TY - JOUR
T1 - From theoretical concept to organizational tool for public sector improvement
T2 - Janus-faced social capital in a hospital department
AU - Ernst, Jette
AU - Hindhede, Anette Lykke
AU - Andersen, Vibeke
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine, first, how social capital was crafted and transformed from a theoretical concept to an organizational tool for public sector improvement that was adopted by a Danish region and implemented in all regional hospitals. Second, the paper examines the application of social capital in one of these hospitals and, further, in a department of the hospital with the purpose of showing how it was applied by the managerial levels and responded to by the nurses of the department.Design/methodology/approachA Bourdieusian ethnographic approach was used for understanding the local and subjective understandings of social capital as well as the wider context in which the new tool was crafted.FindingsSocial capital as a tool for organizational improvement was constructed in a gray zone between science and consultancy. The paper demonstrates that the application of social capital in practice is connected with paradoxes because the concept is inherently ambiguous and Janus-faced in that its official representation is “soft” and voluntary with a working environment focus yet, it envelopes concealed steering intentions. These contrary working features of the concept produce a pressure on the department management and the nurses.Originality/valueThe explanatory critical framework combined with the ethnographic approach is a useful approach for theorizing and understanding social capital as an example of the emergence and consequences of new managerial tools in public organizations.
AB - PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine, first, how social capital was crafted and transformed from a theoretical concept to an organizational tool for public sector improvement that was adopted by a Danish region and implemented in all regional hospitals. Second, the paper examines the application of social capital in one of these hospitals and, further, in a department of the hospital with the purpose of showing how it was applied by the managerial levels and responded to by the nurses of the department.Design/methodology/approachA Bourdieusian ethnographic approach was used for understanding the local and subjective understandings of social capital as well as the wider context in which the new tool was crafted.FindingsSocial capital as a tool for organizational improvement was constructed in a gray zone between science and consultancy. The paper demonstrates that the application of social capital in practice is connected with paradoxes because the concept is inherently ambiguous and Janus-faced in that its official representation is “soft” and voluntary with a working environment focus yet, it envelopes concealed steering intentions. These contrary working features of the concept produce a pressure on the department management and the nurses.Originality/valueThe explanatory critical framework combined with the ethnographic approach is a useful approach for theorizing and understanding social capital as an example of the emergence and consequences of new managerial tools in public organizations.
KW - Consultancy, ethnography, field theory, hospitals, managerialism, organizational change, public sector, social capital.
KW - hospitals
KW - field theory
KW - social capital
KW - ethnography
KW - organizational change
KW - Knowledge claims
KW - Pedagogic device
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047980770&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/IJPSM-05-2017-0147
DO - 10.1108/IJPSM-05-2017-0147
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85047980770
SN - 0951-3558
VL - 31
SP - 638
EP - 652
JO - International Journal of Public Sector Management
JF - International Journal of Public Sector Management
IS - 5
ER -