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      Involvement and structure: A qualitative study of organizational change and sickness absence among women in the public sector in Sweden

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          Abstract

          Background

          Organizational changes in modern corporate life have become increasingly common and there are indications that they often fail to achieve their ends. An earlier study of 24,036 employees showed that those who had repeatedly been exposed to large increases in staffing during 1991-1996 had an excess risk of both long-term sickness absence and hospital admission during 1997-1999, while moderate expansion appeared to be protective. The former was most salient among female public sector employees. We used qualitative interviews to explore work environment factors underlying the impact of organizational changes (moderate and large expansions in staffing) on sickness absence from an employee perspective.

          Method

          We interviewed 21 strategically selected women from the earlier study using semi-structured telephone interviews focusing on working conditions during the organizational changes. We identified 22 themes which could explain the association between organizational changes and sickness absence. We then used Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to reduce the number of themes and discover patterns of possible causation.

          Results

          The themes that most readily explained the outcomes were Well Planned Process of Change (a clear structure for involvement of the employees in the changes) , Agent of Change (an active role in the implementation of the changes), Unregulated Work (a lack of clear limits and guidelines regarding work tasks from the management and among the employees), and Humiliating Position (feelings of low status or of not being wanted at the workplace), which had been salient throughout the analytic process, in combination with Multiple Contexts (working in several teams in parallel) and Already Ill (having already had a debilitating illness at the beginning of 1991), which may indicate degree of individual exposure and vulnerability. Well Planned Process of Change, Agent of Change and Multiple Contexts are themes that were associated with low sickness absence. Unregulated Work, Humiliating Position and Already Ill were associated with high sickness absence.

          Conclusions

          These findings suggest that promising areas for future research and improvement in change management could be the structured involvement of the employees in the planning of organizational changes, and the development of methods to avoid highly unregulated working conditions.

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          Most cited references30

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          Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change

          Kurt Lewin (2016)
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            Working at a Cynical Distance: Implications for Power, Subjectivity and Resistance

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              Individual Strategies for Coping with Stress during Organizational Transitions

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMC Public Health
                BMC Public Health
                BioMed Central
                1471-2458
                2011
                16 May 2011
                : 11
                : 318
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
                [2 ]Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
                [3 ]Swedish National Institute of Public Health, Östersund, Sweden
                Article
                1471-2458-11-318
                10.1186/1471-2458-11-318
                3114725
                21575180
                cec2dbcf-1401-483b-abe3-0ad7975085b2
                Copyright ©2011 Baltzer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 9 November 2010
                : 16 May 2011
                Categories
                Research Article

                Public health
                Public health

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