Introduction (Purpose) - The main purpose of this study is to investigate how participation is differently understood and its effects in the relationship between managers and employees. By answering the research question has the potential to improve more effective participation practices. Theoretical framework – Discourses are considered as sites of power which involve an act of resistance itself. Both concepts co-emerge together in a dialectical relationship. The co-existence of different participation discourses inevitably provides tensions which are understood as a normal condition of the organizational life. Design/methodology/approach - The research setting took place in Uppsala Kommun Vård och Omsorg where the data was collected during 14 weeks. Due to my position as an employee within the organization, an inductive approach was considered as the most suitable reasoning in this research. By taking a qualitative design, interviews and observations were carried out to both managers and employees in three different groups. Findings - The organizational context as well as the different understandings of authority between managers and employees involves tensions which are used to articulate contrasting expectations and participation discourses. Significantly, the employees’ silence at the meetings is not only used by the managers and the group leaders to reinforce their own identities. Furthermore, the absence of a group leader does not eliminate this figure as such. This shows the inefficiency regarding the organizational debate about the appropriateness and maintenance of group leaders (i.e. “samordnares”) within personal assistants’ groups. Conclusions – Contrasting participation discourses reflect how power is differently exercised between managers and employees. Moreover, the intentionality of power and, hence, resistance behaviors is often misunderstood between managers and employees. To improve more effective participatory practices, some of the following examples were found; the requirement of clarify employees and group leaders’ competences within the decisions making processes, the correct organization in advance of the items for discussion, decentralization of responsibilities among the employees as well as conducting group meetings at the clients’ residence, at least once a year.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-331101 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Losa Valencia, Carlos |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media |
| 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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