Health Manpower Management

Ian Brooks

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184364pmid: 10173513

Explores the successful role of leadership in initiating and sustaining a major process of change. The findings build on the work of others who have so ably demonstrated the influence of powerful leaders. Research is based on qualitative data from an ethnographic study which immersed itself in the minutiae of organizational life. Outlines the processes that have unfolded in the wider context of NHS change. Discusses the findings and debates supporting evidence. The resultant model of change indicates that successful leadership of cultural change requires leaders to think culturally, to be guided by a cognitive model of change and to employ the cultural tools of symbolism while actively focusing on the politics of acceptance. Hard systems and structural changes can be implemented in parallel with soft symbolic and political activity. A highly receptive context, either real or created, assists by providing a trigger for change.

Diane Preston; John Loan‐Clarke

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184373pmid: 10173514

Presents a study of organizational culture in a community health‐care Trust in the UK. The Trust has been involved in attempting to create what was described as an information‐led culture and is concurrent with the implementation of a new information system. Describes some of the recent management initiatives which were intended to improve communications within the Trust and to provide employees with a better understanding of the changes which have been taking place. Identifies findings which suggest that there was some distance between the perceptions of management and those of employees. While the senior management team appear to have been in earnest in attempting to ensure that staff have the information and understanding they need, the results of an organizational culture survey suggest that these efforts may have been ineffective.

Graeme Currie

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184382pmid: 10173515

Focuses on feelings about culture and change in the health service and the impact of management development programmes on the change process. The issues raised in a series of semistructured interviews are taken forward to a case study, a medium‐sized hospital Trust. The researcher “hangs around and listens into” a management development programme aimed at middle managers with a nursing background. The theme of ideological conflict comes into central focus. Analysis of outcomes suggests that the managerial assumptions on which the programme is based result in resistance from participants. They resist the attempts of facilitators to provide “closure” whereby managerial ways of doing things are suggested as the “obvious way ahead”. Advocates that management education particularly in the health service should have a pluralistic orientation. As part of such pluralism, more critical approaches should be considered beyond conventional and problematic conceptions of knowledge relating to management. These are reductionist in considering a manager as “having a set of technical competences” rather than exhibiting “a way of being”.

Melanie Crass; Martin Munro

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184391pmid: 10173516

Explains that considerable recent publicity has been given to the claim that around 70 per cent of business process re‐engineering exercises are unsuccessful, mainly because of failure to take human factors into account. Outlines the work undertaken in a single specialist surgical service, within an acute services National Health Service Trust, and the outcomes achieved. Suggests that there are points arising from the project to be learned both by the Trust and by other health‐care employers contemplating similar exercises: in particular, deciding objectives; the preparation undertaken prior to the project; and detailed post‐implementation benefit analysis.

John Edmonstone

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184409pmid: 10173517

The new education commissioning system in England is designed to deal with the “big numbers” of professional education, yet also applies to management development. Reviews national advice in this field. Suggests that management development is unlikely to feature highly on the education commissioning agenda. Proposes that changes in higher education and among NHS employers are likely to lead to greater flexibility in management education, but that opportunities will only be taken if both parties show initiative and imagination.

Kathryn M. Young; Cary L. Cooper

1997 Health Manpower Management

doi: 10.1108/09552069710184418pmid: 10173518

The Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) was used to investigate job stress in an ambulance service in the north‐west of England. Seven different aspects of the stress‐strain relationship were assessed and the findings compared with those from the fire service. Ambulance service employees were found to be experiencing major stress outcomes of low job satisfaction and poor mental and physical health. Fire service employees revealed significantly poorer physical health. Assesses the sources of job stress, type A behaviour, locus of control and coping styles and discusses them in the light of change in the public services.