Rationales for Breaking Management Rules—The Case of Health Care Workers

Jörg W. Kirchhoff
Jan Ch. Karlsson

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DOI: 10.2190/WR.14.4.e

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the mechanisms that legitimise organizational misbehaviour, that is, rules with a rationale for breaking management rules. It builds on case studies of four Norwegian health care enterprises, in which the main method of data collection in each case was through focus groups and in-depth interviews with registered nurses, auxiliary nurses, care workers, and home care assistants. We identify three distinctive rule sets: service rules, collective rules, and professional rules, based on distinct work relations within the context of wage labour. The relations are with clients, colleagues, and professional group, respectively. The identification and analysis of rules contribute, we argue, to a better understanding of organisational behaviour and organisational misbehaviour.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.