First-line managers’ practices and learning in unpredictable work within elderly care

ABSTRACT

Despite the number of studies confirming a high degree of unpredictability in managerial work, little is still known about how managers’ workplace learning happens within organisations in such circumstances. This paper therefore aims to contribute knowledge about managers’ learning in managerial practice when work is unpredictable, by investigating how first-line managers deal with unforeseen situations and how they learn in such circumstances in everyday work. Data was collected via qualitative interviews with 40 first-line managers in Swedish elderly care. By using a theoretical framework based on practice and workplace learning theories, the paper analyses how managers address unpredictability in work through three embedded practices: maintaining, modifying and inventing. The paper goes beyond research on leadership training and leadership development by contributing knowledge about the everyday learning of first-line managers when their work is unpredictable. The unpredictable managerial work does not always create chaos; instead, there are very orderly ways of learning from dealing with unforeseen situations. The unforeseen is not as unpredictable as it might seem in managerial work. On the other hand, that which is not yet known calls for an inventing practice, which results in managers learning to take new paths that can create new practices.

KEYWORDS:

• First-line managers
• workplace learning
• practices
• elderly care sector

Introduction

This article focuses on elderly care managers’ practices and learning in unpredictable work. As previous research has shown, managers are constantly confronted with unexpected events and change that they need to deal with in their everyday work (Tengblad 2012a). Event-driven work is a normal feature of managerial practice (Holmberg and Tyrstrup 2012), but managers are often poorly prepared for the unpredictable and complex work that awaits when they enter the managerial role (Mintzberg 2004). Even if managers have previous experience of managerial work, it takes time to adapt to a new workplace context (Wastesson et al. Forthcoming), as well as the ability to improvise and to tune in to situations (Brinck and Tanggaard 2016). Tengblad (2012a) argues that ‘we need to learn more about how managers deal with the extreme work pressure that often arises in complex and ambiguous environments where unforeseen events constantly thwart goals and interfere with plans’ (338). Tengblad (2012b) also suggests that the unpredictability of managerial work should no longer be perceived solely as a disruptive element that needs to be reduced in favour of proactive strategies, but rather as an acknowledged or even embraced (Brinck and Tanggaard 2016) element of managerial practice.

Despite the number of studies confirming the high degree of unpredictability in managerial work, managers’ learning in their everyday work has received sparse attention (Antonacopoulou 2006; Else Ouweneel et al. 2009; Kempster and Stewart 2010), and little is still known about how managers’ workplace learning happens in organisations (Andrianova and Antonacopoulou 2020). Managers’ learning and development have strong support in research on managerial work (Davies and Easterby-Smith 1984; Day 2011), but studies have mainly focused on leadership training (Lacerenza et al. 2017) and leadership development (Day 2011). Based on previous studies arguing that there is still limited research on managers’ learning in everyday work from a workplace learning perspective, our ambition is to contribute knowledge about the everyday learning of managers that goes beyond the research on leadership training and leadership development. Therefore, the aim is to contribute knowledge about managers’ learning in managerial practice when work is unpredictable, by investigating how first-line managers deal with unforeseen situations and how they learn in such circumstances in their everyday work. The article draws on evidence from case studies, based on 40 interviews with first-line managers from four different elderly care providers in Sweden.

The following section introduces the analytical concepts of practice and learning, and the relationships between them. The underlying notion that underpins the analysis is that when managers deal with unpredictable work, it always involves learning in managerial practice. The subsequent sections provide a brief contextual description of the Swedish elderly care sector and the research method. Thereafter, the findings are presented. Finally, the findings are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

Theoretical framework

In this paper, the concept of practice forms a basis for analysing managers’ learning in managerial practice when work is unpredictable. The concept of practice denotes a close relationship with learning. As Lave (2019) discusses in the overview of her seminal work on learning as socially situated, the analysis of learning begins ‘with the practice of which learning is a part’ (148). According to this quotation, an underlying assumption is that practising always involves learning. This means that learning happens in practice when people participate, do things and interact with others (Lave 2019, 2012, 2008; see also Kemmis 2019), but also when people come ‘to know how to go on in practices’ (Kemmis 2019, 36). Learning is seen as a movement of participation in practices, and this movement also forms the basis for a transformative change of practice (Lave 2019). As Lave (2019) emphasises, change is a crucial component in the process of learning as part of ‘changing participation in changing practices’ (85). This implies that learning happens in practice when dealing with challenging activities as a response to different needs (Boud and Hager 2012), and the movement from the past to the future signifies that the same happening can never be repeated; it can only emerge in new and changed ways. Consequently, learning plays a significant role in understanding how and why practices remain, transform, and emerge over time (Lave 2019; Hager 2012).

So far, we have focused on the concept of practice in relation to learning, complemented by ideas of change in relation to practice and learning. Based on these insights, we can now assume that practice is vital for learning to happen, and learning in turn is vital for changing practices. So, what is a practice? The term ‘practice’ has come to be widely used in social and behavioural sciences. There is no distinct definition or shared consensus on its meaning (Hager 2012). Instead, the term refers to diverse meanings and is used in a variety of ways, ranging from simple procedures and interconnected components forming a practice to relationships that constitute practices and their contributions to the ongoing practice (Hager and Beckett 2019). A practice may occur on different levels, for example from a recruitment process to a mouse click (Wilkinson and Kemmis 2015), and has been conceptualised as human activity, more commonly described as ‘everyday meanings’ (Manidis and Addo 2017). The different conceptualisations of practice have led to critical claims that it is used in a taken-for-granted way and is less problematised in relation to professional learning and workplace learning (Hager and Beckett 2019; Reich and Hager 2014).

Recognising the important work of the above-referenced scholars, this article builds on the notion of learning in practice to provide a framework that situates and enriches an understanding of managers’ learning in managerial practice under the circumstances of unpredictable work in the context of elderly care. We conceptualise practice as the integration of ‘what people do, where they do it, with whom and for what purpose’ (Boud and Hager 2012, 22), and the doings, sayings and relatings constitute a shared meaning among participants in the practice (Kemmis et al. 2014). This signifies that learning happens in the practice of particular events and activities of unpredictability, and is an outcome of managers performing and interacting in practice when dealing with everyday issues in managerial work. As Boud and Brew (2013) emphasise, it is what people do that is ‘the centre-piece’ (214) of their learning challenges, that is, when ‘they undertake practice, they extend their practice and they take up new practices’ (214). Boud and Brew (2013) further stress that practice drives learning when everyday work needs to be done, or when emerging work-related problems (known or not yet known) need to be solved. Sometimes it is necessary to consider and confront conflicting demands in one’s own practice, or when one’s own practice appears to conflict with another practice (Roth 2010). As noted by Bjørkeng, Clegg, and Pitsis (2009), practices continuously develop norms and rules for performance in their making, contrary to established practices in which negotiations are more explicit through sanctions and rules directing the practice to a desirable mode. However, negotiations can also be less visible in informal and tacit ways, determining what to do – and how – in this practice. Informal ways of doing the job are embedded in practice, but under certain circumstances they can be enhanced by providing activities that support learning (Billett 2010). Learning activities can make the informal explicit, which may lead to the development of an embedded practice that has its own knowledge structure and qualities within another practice (Billett 2010, 9). Or, put differently, Hager and Beckett (2019) suggest that a practice hosts diverse activities that under certain circumstances can form a different or new practice.

However, most practices emerge and change within a normative and structural framework that shapes participants’ space (Bjørkeng, Clegg, and Pitsis 2009), depending on what is doable under different institutional and organisational conditions in a specific context (May and Finch 2009). Consequently, practices are always situated in a specific context (Hager and Beckett 2019; Lave 2019). In this article, managerial practice is situated in the context of elderly care. A managerial practice in elderly care orchestrates conditions both for the managers themselves and for other professionals (Wilkinson and Kemmis 2015), and may include complex social forces such as power (Lave 2019). Hence, context gives rise to different conditions for learning (Boud and Hager 2012); conditions that are necessary for the occurrence of practice but not sufficient to determine the practice (Kemmis et al. 2014). Conditions anchored in existing practices steer practices toward production and reproduction (Bjørkeng, Clegg, and Pitsis 2009). Therefore, situations must be understood by those who practise, which requires continual interpretation and re-interpretation of what practice really means in a particular context and with regard to available resources and conditions in the context (Lave 2019; Hager 2012).

Research context

The study was carried out in the elderly care sector in Sweden. Like some of its Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden has an explicit public commitment to ensure the health of its 10 million inhabitants (Anell, Glenngard, and Merkur 2012), which also includes care for all senior citizens (Erlandsson et al. 2013). The country has one of the world’s oldest populations, and the life expectancy of both women and men has been rising over a long period (Anell, Glenngard, and Merkur 2012). This has resulted in an increased demand for elderly care. It is the welfare state, not the family, which has overall responsibility for care of the elderly in Sweden. This responsibility is geographically divided between 290 local municipalities, each of which is politically controlled, and care is 95 percent publicly funded through taxes. However, in the wake of new public management (Green-Pedersen 2002), a change in national legislation allowed both municipal and private care providers to provide elderly care services. This has resulted in a significant proportion of this service being performed by private care providers in Sweden (Hagerman 2019), although municipal care providers still have a dominant position in this sector.

Both municipal and private care providers offer different types of elderly care services, for example home-help services and special housing (nursing homes and residential care homes). Direct responsibility for the quality of these services (Hasenfeld 2009) lies with first-line managers (Abdelrazek et al. 2010). In Sweden, these managers are recruited from different organisations. Some have previous experience of elderly care and/or managerial work, while others have no such experience (Wastesson et al. Forthcoming). Nevertheless, most managers of elderly care units are women (Sundin and Tillmar 2010), and they often have responsibility for a large number of employees. The work of these managers is demanding (Furåker and Nilsson 2010), not least when it comes to employee resourcing (Rönnqvist et al. 2015), and they are frequently confronted with unexpected events (Ellström and Ellström 2018).

Method

A qualitative case study approach was adopted, consisting of 40 interviews with managers at four elderly care organisations. In the first step of selection, we contacted two municipalities and two private corporations in Sweden, located in the central-eastern part of Sweden that covers both metropolitan and rural areas. After the management of each organisation gave their informed consent to participate in the research project, we went on to select first-line managers from these four organisations. The selection criterion was first-line managers from units providing care services aimed primarily at the elderly population, more specifically home-help services and nursing homes. In this study, ‘first-line managers’ refers to people at the first level of management to whom non-managerial employees report in a traditional hierarchical organisation (Hales 2005), henceforth referred to as ‘managers’. The 40 selected managers (five male and 35 female) had similar duties and assignments to fulfil, and similar groups of non-managerial employees consisting mainly of assistant nurses, but also other types of nursing staff, for example physiotherapists, nurses and care assistants. The managers’ working conditions varied depending on the type of care services they oversaw, their span of control (which varied from 20 to over 100 employees) and the type and extent of administrative support they received. Some managers had responsibility for more than one elderly care unit, and divided their working hours between different locations. The work of these 40 managers was regulated by the same national standards in the context of elderly care.

Data collection

Semi-structured individual interviews with the 40 managers took place at their workplaces, and lasted approximately 60 min each. An interview guide with open-ended question grouped into eight themes (background, managerial assignment, daily work activities, professional relationships and communication, learning at work, conditions for learning, professional identity and career development) was used. For example, the managers were asked to describe their everyday work in terms of what was typical, stimulating and challenging, what they did under different circumstances and how they learned to deal with different tasks and situations. The interviews allowed the managers to talk freely about their everyday work, while also offering a link to the theoretical focus on practices (Boud and Hager 2012) and what managers do as a centre-piece for understanding what they learn (Boud and Brew 2013). In line with this open and sensitive approach to the managers’ experiences, the interviews were recorded and thereafter transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis

The qualitative content analysis, inspired by Graneheim and Lundman (2004), was carried out in two main stages. In the first exploratory stage, each interview was read several times to identify the managers’ descriptions of unpredictable work. The working definition of unpredictable work that guided this stage of analysis was: (1) a palpable element of unforeseen situations, (2) set in an uncertain environment (changing circumstances) and (3) difficulties anticipating the effect of work efforts (input did not predict output). This unit of analysis represents what the managers did when something unforeseen occurred, and is less about proactive efforts to prevent such situations. Using this working definition helped us to keep a clear focus on unpredictable work when reading all 40 interviews, but this stage was also characterised by a sensitive and open approach to the empirical data. This exploratory analysis stage resulted in a descriptive gross list of unforeseen work situations and what managers did, when they did it and with whom (Boud and Hager 2012).

In the second stage of analysis, recurrent patterns in the descriptive gross list were identified resulting in a categorisation of themes connected to different unforeseen situations, which were also systematically sorted and compared. This ultimately resulted in identifying three categories of practices that were embedded (Billett 2010) in the managerial practice: maintaining, modifying and inventing. After identifying the three practices, each practice was analysed in relation to managers’ learning when dealing with and coming to know how to deal with the practices. The analysis of managers’ learning was based on the theoretical assumption that learning happens in practices when dealing with things and challenges, and when interacting with others in response to different needs (see for example Boud and Hager 2012; Lave 2019; Kemmis 2019).

Findings

Drawing on our theoretical assumptions, the analysis of managers’ learning must begin ‘with the practice of which learning is a part’ (Lave 2019, 148). Therefore, in the following section, the three embedded practices – maintaining, modifying and inventing – are presented in more detail together with illustrative quotations from the interviews with the managers. These three practices were formed by a variety of activities and relationships, which emerged in the many unforeseen situations the managers faced in their everyday work. As will be further analysed and discussed in the discussion section, learning happened differently in these practices when the managers dealt with and came to learn how to deal with the unforeseen situations they faced in their everyday work.

Maintaining practice

A maintaining managerial practice is defined as the managers’ ways of adapting to routines and resources inherent in the managerial practice for dealing with unpredictability. This embedded practice was a response to unforeseen situations when managers ‘knew what to do’. Even though the situations as such could not be foreseen, the managers knew how to handle them, either from their own knowledge, from their previous experience or from existing routines and resources.

Situations that were known to recur could often be handled using a standardised procedure, which was taught to new managers early on as part of their introduction to the role. Two examples of unforeseen – but recurring and common – situations in the managers’ everyday work were staff sick leave and complaints about employee misconduct from care users or relatives. Unforeseen situations such as these could be dealt with by the managers by learning to follow routines in accordance with laws or established organisational routines. The maintaining practice was administrated according to well-known repertoires or was available just a phone call away, or they simply needed to remind themselves by reading existing documents. Some of the managers handled these unforeseen situations themselves, while others had guidelines for handing over cases to an expert function within the organisation.

The maintaining practice could also emerge from the managers’ own experience or preferences. The managerial practice in the context of elderly care meant an accumulation of unexpected tasks with a subsequently rising workload, frequent eruptions, and difficulties focusing and keeping track of things. One maintaining practice in response to these situations was to take one thing at a time, or always having a notepad to hand in order to record matters so that they could screen, prioritise and plan the daily work. Another approach was to delegate responsibility or train subordinates to take on some of the managerial work tasks (such as staff planning, etc.) or matters concerning the service users, since those who carry out the services were in a better position to address the situation, even if the managers themselves also knew what to do. Some of the more experienced managers said that it was easier to prioritise time when they were more aware about what was urgent and important. This sense of urgency often related to the fact that the managers worked in a human service organisation, and that their work had direct or indirect consequences for the well-being of elderly people. The maintaining practice in urgent situations could include making quick decisions:

Being quick with feedback to relatives who feel anxious is something that I have often seen to be successful. I’m actually available around the clock. And if I get an e-mail, where people express concern or anger, or that something happened on a Saturday night, then I respond on Saturday night. And it has turned out to be very good […] it has been that way many times and then on Monday morning, it has calmed down.

Another approach, but still a maintaining managerial practice, was to keep cool and wait, as well as setting restrictions to stop the work from intruding on private life:

Well, I have become better at when it is four o’clock, then I go home. I rarely work overtime, I don’t take as long breaks as I should, sometimes I might stay until five, but it’s not often I work late. I don’t read constantly, we all have iPhones and can read work e-mails in our spare time, but I don’t. They can call my private phone, if that’s the case. But I think it happened once, actually.

The managers hence thought differently about devoting their free time to work. In both cases, the managers had maintained their way of dealing with unforeseen situations outside regular working hours. On some occasions, the manager knew what should be done, but that working hours were not enough. As a result of their busy schedule and deadlines, some managers worked overtime or took work tasks home in terms of night-time thinking or administrative tasks. For example, specialist functions might request information reports or recruitment applications for urgent vacancies might need to be reviewed. Urgent action was described as a preferred approach, but also as a necessary evil due to a lack of time. When the managers increased their work pace, they tended to use a familiar maintaining practice instead of inventing new ones. Maintaining practice became a survival strategy at work:

Sometimes it’s hard. I realise, sometimes I might generalise a little too much, because I think that’s what most people want. But it really isn’t. Everyone wants it their own way, too. I forget that sometimes. Or it’s a way to survive the day.

The managers described differences between themselves and colleagues regarding a willingness to change current maintaining practice. One approach was to identify the situation as normal, applying proven practice and carrying on as usual. However, this was also described as a sign of incompetence or as some managers being too comfortable to make the necessary changes. In some cases, the managers could not decide for themselves how to deal with the situation, e.g. when the working procedure was regulated by law or predetermined by executive managers, support functions or political decisions. Some of the situations described by the managers were not about knowing what should be done, but rather about what they were not allowed to do based on what they themselves thought appropriate.

Modifying practice

A modifying practice is defined as the managers’ ways of altering the available routines and resources for dealing with unpredictability. In other words, this embedded practice within managerial practice meant that they modified their actions to suit the conditions in unforeseen work situations. For example, there were standard procedures for establishing a care plan for a new care user, but also special requests or needs which required modifications. According to the managers, the need for modifications was often related to the fact that people, groups and interpersonal relationships are different.

They are not robots that come here and just do the job. In fact, there are people who have a lot on their plate, and things happen in their lives other than work. You realise that the world is not, it’s not just that you come here and do your job and go home. There is so much else that matters. So often after talking to other people, the reflections come after they have gone. I just kind of think, ‘Shit, that was tough. How did I react when I heard that? How did I act in the conversation? Could I have done something different?’

The modifying practice was a response to the continuous considerations and reflections on the managerial role and how their actions affected others, taking individual differences into account, and learning to make necessary adjustments in relation to unforeseen situations. The managers emphasised the importance of seeking feedback and having daily conversations in the workplace in order to modify practice. Ongoing conversations with colleagues involved how to improve working methods and quality of care. This was not just about problem-solving, but also bringing about long-term change by keeping the conversation alive.

It is this daily feedback at work. I mean, the nurse and the physiotherapist and the occupational therapist and me, and also colleagues. Telling them to remind each other, and yes, our mutual guidance on what to do instead. And that is absolutely crucial, I think, for learning. That you get feedback daily, in the present.

The organisational pressure was substantial in terms of budget restrictions and requirements for constant improvements. Change, initiated by the employer or political representatives, affected the managers but could be welcomed to a greater or lesser extent. Nonetheless, it was their task to implement what was decided by higher decision-makers. A seemingly general directive needed to be translated and adjusted according to the managers’ work context to achieve the intended effect, i.e. modifying practice was called for. Change processes could be difficult if the information and conditions changed during the implementing phase, creating unpredictability. One way of handling the uncertainty was to interpret the message from decision-makers thoroughly and analyse the consequences of not drawing hasty conclusions. During such periods, managers could have to withhold information from their subordinates to avoid confusion if the directives were changed.

Not always, but often it can be very flawed or the information changes after we have passed it on, and it can be very frustrating. But it is also a kind of learning process that we have, I think we still fumble a bit in our management group after something clear. So, when something comes from the top, we must be clearer that: “Yes, now this is the case”, and that everyone says the same thing. And then also trying not to make overly hasty decisions. Because, as I said before, I feel that we have often gone out together and said: ‘This is how it is’, and then it completely changes. Then you have to stand there and defend it. And that can create quite a lot of frustration among the staff, who are the ones who are supposed to put the decision into practice. […] “Should I announce this news now, or should I wait because it might change?”

In the event of an extensive organisational change, it was hard to predict everyone’s (e.g. the staff’s) reactions and the final effects. The managers described how they did not always have a full mandate to handle the situation in the way they found appropriate. ‘Cheating’ and bending the rules was one way of modifying practice, when the managers did not fully go by the book or deliberately made far-fetched interpretations of guidelines that suited their situation better. However, the managers also emphasised that it was important to respect the laws and political decisions. As a manager of a politically controlled organisation, the decisions must be implemented. Whether they were employed in private or public organisations, all managers were affected by various change initiatives. The managers said that it was their job to manage unpredictability, evaluate the effects of their actions in unforeseen situations, and adjust the initial plan in relation to problems that arose, for example in the wake of a change initiative.

Inventing practice

An inventing practice is defined as the managers’ ways of dealing with unpredictability that required new solutions or was as yet unknown and not a part of the managers’ repertoires. In other words, this embedded practice within the managerial practice was invented in completely new ways in response to the need to deal with unknown and unforeseen situations. It was considered a practice that was inaccessible or not yet developed in the workplace. In either case, the manager did not know what to do in advance, and the unforeseen situation was handled and learned through inventing practice. Although not daily occurrences, the managers still described unusual situations and dilemmas as a significant part of their unpredictable work. Difficult matters that the managers did not know how to handle included thefts in the workplace, media coverage or employees with private problems. The situations which called for inventing practice did not have to be particularly dramatic per se. The managers also described how they were faced with trivial events that they did not know how to solve in advance as part of their everyday work, such as a broken coffee machine or missed deliveries, etc.

When the managers faced unforeseen situations where they felt inventing practice was necessary, they tended to reach out for advice or outside help, sometimes by searching for information online or by calling an external supplier. Support functions were described as providing expertise in matters where the managers lacked certain knowledge or ideas about how to go forward. When the managers were confronted with a new and unforeseen situation, the practice which included learning and seeking support meant help to analyse the situation and come up with an appropriate solution. The outside help was not only the organisational support system, but primarily the people closest to the manager in the workplace, for example colleagues and subordinates. In order to involve subordinates in problem-solving, the managers needed to encourage participation. One strategy was to take a backseat and downplay the image of themselves as all-knowing leaders. When confronted with ethical dilemmas, there was seldom a right or wrong answer; instead, this involved finding support for one’s reasoning. The managers said that they could get help from colleagues to get confirmation or learn new ways to move forward.

There are lots of tasks that I cannot practically do, or know the answer to. So, of course, then I turn to [my colleagues]. There are situations, ethical dilemmas, when it comes to users and the duty of confidentiality and things like that, or staff and the duty of confidentiality. Then maybe you turn to colleagues to get some confirmation confidentiality ‘How do I think?’ or ‘How should I reason about this?’, and get support, support for your reasoning. Or guidance. Because we work with people, and there is not always a yes or no answer.

The managers said that they encountered ethical dilemmas and complex situations that were difficult to solve and required deep thinking. Still, certain situations required them to made decisions, and sometimes the decisions had to be made before they could research the situation fully. Even when they could, there were still times when carefully considered actions were not enough to avoid unexpected outcomes.

I dealt with a change initiative at another unit where I worked, to move a dementia department to another floor. And in my world, there were no problems. Move all the employees to the ground floor, because I thought it would be good for the dementia patients. So, we involved people in central positions within the municipality, and we had a meeting with relatives about whether they wanted to move in gradually and so on. I thought that this was not a problem, I could do this in six months, and I had drawn up a plan and so on. And it was chaos. I had such angry employees, I had two who resigned, one of whom I could persuade to stay, but the other one quit.

Interviewer: Just because you were moving down?

Just because we were moving down. I didn’t understand. How could that be? And I thought: No, it’s a failure, I don’t want to lose her, because she was a good employee, but she was so angry and felt so overruled. She couldn’t, for her it was so important to be in that place. And some relatives and some elderly people were important to her. I ended up having angry relatives who came to meetings. Yes, I would have done it differently there. I was naive, I could never have thought it would blow up that way.

The move was a unique event for the manager, which required a new approach. However, the invented practice was not enough to achieve the desired outcome and led to more unexpected events. The negative consequences also indicate that the manager would not maintain this practice in the event of another reorganisation. As described above, the outcome of the new invented practice could be difficult to anticipate, and a seemingly prepared situation could turn into something unexpected. Some said that it was one of the foremost qualities a manager should have, the ability to make decisions despite limited information. Sometimes it was not about making the right decision, but rather the ability to evaluate the effects of the action undertaken. The managers engaged in post-reflection by themselves, but also together with others. Sometimes these discussions resulted in learning a new collective routine or revised approach in order to be better prepared for similar unforeseen situations in the future.

Yes, you reflect and sometimes maybe do it with others as well. Sometimes we gain experience from one unit which we can use in other units. And sometimes it may be that we change or get a new routine. Yes, then it is good that we can benefit from each other.

Because of the difficulties in deciding on the most appropriate measure for the situation, the managers sometimes just took a chance in the hope of eventually succeeding with their intentions. When the managers felt they should do something new but did not know what or how. Trial and error were emphasised as one way of learning how to deal with the unforeseen situation. An inventing practice was therefore a necessary embedded practice in order to develop the broader managerial practice.

Discussion

The findings of this study highlight how first-line managers in elderly care dealt with unforeseen situations that arose in unpredictable managerial work. In the stream of activities, relationships and conditions, three qualitatively different embedded practices (Billett 2010) were identified – maintaining, modifying and inventing – in which the unforeseen was dealt with in different ways. In the following section, the features of managers’ learning in these practices are discussed.

Departing from our theoretical assumptions, the analysis of managers’ learning is closely related to the practices (Lave 2019) of maintaining, modifying and inventing. Accordingly, the managers learned in these practices as they dealt with and came to know how to deal with the unforeseen situations they faced in their work. It is what the managers ‘do’ that constitutes the driving force of learning (Boud and Brew 2013), and learning is significant for understanding why and how practices are reproduced (remain) or produced (transform and emerge) over time (Lave 2019; Hager, Lee, and Reich 2012). The managers’ learning seemed to be a response to their need to solve their own or others’ work-related problems, or at least to do something about the unforeseen situation. In these situations, the managers had to consider what was appropriate to do depending on formal and informal requirements anchored in the managerial practice (Bjørkeng, Clegg, and Pitsis 2009). Organisational conditions characterising the elderly care context also seemed to be of decisive importance in terms of what was achievable for the managers to do and learn in their work (May and Finch 2009).

The maintaining practice was an accomplishment in itself, and called for learning. Even if the managers were familiar with the recurring unforeseen situations, such as dealing with staff sick leave, the surrounding conditions were changing. The maintaining practice became a necessary means of survival in the managers’ event-driven work. Consequently, the managers’ learning dealt with mastering the job, in order to maintain how to act in these situations, with whom, and for what purpose (Boud and Hager 2012). The managers’ learning the requirements of the maintaining practice constituted a shared accumulation of knowledge and a toolbox (routines and guidelines) for use in unforeseen situations. The shared knowledge and tools were made ‘visible’ as doings (Wilkinson and Kemmis 2015) for newly employed managers and were something that was learnt early on when joining a workplace (Wastesson et al. Forthcoming). Experienced managers had learned a large repertoire to use in unforeseen situations, and therefore found it easy to monitor and determine what was urgent and important. Knowledge about organisational conditions seemed to create a greater awareness of their opportunities for learning the managerial role. Available resources eased the managers’ workload, for example staff who helped to get the job done in urgent situations. The managers learned to develop their own ways to make work run more smoothly in unforeseen situations, depending on personal preferences and previous experience. Some managers did not perform work that interfered with their private life, while others chose to get rid of the unforeseen task as quickly as possible. Sometimes the maintaining practice was seen as a convenient option amid constraining regulations and formalised routines; the problem was not knowing what should be done, but rather acting in a way which they thought appropriate for maintaining practice (Lave 2019), and thereby maintaining a practice that was to their advantage.

The modifying practice was a response from the managers for learning ways to adjust their actions to suit the unforeseen situation. Even if managers had access to a repertoire of standard procedures and routines, these were not always applicable. Instead, the managers had to interpret and re-interpret to learn to make the ‘right’ adjustments in line with the prevailing conditions in the elderly care context (Hager and Beckett 2019; Lave 2019). It was not easy to deal with confronting and competing demands (Roth 2010) from politicians, the employer, and superior managers, or from staff, care users and relatives. Changing organisational conditions such as budget restrictions and political decisions set the agenda, and were respectfully and carefully interpreted by the managers before undertaking modifying actions. A modifying practice was constantly open to change through managers’ learning during the course of enacted activities (Hager and Beckett 2019; Lave 2019). Stretching and bending the rules was a common way of deviating from standard procedures for learning acceptable ways of dealing with the unforeseen situation. This was not always legitimately anchored in the organisation and was not always transparent to staff. Managers’ individual modifications were made visible through collegial conversations and feedback on their adjustments and improvements to work methods. Keeping the problem-solving conversation alive was an important way of learning to change and extend their practice (Boud and Brew 2013), which could also facilitate changes in the broader managerial practice.

When managers lacked standard procedures and routines as a reference point, they had to learn how to invent new solutions to solve work problems that were not part of their learned repertoire. An inventing practice was associated with many difficulties that challenged the managers as they had to do something to solve the problem (Boud and Brew 2013). These difficulties ranged from trivial matters, such as a broken coffee machine, to complex dilemmas, such as ethical considerations requiring in-depth reasoning and serious decisions with uncertain outcomes. This type of unforeseen situation placed tough demands on the managers to learn to identify the as-yet unknown (Boud and Brew 2013). One way of dealing with the unknown was to seek support from expert functions in the organisation or to involve subordinates and colleagues who shared the learning need to find a solution to the work problem (Wilkinson and Kemmis 2015). The managers acted according to their assessment of the help they needed in the situation. This meant learning who within the organisation had the answer or at least a possible solution, often informally (Billett 2010). At times, the managers had no opportunity to evaluate the unforeseen situation, but they still had to decide something. This created a difficult decision-making situation due to limited information and not knowing the effects of the action’s outcome. In such a situation, the potential for managers’ learning lay in making the invisible visible by doing something (‘trial-and-error’ handling) to find a solution to an acute need. Doing something differently was seen as a powerful driving force for learning that initiated a change process (Lave 2019) in and of the managerial practice.

Conclusions

This study has shown that managers’ learning through their dealing with unpredictability is a recurrent and even a normal feature of their managerial practice. The unpredictability originates in the many unforeseen situations that managers face in their everyday managerial practice. It is amid these unforeseen situations that different learning judgments made by the managers guided them to take up maintaining, modifying or inventing practices. Changing conditions and challenges emerging as a response to the need to deal with the unpredictable was seemingly a learning condition that drove managers to navigate in their work to ‘do something’ and make the necessary decisions required by a manager in elderly care.

The managers chose practices to direct the unforeseen situation to benefit their preferences, which also seemed to be a way to direct learning for changing conditions in the direction desired to be able to do the job. Recurring unforeseen situations called for a maintaining practice based on well-known routines and standard procedures, requiring managers to learn a repertoire of actions and tools. Other unforeseen situations called for a modifying practice based on available routines and resources, and on the managers’ accumulated experiences, to stretch and bend conventional ways of doing things to suit the situation better. Managers learned while making the right adjustments according to their insightful intentions, and then evaluating the consequences of their practice to solve the unforeseen in relation to prevailing conditions. Finally, infrequent unforeseen situations called for an inventing practice to find solutions to problems that were not yet known or not yet accessible in the repertoire of managerial practice. Therefore, the managers had to orchestrate their learning and invite others (staff, colleagues and expert functions) to take part in joint explorative problem-solving to first identify the problem, and then decide who could do what or provide help. Local innovations within the frame of inventing practice challenged managers’ learning in terms of finding a way to deal with the problem once the problem had been identified; the solution could, however, be very simple or intractable.

Using the case of elderly care and the analytical lens of ‘learning in practice’, this paper goes beyond research on leadership training and leadership development by contributing knowledge about the everyday learning of first-line managers when their work is unpredictable. The unpredictable managerial work does not always create chaos; instead, there are very orderly ways of learning from dealing with unforeseen situations, since the unforeseen is not as unpredictable as it might seem in everyday work. On the other hand, not only do managers learn to adapt to changing circumstances, the not yet known also calls for an inventing practice that makes managers’ learning taking new paths that can create new emerging practices.

However, a further and more comprehensive analysis of managers’ learning in elderly care is needed, to consider the impact of the ‘practice architecture’ – cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements (Kemmis et al. 2014) for understanding how and why practices remain, transform and emerge in elderly care.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).