To listen, or to hear, that is the question. Internal listening at a Danish hospital during times of crisis

Mona Agerholm Andersen, Vibeke Thøis Madsen, Helle Eskesen Gode

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Abstract

This study focuses on internal listening at a large Danish university hospital in the aftermath of the Danish nurse strike in 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic. When organizations find themselves in a challenging and critical situation, internal listening may be a way for management and employees to maintain trust and improve engagement, and overcome worries and resistance (Sahay, 2021, Lewis, 2020). For several years, scholars have acknowledged the importance of employee voice as a driver of employee engagement (e.g. Ruck et al., 2017) but in recent years, the center of attention has moved to internal listening. Having a voice does not make sense if employees’ proposals and concerns are not listened to (Ruck, 2021).
According to Lewis (2020), internal listening refers to “a set of methodologies and structures designed and utilized to ensure that an organization’s attention is directed toward vital information and input to enable learning, questioning of key assumptions, interrogating decisions, and ensuring self-critical analysis” (p. xvi). In the light of her definition, Lewis (2020) emphasizes that organizations should focus on sincere listening leadership to learn and obtain new knowledge. However, attempts to listen to employees are often perceived as symbolic or inauthentic (Lewis, 2019). Employees are asked to solicit input but often the organization lack the competencies and resources to use and react to employee suggestions and concerns. Macnamara (2016) therefore argues that an “architecture of listening” is needed in terms of an organizational culture open to listening, deliberate policies and procedures supporting this as well as technologies that can support internal listening.
In this context, internal social (ISM) could be a useful communication arena (Heide and Simonsson, 2011). In the field of organizational communication studies, ISM is defined as an interactive and dynamic communication arena in which organizational members can interact, discuss, negotiate and make sense of their work and organizational lives (Madsen, 2017), and it can provide an arena where managers can listen to the organization (Madsen and Johansen, 2019)
Scholars argue that internal listening is still in its infancy, and that it is still undertheorized (Macnamara, 2018). Therefore, researchers should direct their attention to more empirical research on how organizations may build and maintain a strategic listening focus in different contexts (Neil and Bowen, 2021a; Neil and Bowen, 2021b). Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate how managers and employees practice internal listening and with what consequences for the employees’ experience of psychological safety and feeling of influence in times of turbulence.
Therefore, one part of this study concentrates on analyzing how managers and employees practice internal listening on the hospital’s internal social media platform “The word is free”. More precisely, a number of posts by managers and employees have been analyzed to explore employee voice and internal listening.
Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with key managers and nurses have been conducted to explore their perceptions on how internal listening functions not only in times of turbulence, or crisis, but also under normal circumstances. The findings provide insights regarding internal listening at a Danish university hospital where the employees find themselves caught up in a specific crisis caused by the nurse strike and the COVID-19 pandemic.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Publikationsdato9 sep. 2022
Antal sider12
StatusUdgivet - 9 sep. 2022
BegivenhedEUPRERA 23rd Annual Congress - WIRTSCHAFTSUNIVERSITÄT , Wien, Østrig
Varighed: 21 sep. 202224 sep. 2022
Konferencens nummer: 23
https://euprera.org/

Konference

KonferenceEUPRERA 23rd Annual Congress
Nummer23
LokationWIRTSCHAFTSUNIVERSITÄT
Land/OmrådeØstrig
ByWien
Periode21/09/202224/09/2022
Internetadresse

Emneord

  • Intern lytning
  • Interne sociale medier

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