Title: Organizational identity in the public sector during times of crises Date of submission: 2021-06-01 Authors: Lowe Björklund and Jakob Boyer Advisor: Josef Pallas Course: Master’s thesis 30 credits Purpose: Organizational identity (OI) has gained attention due to its feasibility in several organizational respects. Swedish healthcare is a well-debated area, and there is an ongoing discussion on how it should be managed. Crises can spark discussions about OI, opening up the possibility to gain insights related to the concept. Therefore, OI may work as a tool for making progress in understanding management within Swedish healthcare. The research might show if a prominent crisis can produce alternative views of how OI is affected during times of crises. Design/Methodology: To investigate OI, a qualitative method was chosen together with semi-structured interviews as a data collection method. The motivation for the particular research design and methodology stems from prior research investigating OI, where qualitative semi-structured interviews were used. Findings: The findings showed that the OI of the Swedish hospital had been highlighted and reinforced after Covid-19's introduction. The hospital had developed a more congruent idea of their OI, while the temporary nature of the connection between hospital staff indicated that the connection had not become stronger. The findings also indicated a relationship between the motivation of hospital staff and management’s actions. Many of the effects forced upon the hospital by the crisis had produced many positive changes (e.g., less territorial thinking and increased digital measures). However, part of these changes was thought to stay only temporarily; thus, the hospital’s OI was considered fixed and fluid. In addition, the research indicated that the hospital’s OI was shaped in an ongoing process of interactions between organizational members internally rather than external factors. The findings also suggest that organizational members had viewed the crisis both as a threat and an opportunity, while perceiving gaps between the present and the future along with costs not to change. Research limitations: The findings may have a questionable level of generalizability due to the case study approach.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-448337 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Björklund, Lowe, Boyer, Jakob |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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