Abstract
PurposeWithin public services there is a widely recognised role for workers who operate across organisational and professional boundaries. Much of this literature focusses on the organisational implications rather than on how boundary spanners engage with citizens. An increased number of public service roles require boundary spanning to support citizens with cross-cutting issues. The purpose of this paper is to explicate the emotional labour within the interactions that boundary spanners have with citizens, requiring adherence to display rules and building trust.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper which draws on illustrative examples to draw out the emotional labour within two types of boundary spanning: explicit and emergent.FindingsEmotional labour theory offers a way to classify these interactions as requiring high, medium or low degrees of emotional labour. Boundary spanning theory contributes an understanding of how emotional labour is likely to be differently experienced depending on whether the boundary spanning is an explicit part of the job, or an emergent property.Originality/valueDrawing on examples from public service work in a range of advanced democracies, the authors make a theoretical argument, suggesting that a more complete view of boundary spanning must account for individual-level affect and demands upon workers. Such a focus captures the “how” of the boundary spanning public encounter, and not just the institutional, political and organisational dimensions examined in most boundary spanning literatures.
Highlights
Within public services there is a widely recognised role for workers who operate across organisational and professional boundaries
We argue that boundary spanners undertake practices which are known to be emotionally laborious: adhering to display rules (Mastracci et al, 2006; Turnley and Bolino, 2001) and building trust (Chapman and Lowndes, 2014; Dickinson and Sullivan, 2014; Imison and Bohmer, 2013) across multiple constituencies (Caldwell and O’Reilly, 1982; Newman, 2001)
Governments have created a range of such roles which explicitly cross traditional professional boundaries, as people are appointed to posts such as care coordinators (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2016), navigators (University College London, 2016) and brokers (Tually et al, 2016). We argue that these roles are emotionally demanding in a somewhat different way to the emergent boundary spanners: rather than having to work in ways that transgress an expected professional role, these workers must establish the legitimacy of a new role which does not have a professional domain
Summary
This paper brings together the theories of boundary spanning and emotional labour, arguing that boundary spanning work has emotionally laborious implications which need to be better understood. Drawing on examples from public service work in a range of advanced democracies, we make a theoretical argument, suggesting that a more complete view of boundary spanning must account for micro-level affect and demands upon individual workers. Such a focus captures the “how” of the boundary spanning encounter (Bartles, 2013), and not just the institutional, political and organisational dimensions examined in most boundary spanning literatures (Aldrich and Herker, 1977; Leifer and Delbecq, 1978; Tushman and Scanlan, 1981; Caldwell and O’Reilly, 1982; Shrum, 1990; Callister and Wall, 2001; Williams, 2002)
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