The social construction of workarounds

This explored workarounds as a social phenomenon as opposed to just an individual one, arguing that they are influenced and propagated socially (socially contagious) and can result in a workaround climate. This paper involved a literature review and then two preliminary studies.

Workarounds are informal and idiosyncratic approaches to circumnavigate a process block, e.g. an alarm being overridden to save time or avoid inconvenience.

From a worker’s perspective, workarounds “are essential coping responses to organizational dysfunction” (p8) – but from a firm’s perspective, they are said to be a missed opportunity for learning.

Based on existing research, authors argue that workarounds are “socially constructed, proliferating, and repeating until they become institutionalized in organizations hierarchies” (p8).

Authors focus on how workarounds are socially proliferated. They suggest a direct contagion where group members subconsciously mimic others particularly where high mutual empathy exists.

Indirect effects may also explain social contagion where group members when confronting workflow blocks engage in deliberate cooperative behaviour to circumnavigate the issue. Eg talking openly with their team and finding solutions together.

The authors argue that this may be more relevant compared to the direct mimicking, since workarounds may be less?spurious or subconscious but more as directed cooperative action due to a shared belief about what’s morally right (accomplishing work for the benefit of firm/clients/patients etc).

Results

Study 1 explored the social influences of workarounds. It found that workarounds were shaped by higher level influences. Further, although individual factors are important – results indicated workarounds to be strongly influenced by facility (workplace) and higher system (organisational) factors. Interestingly, although the facilities in the sample shared many commonalities with practices etc. – the facilities have certain characteristics which are unique and influence workarounds differently.

In study 2 a key finding was that, in healthcare, since on-the-job training was the most frequent source of training (86% of all nurses), coworkers were the “overwhelming source of troubleshooting supporting” (pp16-17) where 92% of nurses sought coworker support for work blocks. Supervisor assistance was sought far less.

Taken together, workarounds are socially contagious and largely propagated due to informal training and troubleshooting behaviours.

For individuals, rules may be perceived as enabling or disruptive. If enabling, it’s seen to help people accomplish goals and if disruptive, it hinders. This highlights the importance of understanding the context and unintended consequences of risk controls, which may promote further workarounds rather than ameliorate.

Finally, the authors note that workarounds are a double-edged sword. In one way they are “creative mechanisms” allowing people to complete tasks more efficiently. In another way, they can introduce unplanned consequences.

Practically, the authors say that examining workarounds for an individual-level is too myopic to properly understand them. Workaround climates may emerge within teams and facilities.

Therefore, in order to properly optimise work, attention must be given to the social influence factors of workarounds in combination with the dynamics of teams which facilitate the propagation of workarounds at a meso-level (training effectiveness, learning climates, psychological safety, routines and more).

Link in comments.

Authors: Dunford, B. B., & Perrigino, M. B. (2018). The social construction of workarounds. In?Advances in industrial and labor relations, 2017: Shifts in workplace voice, justice, negotiation and conflict resolution in contemporary workplaces?(Vol. 24, pp. 7-28). Emerald Publishing Limited.