Fuller, A;
Unwin, L;
(2017)
Job Crafting and Identity in Low-Grade Work: How Hospital Porters Redefine the Value of their Work and Expertise.
Vocations and Learning
, 10
(3)
pp. 307-324.
10.1007/s12186-017-9173-z.
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Abstract
Over 25 years ago, Brown and Duguid (Organisation Science, 2(1), 40–57, 1991) highlighted the differences between the way organisations formally describe and delineate jobs and the actual practices of their employees. This paper combines ideas from their seminal contribution with theories of ‘job crafting’ and identity to examine the agentic behaviour of employees in low-grade, ‘dirty work’ as they utilise their expertise and practices to (re)frame their occupational identities and challenge their prescribed job boundaries. The evidence for the paper comes from a qualitative study of hospital porters in the UK’s National Health Service. It argues that this combined theoretical approach provides a potential research and employment framework to challenge the abstracted and stereotypical conceptions of the expertise related to low-grade jobs.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Job Crafting and Identity in Low-Grade Work: How Hospital Porters Redefine the Value of their Work and Expertise |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s12186-017-9173-z |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12186-017-9173-z |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | Care, Identity, Hospital porters, Job crafting, Agency, Resistance, Expertise, Low-grade work, ‘dirty work’ |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1536271 |
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