Occupational Subcultures Research Articles

Resilience coaching for healthcare workers: Experiences of receiving collegial support during the COVID-19 pandemic

ObjectiveTo explore experiences of receiving collegial support from the department of psychiatry at an acute care hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodThe Resilience Coaching program launched in April 2020, with the aim of offering a timely response to supporting psychosocial needs of healthcare workers (HCWs), leveraging collegial relationships and mental health training to offer support. Twenty-four HCWs were interviewed about their experiences receiving support from resilience coaches. ResultsParticipants reported that Resilience Coaching offered hospital staff opportunities for connection, encouragement to attend to personal wellness, and avenues to learn practical skills to assist with coping. Coaching also assisted HCWs in accessing clinical mental health support when that was requested by staff. ConclusionsResilience Coaching is a model for supporting colleagues in an acute care hospital during a pandemic. It is generally regarded positively by participants. Further study is warranted to determine how best to engage some occupational subcultures within the hospital, and whether the model is feasible for other healthcare contexts.

Mind the gap: a qualitative approach to assessing why different sub-cultures within high-risk industries interpret safety rule gaps in different ways

Measuring the distance between the performance of safety rules as imagined and safety rules as enacted in high-risk environments has been an area of great interest and debate in recent years. Yet a significant gap in our understanding remains. Some authors have even advised us to “stop bitching about the gap” and start closing it (Hale and Borys, 2013a, p. 218). In this paper, we follow this call by investigating the relationship between safety rules as imagined, and enacted, in a rule-driven organization working in the oil and gas industry in Norway. Specifically, we investigate how three different sub-cultures within the organization: the management culture, the engineering culture, and the operations culture - make sense of safety rules at their respective levels, and why their interpretations of the gaps created by these same rules, are different. These differences lead to different levels of rule enactment. Using a case study approach, we found that how employees’ were engaged in the rule creation process led to different levels of psychological ownership, and this, in turn, led to different levels of rule enactment. We also found that these distinct occupational sub-cultures use different sensemaking approaches in understanding safety rules, and that the resultant differences in understanding directly affects both the understanding of the gap that exists between rules as imagined and rules as enacted, leading to different levels of rule compliance.

Are the creative industries meritocratic? An analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey

ABSTRACTThere is currently widespread concern that Britain’s cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are increasingly dominated by the privileged. This stands in stark contrast to dominant policy narratives of the CCIs as meritocratic. Until now this debate has been clouded by a relative paucity of data on class origins. This paper draws on new social origin data from the 2014 Labour Force Survey to provide the first large-scale, representative study of the class composition of Britain’s creative workforce. The analysis demonstrates that CCIs show significant variation in their individual “openness”, although there is a general under-representation of those from working-class origins across the sector. This under-representation is especially pronounced in publishing and music, in contrast to, for example, craft. Moreover, even when those from working-class backgrounds enter certain CCIs, they face a “class origin pay gap” compared to those from privileged backgrounds. The paper discusses how class inequalities, as well as those related to gender and ethnicity, between individual CCIs point to occupational subcultures that resist aggregation into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s broader category of CCIs. The paper concludes by suggesting the importance of disaggregating CCIs and rethinking the definition and boundaries of CCIs as a meaningful category.

In or out of the group? Police subculture and occupational stress

Purpose– Policing is associated with a pronounced occupational subculture. Policing is also known for physical and mental stressors that are, arguably, more than other professions. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesize that those police officers who perceive themselves as not a part of the subculture (i.e. “out-group”) would experience more occupational stress in comparison to those who perceive themselves as a part of it (i.e. “in-group”).Design/methodology/approach– The authors use data from the Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the US survey (Delprino, 1997) and OLS regression to assess the direct association between officers’ perceptions of policing subculture membership and occupational stress.Findings– Results support the hypothesis, with in-group officers reporting significantly less occupational stress than out-group officers. This finding holds, with slight variations, when demographic and experiential variables are introduced as controls.Research limitations/implications– Findings are from an earlier survey and based on responses from 1,632 officers in 51 agencies. They are geographically limited.Practical implications– The importance of the protective function of subculture needs to be taken into account when attempting to deal with police stress.Social implications– This study provides ideas on how departments can utilize occupational subcultures to deal with the stress experienced by members.Originality/value– The relationship between police subculture and stress has not been examined empirically before. This study documents the positive impact of police subculture in terms of helping members deal with stress.

Security networks and occupational culture: understanding culture within and between organisations

Security networks are organisational forms involving public, private and hybrid actors or nodes that work together to pursue security-related objectives. While we know that security networks are central to the governance of security, and that security networks exist at multiple levels across the security field, we still do not know enough about how these networks form and function. Based on a detailed qualitative study of networks in the field of ‘high’ policing in Australia, this article aims to advance our knowledge of the relational properties of security networks. Following the organisational culture literature, the article uses the concept of a ‘group’ as the basis with which to analyse and understand culture. A group can apply to networks (‘network culture’), organisations (‘organisational culture’) and sections within and between organisations (‘occupational subcultures’). Using interviews with senior members of security, police and intelligence agencies, the article proceeds to analyse how cultures form and function within such groups. In developing a network perspective on occupational culture, the article challenges much of the police culture(s) literature for concentrating too heavily on police organisations as independent units of analysis. The article moves beyond debates between integrated or differentiated organisational cultures and questions concerning the extent to which culture shapes particular outcomes, to analyse the ways in which security nodes relate to one another in security networks. If there is one thing that should be clear it is that security nodes experience cultural change as they work together in and through networks.

Prosecuting the prosecutor: The makings of the Michael Morton Act

Prosecutorial misconduct is not a rare event, but it often goes undetected, unreported, or no action is taken by the criminal justice system. However, when one Texas prosecutor, Ken Anderson, served jail time for wrongfully prosecuting an innocent man, Michael Morton, for murdering his wife, he made history. Anderson withheld exculpatory evidence leading to Morton wrongfully serving 25 years before being released with new DNA evidence. However, Anderson only served a five-day sentence and $500 fine. We discuss the case in the context of inequality and legal realism in the criminal justice system. Also, we look at the implications and new legal action taken by the state of Texas to try and combat this problem, along with looking at these secretive occupational subcultures.

Occupational Sub-Cultures, Jurisdictional Struggle and Third Space: Theorising Professional Service Responses to Research Data Management

Effective Research Data Management (RDM) is becoming an increasing concern in UK universities as a result of mandates from research funders. The study explored the usefulness of theories of occupational sub-culture, jurisdictional struggle and Third Space to understand how librarians, IT staff and research administrators view developing services to support RDM. Data were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews with staff in the Library, IT services and Research Office of a research intensive university in Northern England.The notion of occupational sub-culture directs attention to the different ways professional services view RDM. Broadly speaking, IT Services focussed on short term data storage; Research Office on compliance and research quality; librarians on preservation and advocacy. In terms of Abbott's theories, the Library was the only department claiming a new jurisdiction in RDM. This could be seen as an extension of its existing jurisdiction in Open Access and Information Literacy. The other departments claimed to be short of resources to take on such a complex project. Some interviewees feared RDM might be risky and demand lots of resources. Third Space theory is a powerful way to think about roles that might emerge in a new intra-professional space as RDM services become a reality.

Spiritual End-of-Life Care in Dutch Nursing Homes: An Ethnographic Study

The aim of this study was to explore if and how spiritual needs are assessed and if spiritual care is provided to Dutch nursing home residents, including residents suffering from dementia, and if and how caregivers communicate and collaborate regarding the residents' spiritual needs. Two researchers conducted an ethnographic participatory study in a Dutch nursing home between April 2010 and June 2011, on a psychogeriatric unit (mostly dementia) and a somatic unit for residents suffering from physical disabilities. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify patterns and trends and to interpret the data. The physicians did not actively address spiritual issues, nor was it part of the official job of care staff. There was no communication between the physicians and the spiritual counselor. When a resident was about to die, the nurses started an informal care process aimed at (spiritual) well-being, including cuddling, rituals, and music. This was not mentioned in the care plan or the medical chart. The nurses even supported the residents outside their professional role in their spare time. Furthermore, we identified different occupational subcultures (eg, nurses and physicians), in which behavior of residents was given different meaning, depending on the frame of reference within the subculture. Spiritual issues were addressed only informally and were not part of the formal care process, either for residents suffering from dementia or for those with physical disabilities. Our results raise questions about how the lack of communication about spiritual end-of-life care between disciplines, and the informal and formal care processes affect spiritual well-being.

Building a Community of Research Practice

This article explicates the intragroup social dynamics and work of a nursing and education research team as a community of research practice interested in organizational cultures and occupational subcultures. Dynamics were characterized by processes of socialization through reeducation and group social identity formation that enabled members to cross discipline-bordered traditions and produce interdisciplinary mixed methods combinations. Combinations were achieved at the paradigm level through the generation of a shared viewing position and theoretical model. At methods and technique levels, such achievements were accomplished through methodological capitalization and prioritization and the development of a quantitative culture assessment tool that can be used in combination with complementary qualitative observation and interview protocols. Recommendations for other teams are provided.

Organisational change: communicating to Schein's operator, engineer and executive occupational subcultures

There has been substantial academic interest surrounding innovation, change management and the individual attributes that permit and promote learning, organisational change and innovative behaviour. This research uses a psychometric tool known as the Instinctive Drives System® to measure preferred working styles in 3943 employees from a range of international companies. These employees were then classified into three groups (engineers, operators and executives) following Schein's classification of occupational subcultures. This study reveals significant differences between the occupational subcultures, suggesting that executives are more inclined towards variety, flexibility and change rather than routine and structure. In contrast, operators and engineers demonstrated preferences for logic and certainty. These results have a range of implications, for researchers and practitioners. Researchers can extend the results of this study, and further explore the differences found between executives and managers from different subcultures. Practitioners may use the results to initiate change to integrate preferred working styles.

Occupational and Organizational Commitment in Different Occupational Contexts

Although the positive relationship between occupational commitment and organizational commitment has been well documented for occupation-specific and organization-specific studies, there is much less research that documents between-occupation differences in this relationship. Drawing from the occupational subculture literature, the authors offer and test hypotheses about between-occupation differences in levels of occupational and organizational commitment and in the correlation between these two forms of work commitment. Data from the 2005 Korean General Social Survey are used in the analysis. They find that (a) these two forms of commitment, although distinct constructs, are positively related for those in all occupations, with no significant between-occupation differences in the correlations; however (b) occupational commitment is greater for professionals than for managers as well as the nonprofessional cluster of clerical, service and sales, and manual occupations; and (c) managers exhibit greater organizational commitment relative to semiprofessionals and those in the nonprofessional cluster of clerical, service and sales, and manual occupations. In addition, it is only for professionals that occupational commitment is greater than organizational commitment. The authors do not believe that these results are unique to Korean society but argue that research such as theirs on between-occupation differences in work commitment needs to be undertaken in other cultural contexts. Perhaps more important, the impact on work commitment of the conflict between occupational subcultures and organizational cultures needs to be a focus in future research.

Patient safety in the interface between hospital and risk regulator1

The paper explores how regulatory practice affects procedures and routines regarding patient safety in hospitals. The paper is based on a multi‐level case study within the Norwegian healthcare system. In this paper we investigate methods of operations between the risk regulator and the regulatee by emphasizing systematic and incidental activities performed in the interface; and by assessing the regulators' underlying models of understanding errors. Our study indicates that despite a strong commitment from the top management and increased awareness and efforts within the hospital, methods of operation between risk regulator and hospital do not have a substantial impact on patient safety improvement and learning from errors within the hospital. The study shows that patient safety is exposed to pressures from internal mechanisms (e.g. occupational subcultures, regulatory styles, underreporting) and external mechanisms (e.g. public attitudes, organized interests, media cover) with consequences that have to be managed across organizational interfaces. Thus, understanding of vertical risk governance processes and the involved organizational interfaces is vital.

Do Occupational Group Members Vary in Volunteering Activity?

The goal of our study is to explore how employees in different occupations report volunteering activities. Starting from the literatures on occupational subcultures and professional norms, the authors hypothesize that both structural constraints and norms of occupations may have an impact on extraorganizational behavior. Analyzing Center on Philanthropy Panel Study data linked with the Institute for Social Research's Panel Study on Income Dynamics, the authors find evidence that individuals in professional, managerial, and military occupations are more likely to volunteer than are individuals in other occupational categories. Controlling for individual demographic and cultural variables, they affirm the explanatory power of occupation on individual volunteering behavior.

The occupational culture of IS/IT personnel within organizations

As organizations' reliance on information technology (IT) continues to grow, the information technology personnel who support end users play an increasingly important role in the proper functioning of those organizations. In the present study, we interviewed information technology personnel (N=32) as well as other employees (N=89) to examine their intra-group and inter-group communications and assess the existence and importance of the occupational culture of IT personnel within organizations. We applied Trice's Occupational Subculture theoretical framework (1993) to examine the characteristics of the occupational culture of IT personnel and its relationships with other type of personnel within organizations. The results of our study suggest that IT personnel have established a distinct occupational culture within organizations, characterized, for example, by the use of technical jargon, primary value of technical knowledge, extreme and unusual demands on people in the profession related to the constant change of IT, feelings of superiority and a general lack of formal rules. Conflicts between IT occupational subcultures and other extant subcultures arise from cultural differences

Customer relationship management and the impact of corporate culture — A European study

Customer relationship management (CRM) has been in use for about ten years. After the post-2001 economic downturn, CRM attracted less interest in many organisations, as many benefits did not materialise. Cost-cutting strategies prevailed, despite many firms facing problems of decreasing loyalty and declining shares-of-wallet in an increasingly competitive environment. Cultural aspects emerged as important in determining success or failure in CRM implementation. This paper explores the connection between CRM implementation and culture. The model of ‘CRM culture building elements’ presented here shows the tight connection between customer orientation and learning and the relationship between organisational climate and the respective occupational sub-cultures.

Cultural differences in user groups: a multi-angle understanding of IT use in large organizations

In this paper, we analyze how differences between groups of end-users of the same technology (distributed within and across organizations) are reflected in specific breakdowns in the use of technology as well as in the interaction between these groups. In order to reach this goal, we consider as unit of analysis the occupational groups that are approached as reflecting a particular occupational culture. In addition, we analyze the effect of local subcultures on occupational groups. The two main aspects of culture on which we focused the study are language and values. Using this perspective, we carried out two case studies in two large organizations. The conclusions of this research show that the concept of occupational groups (with related occupational subcultures) is indeed a useful approach to explain differences in groups of end-users and the related breakdowns in use of technology and interaction among groups. The results of the study can inform design decisions and support action for improvements of interaction processes among groups of end-users of the same technology.

The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry (review)

Reviewed by: The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry Millie Creighton (bio) The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry. By Tamara K. Hareven. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002. xxvii, 347 pages. $55.00, cloth; $21.95, paper. The profound value of The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry can largely be attributed to Tamara Hareven's willingness to resist pressure to publish quickly. She spent 15 years, from 1982 to 1996, researching the lives of Nishijin weavers. She spent summer and winter vacations from her academic job conducting life history interviews with Japanese manufacturers, weavers, and others in the industry. A year's sabbatical in Kyoto allowed her to experience the entire annual seasonal and ritual cycle so important to Kyoto life and to Nishijin weaving. Even her mother asked why the book was taking so long. Her father reassured her that "it takes a long time to understand another culture" (p. 3). Indeed, it takes a long time to understand another culture, and a long time to understand how a subculture, such as the artisanal culture presented in this book, relates to the overall culture and to similar occupational subcultures elsewhere. The time involved in this work grants the final product the immense ability to grasp and communicate the understandings of both of these. It is relevant that Hareven was willing to give this long framework to the study of a culture (Japan) that is often said to be characterized by an emphasis on long-term orientation. A long timeframe underlies her ethnographic subject, traditional Nishijin weaving in Japan. Learning initial weaving skills is believed to take at least three years, and it is said to require ten years before people begin to be proficient. Hareven's long-term involvement in her research thereby matches the long-term framework of both the overall culture and subculture she researches and presents in this book. It also takes a long time to understand one's own culture in relationship to one's own life. Through this book, we are presented with the life histories of individual Japanese weavers who undergo a subjective process of placing their lives within a historic cultural framework through Hareven's interviews [End Page 461] with them. Such an understanding involves ongoing reflection and integration. Oral history as a method is not a precise recreation of historical events but allows a much deeper understanding of how individuals construct meaning for their lives, connect the past to the present, and are able to interpret both in relationship to their own culture and the frames it provides for them. In the end, the individual life histories in this book are laden with exceptional value "as historical, cultural testimonies" (p. 48). In presenting these life history narratives, Hareven addresses how patterns of family and work in Nishijin have changed or persisted over the last century. The book is helpful for anyone interested in Japan; discussions of work, leisure, and family organization; gender; discourses of identity, tradition, nostalgia, and human connectedness to place; discussions of culturally derived aesthetic concepts; and ways individual construction of meaning is related to the cultural level of human existence. The book is rich with insights to all of these, while providing a comparison with weavers in North America. Nishijin weavers are compared with weavers in the Amoskeag weaving mills in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hareven identifies attitudes, values, and orientations toward work and family that seem to arise from a culture of artisanal work as weavers. Shared value systems between Nishijin and Amoskeag weavers include a profound value placed on the idea of craft and of being a craftsperson, a continual search for improvement and creativity, and strong involvement of individual careers with family and collective goals. By identifying such shared elements, Hareven is able to address the ways members of the Nishijin world definitively share cultural elements with other Japanese, such as a stronger sense of personal interconnectedness, stronger conformity to the outside world, and a socialization into the "inside" and "outside" operational frames of Japanese life. This book contributes immensely to studies on the organization and...

Health reform, professional identity and occupational sub-cultures: The changing interprofessional relations between doctors and nurses

Recent literature on health reform describes advantages of a collaborative approach to the management of health organizations. However, it is important for the managers of health organizations, including nurse managers, to understand that occupational groups adapt to organizational change and policy reform in different ways. These differences to change may have an effect on health reform initiatives, in particular, by potentially limiting the development of collaboration, team work and inter-professional practice. This paper presents fieldwork from a study on health reform and professional identities. Data from focus group discussions are used to discuss the dynamics of reform, the tensions between occupational subcultures and the organization, and changing relations within and between diverse occupational and professional groups. As opposed to much of the literature on professional identity, data for this research suggests that professional identities are changing under the strain of environmental changes to the health system, and associated cultural changes. Professions are not static. In addition, this research found that cultural differences are not limited to occupational groups of doctors, nurses and others, and include differentiation within the medical profession that is based upon specialization, generation, educational background, employment status and feelings of [non]association with the organization. These differences have resulted in cultural ambiguity of sustained and non-sustained fragmentation of occupational and professional groupings that, if not fully understood, are potentially complicating the implementation of change.

Occupational Subcultures in the Workplace.

Occupational Subcultures in the Workplace.

Divers' Accounts of Normal Risk

This research examines how deep sea divers learn to expand notions of risk to include practices that violate formal training and may increase vulnerability to injury. Cultural constructions of “normal” or acceptable risk are learned in interaction with experienced divers who define the rules of membership and provide accounts that excuse or justify participation in high risk activities. The research explores how novice divers learn to distinguish categories of formal, normal, and excessive risk as they expand their risk involvement and attempt to achieve membership in the deep diving subculture. The study concludes with a discussion of risk normalization in everyday life and other leisure and occupational subcultures.