Managing the Managerial Availability Paradox

Sammanfattning: Title: Managing the Managerial Availability Paradox - A Cross-sectional Study of Nine Top Managers’ Views on Their Availability Seminar Date: 16 January 2015 Course: FEKH49, Degree Project in Organization and Leadership, Bachelor Level Authors: Charlotte Borlind, Filippa Järnmarker and Katarina Werder Supervisor: Nadja Sörgärde Key Words: availability, identity, managerial work, paradox, unavailability Purpose: The purpose of this research is to increase the understanding of managerial availability and the relating complexities of managerial availability as an aspect of managerial work. Methodology: This research has an interpretative perspective. It was carried out with a qualitative approach and takes on a social constructionist point of view. The research’s focus on subjective perceptions of managers and their personal views on availability therefore becomes a result of this ontological position where the managers, in relation to their surroundings, construct their realities. Nine semi-structured interviews with nine top managers have been conducted. The collected empirical material has been systematized, categorized and analyzed. Theoretical Perspectives: The field of managerial availability has been examined in this research. Due to the lack of excessive theory and literature within this focus area, other relevant theories have been introduced. These are managerial work, discourse, identity and attachment theory. These have been used as analytical tools in analyzing the empirical material. Empirical Foundations: To collect empirical material, nine semi-structured interviews with top managers in knowledge-intensive organizations situated in or close to the region of Skåne, Sweden, have been conducted. Conclusion: The identified views on managerial availability as being (1) important, (2) inescapable and (3) a challenge help understand what constitute managerial availability and its significance in managerial work. The views are perceived to have a noticeable effect on how managerial work is carried out. The evident complexity of how managerial availability is viewed, defined as the “managerial availability paradox”, was found to risk leading to stress, fragile personal identities and hampering managerial efficiency in managerial work. Three strategies of understanding how to cope with the managerial availability paradox were identified as (1) affect expectations, (2) rewrite the facts and (3) speech of defence.