I. Introduction
In this section I would like to introduce the project by explaining the context and providing rationale for the study. I will also explain how a case study approach to studying emotion labor in a nursing home fills a gap in the research. Finally, I will introduce the main theme (the “so what?”) that emerges from the paper’s case studies (yet to be discovered).
Transition: An examination of emotion labor in a nursing home by using a case study approach to organizational experience can provide insight into how expectations for emotion in the organization are conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated.
II. Literature Review
In the LR, I want to build an argument from the known to the unknown. In this section I will synthesize the relevant research within the context of emotion labor. Finally, I will clearly identify the gap in the research. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.
A. Theoretical Framework
In this section, I will explain the difference between emotion work and emotion labor. Then, I will explain how emotion labor is enacted by organizational members (surface acting & deep acting). Next, I will explain how the theoretical framework was used by organizational communication scholars (Kramer & Hess) to uncover communication rules that are used to govern emotion in organizations.
Transition: The communication rules used to govern emotion in organizations require interpretation within specific organizational contexts thus there is a call for more research.
B. The Nursing Home
This is where I will explain how emotion labor differs in the context of a nursing home because employees work out of concern for the frail elderly residents. I will support this with the Sass (2000) research study. However, I will point out a gap in the research: the current literature does not address how employees in a nursing home may become desensitized to the caring aspect of their job and may struggle with communicating a “caring” persona.
Transition: While employees use context as a guide for emotion labor, there is also evidence that organizational control over emotions is dispersed among groups of people.
C. Control
In this section, I will explain how organizations communicate expectations for emotion display among clients or residents by using the following studies as evidence: Sass (2000), Tracy (2000), and Ashforth and Humphrey (1995). Then, I will identify how a case study seeks to address the gap in the research by exemplifying how emotion labor is conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated across the hierarchy of an organization.
Transition: Since this is a preliminary examination of the way emotion labor is experienced in a nursing home, the research question that guides this study is: How do employees of nursing home experience emotion in the workplace?
III. Methods
In this section, I want to explain how the collection of detailed and descriptive narratives from employees across the hierarchy of a nursing home is the way to answer the research question. Next, I want clearly explain and provide rationale for the methods for data collection and data analysis. Finally, I will describe the site where the research took place. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.
A. Study Design
Here I will describe why narrative as a form of qualitative inquiry allows the research to view research participants as narrators who shape their experience and reality in their own voice. I will also describe the case method approach.
B. Data Collection
In this section, I will explain how data for this study were draw and the research procedures used during the in-depth interviews. I will also provide a few examples of the research questions that were used to elicit responses.
C. Data Analysis
In this section, I will describe how the data were analyzed. Specifically, I will tell the reader how I read the transcripts many times, then conducted open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.
D. Site
Here I will describe the nursing home used for the study. Specifically, I will describe the level care that is provided at the nursing home and explain how this is very similar to the other 4 nursing homes in the community. Next, I will state how many employees work at the nursing home, what the mission statement is, and the type of job positions that are employed there.
Transition: As the case studies presented will illustrate, emotion labor is experienced-conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated- differently across the hierarchy of the organization.
IV. Results
In each case study, I will (1) describe the participant’s work, (2) explain how they experience emotion labor (convey, confirm, negotiate, and resist), and (3) provide examples using the participant’s voice. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.
A. Case Study 1
B. Case Study 2
C. Case Study 3
V. Discussion
Here I will highlight the similarities and differences across the three case studies. I hope to synthesize one big “SO WHAT?”. Perhaps my “so what?” will be an insightful discussion on how emotion labor is experienced differently (big assumption here) depending on where in the organization’s hierarchy the employee is?
VI. Conclusion
The finale of my paper will describe how this paper contributes to the current knowledge on emotion labor, discuss the limitations of the study, and explain how these limitations present opportunities for future research. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.
A. Contributions
In my contributions section, I will describe how the results of this paper contribute to what is known about emotion labor. I would like to also reiterate why this research is important to the field of organizational communication, organizations that care for frail elderly, and the employees who experience emotion labor in their workplace.
B. Limitations & Future Research
In my limitations section, I would like to present the opportunities for future research emerging from the limitations for the study.
No comments:
Post a Comment