Unmasking the enterprising nurse: migrant care workers and the discursive mobilisation of productive professionals

Abstract

Public care work organisations in Northern Europe often seek to increase their economic efficiency in ways that care workers criticise for reducing both their professional autonomy and the quality of care. Recently, the ideal of 'enterprising nursing' has emerged as a political belief according to which economic efficiency, care workers' autonomy and the quality of care can be improved in tandem by cultivating care workers' agential abilities. This article examines the reception of this belief among migrant care workers in Finland. Drawing on research interviews, the analysis demonstrates how migrant care workers may have difficulties in aligning themselves with the enterprising ideals but also in protesting them. Ethnicity, and the status of a migrant, can offer resources for both constructing enterprising subjectivities and reframing care workers' agency, and their organisational environment, in more critical terms.

Pragmatic Inattention and Win-Win Narratives: How Finnish Eldercare Managers Make Sense of Foreign-Born Care Workers’ Structural Disadvantage

“…Such expressions of discontent conflict with their managers' idealized narratives. This conflict, we argue, partly explains why foreign-born workers' expressions of discontent are so easily suppressed in eldercare organizations' internal communications (Olakivi 2017;. Expressions of discontent do not sit well with the winwin narratives that many eldercare managers find personally appealing.…”

“…Eldercare managers thus have different discursive resources with which they canoften unintendedlymake the emerging divisions of care labor seem tolerable, if not affectively appealingat least to themselves. Foreign-born workers, of course, do not always agree with their managers' win-win narratives (Olakivi 2017). Foreign-born workers may, for instance, express discontent over their wages, working conditions, career prospects or, simply, structurally disadvantaged labor market positions.…”

Työyhteisö ja omavalvonta vanhuspalveluiden henkilöstön työhyvinvointia tukemassa

“…Olakiven ja kumppaneiden (2021,) NORDCAREaineistoon perustuvan tutkimuksen mukaan vanhustyöntekijöiden psykofyysisen kuormittu neisuuden lisääntyminen oli jopa merkittävin työn lopettamisaikeita ennustava teki jä. Työpaineita ovat lisänneet myös työ teh tävät, jotka eivät kuulu hoiva-alan ammatil liseen ydintoimenkuvaan (Olakivi 2017). Tut ki muksen mukaan iällä ja koulutustasolla näyttää olevan merkitystä, sillä nuoret ja korkeasti koulutetut työntekijät harkitsivat työn lopettamista selvästi muita enemmän (Olakivi ym.…”

Managerialism as a failing response to the care crisis

“…The logic of self-governance expects care workers to be responsible, autonomous, proactive, selfsteering and reflexive agents who constantly develop themselves, solve problems in their organisational environments and get things doneregardless of burdensome and precarious working conditions (Moffatt et al, 2014;Olakivi, 2017). The logic of self-governance expects care work managers, in turn, to activate and empower the above qualities in their subordinates.…”

“…While there is a clear conflict between professional ideals and the Taylorist logic of details, the logic of self-governance, to a degree, aligns with the professional ideals of internal devotion, responsibility and constant development (O'Reilly and Reed, 2010;Olakivi and Niska, 2017; see also Baagøe Nielsen in this volume). The logic of self-governance can, however, also impose novel expectations on care workers and their managers: instead of highlighting formal and specialised education, professional traditions and collective responsibility, the logic of self-governance highlights generic creativity, learning by doing, and the constant comparison of individual workers with respect to their personal performance and productivity (Moffatt et al, 2014;Olakivi, 2017).…”