Delegation-based and directive mentoring relationships in high reliability organizations: Negotiating the reliability-resilience tension in ambulance work

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the thorny problematic of how mentors and mentees negotiate on-the-job learning in emergency ambulance work. Based on fieldnotes and interviews with 54 volunteer and paid ambulance crew from Aotearoa New Zealand's largest emergency ambulance service, the analysis identifies six ways of organizing the mentoring relationship and describes how each navigates the reliability–resilience tension. Coaching, hands-off mentoring, and coaxing are delegation-based relationships, whereas bossing, controlling, and criticizing are directive. The findings extend research on mentoring in high reliability organizations by showing that resilience and reliability depend on how mentors delegate authority, enable participation, or exclude mentees from the decision-making process.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentoring
• high reliability organizations
• reliability
• resilience
• ambulance work
• paid staff–volunteer relationships

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Editor Paul Schrodt and the three anonymous reviewers for their deep engagement and thoughtful feedback during the review process. Linda Putnam, Carole Groleau, and Stephanie Fox also provided invaluable suggestions that improved the manuscript. I am especially grateful to the ambulance crews and management team at St John Ambulance who enabled this project to happen. Finally, many thanks to Hollie Cleaver, Roxanna Holdsworth, Caitlin Kooyman, Philip Mecredy, and Alexander Schnack who assisted with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kirstie McAllum is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada. Her research examines topics related to volunteering, nonprofit organizing, and the professional identities of non-standard workers. Her research has appeared in a variety of outlets such as Human Relations, Management Communication Quarterly, Annals of the International Communication Association, and the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.

ORCID

Kirstie McAllum http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4585-2288

Notes

1 Patient condition status codes range from 0 to 4. Status 1 refers to an immediate threat to life (Status 0 means that the patient has died). Status 2 indicates a potential threat to life. Status 3 means that a threat to life is unlikely, and Status 4 patients with a minor condition can be safely left at home.

2 “Punters” are members of the general public or a crowd who lack specialist knowledge.

3 The Ambulance Communications Centre uses a color-coded response system to indicate a job's urgency. Red jobs are urgent and require lights and sirens. Purple jobs involve cardiac/respiratory arrest: Ambulances arrive under lights and the NZ Fire Service is also called. Orange jobs are moderately urgent and green jobs are minor; in both cases, ambulances drive at normal road speed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by St John Ambulance New Zealand [grant number RM No. 6, 2016]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number RNH00291].