How are employees at different levels affected by privatization? A longitudinal study of two Swedish hospitals

Abstract

Despite the amount of privatizations around the world in recent decades, only limited research attention has been paid to how privatization affects the employees. The effects are likely to vary depending on the individual's position in the organization. The aim of this study was to investigate how employees' work‐related attitudes and strain changed after privatization of a Swedish acute care hospital, and to analyze whether the effects of privatization differed between employees at various hierarchic levels. Questionnaire data collected at a hospital 1 year before and 2 years after privatization, as well as at a hospital which remained a public administration unit, suggest only limited effects of privatization on a general level, but that employees at various hierarchic levels may be affected differently. While employees at a high level (physicians) and low level (assistant nurses) reported only marginal differences over time in work attitudes and strain, also in comparison with their colleagues at the comparison hospital, work attitudes of employees at the intermediate level (registered nurses) decreased after privatization. These results emphasize the importance of taking hierarchic level into account when a privatization is implemented and analyzed.

Short- and long-term effects of major organisational change on minor psychiatric disorder and self-rated health: results from the Whitehall II study

“…The few studies that have investigated how organisational change affect health for employees in different occupational grades10 12 26 37 or gender4 6 18 25 38 have shown inconclusive results. This study suggests that the major organisational change that was implemented in the British Civil Service from 1988 affected both women and men in all grades negatively to some extent.…”

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Curvilinear effects of job characteristics on ill‐being in the nursing profession: a cross‐sectional study

“…Allowing to adequately readjust the ways of processing information would benefit both employees and healthcare facilities as access to information is associated with better coping with organizational change (Armstrong‐Stassen , Falkenberg et al . ).…”

"Change Initiatives, Stressors, and Job Satisfaction: A Social Information Processing Perspective"

“…Communication during public sector change provides employees with the opportunity to minimize uncertainty and to accurately predict the outcomes of change initiatives. This is because factors such as access to information, control over the work situation and opportunities for participating in change processes outweigh the negative effects of high job demands and uncertainty in the work situation (Falkenberg et al, 2009). …”