Ett gränslöst arbete på egna villkor : En kvalitativ studie om enhetschefers arbetssituation inom kommunala organisationer

Sammanfattning: This is a qualitative study that includes municipal employed managers in the health and care sector in the region of Sjuhärad. The aim of the study is to capture the managers experiences of their profession and their relationship towards the concept of work-life balance. The experiences of these respondents will be founded by subjective thoughts and analyzed to later be generalized into an overview of the terms municipal managers in the health and care sector have to work under. The study is constructed by a narrative form and seek for the respondent's experiences or thoughts rather than concrete answers. Karasek and Theorell(1990) theory of "Demand- Control- Support(DCS)" is the basis of the study and will be used as an approach towards the respondents answers as an interpretative. The employed managers has been interviewed and their answers have been categorized into three different themes - Demand, Control and Support. These categories serve as the purpose of clarifying and to find patterns of the respondents work-related situations. Later on, these categories and their content is used as a discussion point, were they become the basis for a comparison with Karasek and Theorells reasoning in their theory. The results showed that there are different kind of boundless conditions in the workplace that affect female municipal managers in the health and care sector. These conditions are often based in the managers strong connection to their control needs. Since these individuals work in so called human service organizations, it exists an element of unpredictability. This circumstance means that total control over their staff, clients or various tasks is something difficult to achieve. Therefore, to deal with the unpredictability the expectations and responsibilities experienced in the professional role comes with a great need for control that is difficult to fully satisfy, which may explain why managers choose to work without boundaries, on their own terms.