Work intensification and ambidexterity - the notions of extreme and ‘everyday’ experiences in emergency contexts: surfacing dynamics in the ambulance service

ABSTRACT

Many organizational contexts have experienced radical changes resulting in work intensification. Whilst emergency services face evident ‘macro-extreme’ challenges (emergencies, major traumas) employees also experience parallel, everyday ‘routine’ in micro-settings. How such micro-episodes interact with macro-extreme dynamics remains under-explored providing an opportunity to extend literature on micro-foundational organizational ambidexterity. This paper empirically examines these dynamics in the UK Ambulance Service by developing a conceptual model to explore the exploitative and explorative shifts and manifestations of work intensification. The findings demonstrate a recognition of macro-type intense-extremes impacts but less appreciation of their interaction with micro-situational mundane-extremes.

KEYWORDS:

• Work intensification
• ambulance services
• extreme
• everyday
• organizational ambidexterity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paresh Wankhade

Paresh Wankhade FRSA, FCMI is a Professor of Leadership and Management at Edge Hill University Business School, UK. He is the Programme leader for the UK’s first bespoke Professional Doctorate in Emergency Services Management. He is also the Editor-In-Chief of International Journal of Emergency Services. His research and publications focus on analyses of strategic leadership, organisational culture, organisational change and interoperability within the public services with a focus on blue light services. Paresh has published in major journals including: Work, Employment and Society, International Journal of Management Reviews, Public Management Review, Regional Studies, Public Money and Management and International Journal of Public Sector Management along with several books on the leadership and governance aspects in the emergency services.

Peter Stokes

Peter Stokes FRSA, SFEMAB, FCMI is a Professor at the innovative Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University, UK. He has published widely in world class journals including: Human Resource Management; International Journal of Human Resource Management; European Management Review; and, the Journal of Organizational Behavior. He applies his work in successful consultancy projects. He holds positions on international bodies including Vice-President - EuroMed Research Business Institute and UK Ambassador - Association de Gestion des Ressources Humaines (Francophone Academic HR Association).

Shlomo Tarba

Shlomo Tarba is a Chair (Full Professor) of Strategy & International Business, University of Birmingham, UK.  He received his PhD in Strategic Management from Ben-Gurion University and Master's in Biotechnology degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His research interests include agility, organizational ambidexterity, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and resilience. He has published in the Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, Human Resource Management, British Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, Group & Organization Management, Long Range Planning, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and International Journal of Production Economics, among others.

Peter Rodgers

Dr Peter Rodgers is an Associate Professor in Strategy at the University of Leicester’s School of Business, UK. Peter earned a BA (Hons) degree in Social and Political Sciences from Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and an MA and PhD from the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham. Peter’s research interests include the nature of business-state relations in Russia and other former socialist countries, informal work and transnational entrepreneurship. Peter has published in leading journals including: Journal of Business Research, Work, Employment and Society, International Marketing Review, Journal of Industrial Relations, Global Networks, International Small Business Journal and Environment and Planning.