Internal ‘chutes’ and legal ‘ladders’: negative behaviour anomalies in the NHS
Campenni, M; Ho, C-H; Lewis, D; et al.Manolchev, C; Pascucci, S; Stüssi, L
Date: 6 July 2023
Conference paper
Publisher
EGOS: European Group for Organizational Studies
Related links
Abstract
Safeguarding workers from negative behaviours remains an ongoing concern for health sector
organisations globally, and in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Although the term
‘negative behaviour’ includes acts ranging from bullying and physical violence to banter and
rumours, only harassment has a legal definition in UK law. ...
Safeguarding workers from negative behaviours remains an ongoing concern for health sector
organisations globally, and in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Although the term
‘negative behaviour’ includes acts ranging from bullying and physical violence to banter and
rumours, only harassment has a legal definition in UK law. As a result, individual Trusts within
the NHS have had to create their own internal policy frameworks in order to identify, address
and redress a wide range of negative behaviours without legal definition. In our study of three
NHS Trusts, we frame such NHS policy responses as ‘chutes’, or policies seeking to de escalate the manifested negative behaviour, deal with conflict informally and restore business
as usual. We contrast such ‘chutes’ with policy ‘ladders’, manifest in the instance of severe
harassment cases (which we term ‘anomalies’), where legal obligations supersede
organisational policy and escalate the matter in line with the appropriate legal provision. We
find that organisational ladders are less effective than chutes across our sample with all three
NHS Trusts recording lower incidence of anomalies than those reported by their employees.
Management
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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