Needham Catherine, Mastracci Sharon, Mangan Catherine
Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Political Science Department, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
J Integr Care (Brighton). 2017;25(4):288-300. doi: 10.1108/JICA-04-2017-0008.
Within public services there is a widely recognised role for workers who operate across organisational and professional boundaries. Much of this literature focusses on the organisational implications rather than on how boundary spanners engage with citizens. An increased number of public service roles require boundary spanning to support citizens with cross-cutting issues. The purpose of this paper is to explicate the emotional labour within the interactions that boundary spanners have with citizens, requiring adherence to display rules and building trust.
DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This is a conceptual paper which draws on illustrative examples to draw out the emotional labour within two types of boundary spanning: explicit and emergent.
Emotional labour theory offers a way to classify these interactions as requiring high, medium or low degrees of emotional labour. Boundary spanning theory contributes an understanding of how emotional labour is likely to be differently experienced depending on whether the boundary spanning is an explicit part of the job, or an emergent property.
ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Drawing on examples from public service work in a range of advanced democracies, the authors make a theoretical argument, suggesting that a more complete view of boundary spanning must account for individual-level affect and demands upon workers. Such a focus captures the "how" of the boundary spanning public encounter, and not just the institutional, political and organisational dimensions examined in most boundary spanning literatures.
在公共服务领域，跨越组织和专业界限开展工作的人员发挥着广泛认可的作用。这类文献大多关注组织层面的影响，而非跨界人员如何与公民互动。越来越多的公共服务岗位需要跨界合作，以帮助公民解决复杂问题。本文旨在阐明跨界人员与公民互动过程中的情感劳动，这需要遵守展示规则并建立信任。
设计/方法/途径：这是一篇概念性论文，借助示例阐述了两种跨界类型（明确型和突发型）中的情感劳动。
情感劳动理论提供了一种方法，可将这些互动归类为需要高、中或低程度的情感劳动。跨界理论有助于理解情感劳动的体验可能因跨界是工作的明确组成部分还是突发特性而有所不同。
原创性/价值：作者借鉴一系列先进民主国家公共服务工作的示例，提出了一个理论观点，即对跨界的更全面理解必须考虑个人层面的影响以及对工作人员的要求。这种关注点捕捉到了跨界公共接触的“方式”，而不仅仅是大多数跨界文献中所探讨的制度、政治和组织层面。
