The Rationale of Breaking Management Rules
Paper to the 28th International Labour Process Conference, March 15. – 17. 2010.
Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
Ph.D. student Jörg W. Kirchhoff
ØstfoldUniversityCollege,
Faculty of Health and Social Services
1757 Halden, Norway
Professor Jan Ch Karlsson
KarlstadUniversity
Department of Working Life Science
651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
The Rationale of Breaking Management Rules
In order to consciously break a rule you follow another rule – there is no such thing as rule-free rule-breaking. Deliberately breaking a rule involves that the rule-breaker draws on a rule that he or she thinks overrides the first rule. ‘The (intentional) act of rebelling’, Lawson 2003:37) points out, ‘requires as much knowledge of the rules as does that of conforming.’
In research on employees’ opposition to employers, Ackroyd and Thompson’s (1999) notion of organisational misbehaviour (OMB) – ‘self-conscious rule-breaking’ – has had an important impact in several ways. Most significant is perhaps their insistence that resistance and OMB is in fact a common phenomenon at workplaces; all is not quiet on the workplace front (Thompson & Ackroyd 1995) pace what several researchers had claimed. But the importance of other rules than those emanating from the organisation itself has been insufficiently analyzed.
The aim of this paper is therefore to describe mechanisms that legitimize organisational misbehaviour, i.e. rules giving a rationale forbreaking managment rules. The identification and analysis of work relations among agents in an organisation and rules developed within these relations give us a better understanding of organisational behaviour and misbehaviour at the workplace.
A critical realist perspective on rules
Workers are not passive receivers of management rules and norms, they can form and uphold their own set of rules which modify or replace organisational rules. Rules amongst workers directed against management control were discovered at an early stage of modern working life research. There is, of course, Taylor’s (1998:5-10 [1911]) argumentation against ‘systematic soldiering’ and workers’ sanctions against those not following the norms. And in the Hawthorne plant these rules were found among workers:
(1) You should not turn out too much work. If you do you are a “rate buster.”
(2) You should not turn out too little work. If you do you are a “chiseller.”
(3) You should not tell a supervisor anything that will react to the detriment of an associate. If you do you are a “squealer.”
(4) You should not attempt to maintain social distance or act officious. If you are an inspector, for example, you should not act like one.
(Roethlisberger & Dickson 1965:522 [1939])
The same informal rules were in force among workers at a Norwegian factory in the 1950s (Lysgaard 1972 [1961]) – and they were still there in 2007 (Hansen 2007). One of the things workplaces are is a clash of different, often opposite, rules. But what are rules?
Questions about the nature of rules are part of the long and intense debate in the social sciences on whether social structures exist and in that case of what they consist. We will, however, not enter this debate in the present paper, let us simply declare that we side with critical realism positions and take help from the underlabouring of this philosophy. Our perspective on rules is as follows.
Rules are connected to positions (or ‘slots’) in social structures. A social structure is constructed by internally related positions, such as employer–employee or home care assistant – client, meaning that one side of the relation can not exist without the other. There are interrelated networks or ‘latticework’ of relations (Fleetwood 2008:258-259) with positions, each connected to certain rules.
But rules, like institutions and social structures, have emerged from human actions, meaning that they are quite different ontological things than actions. As rules have emergent powers –they are results of human actions, but they have powers that cannot be reduced to those actions or the individuals who performed them – they have a relative autonomy from the social group which made them. Social rules and human agency cannot, then, be reduced to each other. A consequence thereof is that analytically, rules always pre-exist actions that relate to them. Still, rules can not predict actions – there is an ontological gap between them.
Rules are injunctions and they take the form ‘if x do y under conditions z’ (Lawson 2003:36). ‘x’ is of course something to be reached – rules are directed towards goals, while ‘y’ is an action the rule prescribes in order to reach the goal. So far this definition of a rule is quite common. So, for example, Bunge (1998:332) provides this formulation: ‘To attain goal G, perform action A’. But in Lawson’s critical realist conception the action always takes place in a specific space-time and socio-cultural context, ‘z’. A rule in the work of a home care assistant could, for example, be: ‘To do your work properly (x), clean the floor and do the dishes (y) when visiting client NN’s house (z).’
Even though rules in working life are most evidently connected to bureaucratic organisations, they exist in all organisations. In fact, it is impossible to imagine an organisation without rules. At the same time, rules cannot be expected to be followed in any strict sense and at workplaces they are constantly objects of interpretation, experimentation and struggle, they are always being ‘interpreted in action’ (Edwards 1986:81). Just think of the very effective resistance strategy of ‘working to rule’ – something which has made jurists raise the question whether working to rule really is a breach of the contract of employment (Napier 1972). When employees follow all rules, the process of work quickly breaks down. According to Ackroyd and Thompson (1999:81) this is a factor that ‘affect/s/ the judgements managers make about the appropriateness and likely effectiveness of taking action against specific instances of potential misbehaviour.’ Breaking rules can be important for the labour process to run smoothly, but can also be rebellious.
Further, there are different sets of rules at workplaces, connected to different structural positions. These positions are part of what we generally term ‘work forms’, defined as internal social relations in working life (Karlsson 2004). What we are concerned with here is wage labour, which initially consists of the relation between employer and employee.
The question of rules and (conscious) rule-breaking revolves around agents’ interaction in relation to different rule-sets connected to different work relations. More concretely: management rules, service rules, traditional employee collective rules and professional employee collective rules – all related to each other and to clients.
The study: design and methods
The data presented in this paper is derived from organisational case studies of employees in four local health care enterprises in Norway (Kirchhoff 2010). These enterprises were selected on the basis that they are organised in accordance with the purchaser–provider model, inspired by neoliberal reforms toimprove the efficiency in public organisations. In consequence, management rules that defined the scope of servicesprovided by employees were strengthened.
The employees’ in these organisations consisted of four occupational groups. Registered nurses, auxiliary nurses and care workers who provided primary health care services, and home care assistantswho provided domestic services. In order to cover all services provided from these enterprises, the study sample was constructed by selecting employees within all occupational groups in each enterprise (see Table 1).
Table 1Informants included in the study.
Case A / Case B / Case C / Case D / SumRegistered nurses / 1 informant / 6 informants / 4 informants / 4 informants / 15 informants
Auxiliary nurses / 1 informant / 2 informants / 3 informants / 4 informants / 10 informants
Care workers / 3 informants / 1 informant / 2 informants / 1 informant / 7 informants
Home care assistants / 2 informants / 2 informants / 3 informants / 6 informants / 13 informants
Sum / 7 informants / 11 informants / 12 informants / 15 informants / 45 informants
In order to understand the context and content of their work, participant observation at the beginning of the study was utilised to observe employees at work. Participant observations, i.e. working with an informant of each occupation in all four organisations for one day, provided information about services that were given and employees’ interaction with clients and other employees. The information was summed up in field notesand analysed to construct a semi structured interview guide that included services deviating frommanagementrules (see Table 2).
Table 2Topics covered in the interview schedule.
Scope of services in accordance with management rulesAttitudes to management rules
Informants relationship to management
Informants relationship to clients
Informants relationship to employees in the enterprise
Scope of services deviating from management rules
Informants rationales for deviating from management rules
The primary method of data collection was interviews, i.e. focus group and individual in-depth interviews. Focus group interviews were intended as primary interview method, but difficulties to establish focus groups altered four of the sixteen interviews into individual in-depth interviews. However, employees from each occupation from all cases where represented and provided information about their work, their attitudes to management rules and their rationales for breaking these rules.Employees were selected on the basis that their time at work was at least 75 percent of a full time job. All interviews are based on informed consent, were digitally recorded and depersonalised in transcription.
Pre-coding, open coding and displays were used to analyse field notes and transcribed interviews. Analysis consisted of coding the transcribed text, constantly comparing codes in order to work out concepts and the display of concepts to structure and relate concepts by causal network displays.
Findings
Analysis resulted in four categories of rules employees drew on in their services provided to clients; management rules, service rules, collective rules and professional rules. These rules were based on different work relations between agents in the organisation and established as a result of employees’ social position within the work form of wage labour and structural elements of their work.
The rationale of management rules
Management rules were related to the employee – employer relationship and consisted of two types of rules. First, legal rules expressed by laws and judicial instructions that were related to legal conditions for public services and the interaction between professionals and clients. Furthermore, legal rules on work established legal working conditions and thereby avoided judicial review from authorities.
Second, management rules consisted of local organisational rules, i.e. rulesthat interpret legal rules to an organisational context, rules to place employees’ in different social positions of the organisation, and rules on how to organise, coordinate and distribute work.
Although management rules varied across the organisations in this study, mainly because of different organisational rules, their impact on employees was the same. Management rules defined employees’ social position in organisationsand the scope of their work, andin general employees acknowledged the importance of management rules and referred to them as ‘guidelines for work’.
However, one specific type of management rule had great importance to employees work, namely the service contract. This contract specified the content and amount of services to be provided to clients, and thereby defined management’s understanding of employees’ scope of work. Although service contracts were a familiar rule to distribute services to clients, the introduction of a purchaser–provider organisation strengthened the importance of that rule. Service contracts became a mean to standardise the work processes in public services.
I always say to them, the service contract tells you what to do. If you deliver your car to the garage for a service control, they have a procedure to follow, and that is what you are paying for. It’s what you expect them to do. You can’t polish the car, or change its colour, or do more whatever that might be. The organisation would gain a deficit. We wouldn’t make it economically. (Manager – Case A)
The citation above illustrates management’s instrumental view of the service contract. Its purpose was to draw a line, to delimit employees’ work, based on an economic argument. Organisations’ resources were connected to service contracts and an enhancement of services to clients would result in an organisational imbalance. Employees recognised that, although they sometimes felt it hard to provide services delimited to the service contract.
InterviewerDo you have any kind of work instruction to follow?
Care worker 1Yes, we have service contracts we must comply with.
InterviewerAnd there is said in detail what to do?
Care worker 2Yes. On the whole we do so, but not always.
(Care workers)
The care workers’ statements serve as an illustration that employees donot always comply with the service contract. Independent of occupational or organisational background, employees sometimes consciously violated thesemanagementrules. At these occasions they provided servicesthat were not in accordance with the service contract, and often resulted in additional or alternative services.These services were neither expected nor wanted from management, and therefore in conflict with managementrules.
Their main reason for doing so was to meet clients’ needs, although managementrules defined a different scope of services. However, the rationale for breaking managementrules diverged among employees, since different occupations called upon dissimilar types of rules to legitimise their misbehaviour.These rules were connected to distinctive work relationsamong employees, including employees’ work relations to clients, in consequence of their social position at the workplace, and provided a rationale to override management rules.
The rationale of service rules
Service rules were constituted in result ofemployees’informal relations to clients, i.e.the client employee workrelation. Although these rules were established across all occupations in this study, service rules were most common and active among home care assistants.
The constitution and strength of service rules were related to structural aspects of their work in three different ways. First, employees within this occupation had a loose employer –employee relationship in result of their social position in the organisation. Home care assistants had an isolated social position in the organisation, as they seldom were in contact with other employees or management. Other employees rarely gave them a hand when there was need for help, or listened to their problems at meetings. Therefore clients were their primary agent of contact at work and the relationship to clients became vital in their work.
I’m only half an hour at the office every day. I’m most of the time together with my clients. They are my working place, not the office. It’s much more important to me having a good relationship to my clients out there then employees in here. (Home care assistant)
Second, the structure of their work lead to long-lasting encounters with clients and provided good conditions for a strong informal client employee relationship. Home care assistants provided their services to clients over a long period of time, often until clients died and new clients were added to their work list. In addition, the nature of their services resulted in prolonged interaction with clients, e.g. cleaning a flat could take up to an hour. The structure of their work conducted therefore an opportunity to establish informal relationships between employees and clients, based on long-lasting encounters between clients and home care assistants.
Finally, the poor characteristics’ of home care assistants’ formal scope of work valued other work. In general, no home care assistant enjoyed their formal scope of work, since work tasks were monotonous’, lead to physical stress and were not stimulating. A good relationship to clients on the other hand enhanced the quality of their working conditions and therefore was valuable to them.
InterviewerHow is work? Good,bad?
Home care assistant 1It’smonotonous and some times boring.
Several voicesThat’s true.
Home care assistant 1Every day the same.
Home care assistant 2On the other hand you have all these nice clients. You meet other people. That’s okay. But I would gladly steer of housework If I could.
Home care assistant 3That is true. Housework is monotonous, but since we come in contact with all kinds of people it’s easier to bare.
(Home care assistants)
Employees’ social position, long-lasting relationships and poor working conditions in their formal scope of work provided therefore structural elements that emphasised the importance of the informal client – employee relationship. On the basis of this work relation service rules evolved and constituted alternative working rules that favoured the informal relationship to clients. These rules varied across employees in consequence of different informal relationships between clients and employees, but resulted independently in a rational to overrule management rules.
The rationale of collective rules
Collective rules evolved in consequence of informal relationships among employees at the workplace, and were, despite differences in their strength across organisations in this study, similar constituted. These relationships evolved mainly between registered nurses, auxiliary nurses and care workers, i.e. occupations that provided health services in the organisations and interacted regularly in consequence of their formal scope of work.
Again, employees’ social position and structure of their work were main reasons for their evolvement.First, employees with equal positions worked together, as they were clustered in teams and developed informal collective work relations. Second, the content of health services and the responsibility for decisions with a great impact on clients’ health reinforced the importance of informal collective relations, as they provided social support and a forum for professional discussions.
Working as a team resulted in a collective interpretation of management rules, since there was a common understanding that management rules, i.e. the service contract, had to be adjusted to make sense in their work. Thereby employees redefined the formal scope of work.
InterviewerAbout this service contract. When you come to clients, does the contract fit their needs?
Care worker 1Not always.
Care worker 2Then we change them. Contracts can be reformulated.