Involvement and structure: A qualitative study of organizational change and sickness absence among women in the public sector in Sweden

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Mona Backhans¹  Maria Baltzer²  Hugo Westerlund²  Karin Melinder³ 

[1] Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden;Swedish National Institute of Public Health, Östersund, Sweden;

关键词: Sickness Absence;    Organizational Change;    Work Task;    Multiple Context;    Qualitative Comparative Analysis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-318

 received in 2010-11-09, accepted in 2011-05-16,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundOrganizational changes in modern corporate life have become increasingly common and there are indications that they often fail to achieve their ends. An earlier study of 24,036 employees showed that those who had repeatedly been exposed to large increases in staffing during 1991-1996 had an excess risk of both long-term sickness absence and hospital admission during 1997-1999, while moderate expansion appeared to be protective. The former was most salient among female public sector employees. We used qualitative interviews to explore work environment factors underlying the impact of organizational changes (moderate and large expansions in staffing) on sickness absence from an employee perspective.MethodWe interviewed 21 strategically selected women from the earlier study using semi-structured telephone interviews focusing on working conditions during the organizational changes. We identified 22 themes which could explain the association between organizational changes and sickness absence. We then used Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to reduce the number of themes and discover patterns of possible causation.ResultsThe themes that most readily explained the outcomes were Well Planned Process of Change (a clear structure for involvement of the employees in the changes), Agent of Change (an active role in the implementation of the changes), Unregulated Work (a lack of clear limits and guidelines regarding work tasks from the management and among the employees), and Humiliating Position (feelings of low status or of not being wanted at the workplace), which had been salient throughout the analytic process, in combination with Multiple Contexts (working in several teams in parallel) and Already Ill(having already had a debilitating illness at the beginning of 1991), which may indicate degree of individual exposure and vulnerability. Well Planned Process of Change, Agent of Change and Multiple Contexts are themes that were associated with low sickness absence. Unregulated Work, Humiliating Position and Already Ill were associated with high sickness absence.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that promising areas for future research and improvement in change management could be the structured involvement of the employees in the planning of organizational changes, and the development of methods to avoid highly unregulated working conditions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Baltzer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011