -- Vocational guidance , Social service -- Vocational guidance , Labor productivity , Medical care -- Employees -- Effect of technological innovations on, Social service -- Employees -- Effect of technological innovations on | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | European Journal of Workplace Innovation | ||||||
| Publisher: | University of Agder, Department of Working Life and Innovation | ||||||
| Official Date: | 22 June 2020 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 31 August 2020 | ||||||
| Volume: | 5 | ||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1-27 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.46364/ejwi.v5i2.603 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Open Access Version: |
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