Manifestations of Work Agency in Elderly Care: A Qualitative Interview Study About Nurses’ Agentic Efforts at Work

• In Event: Training and Workplace Learning

Abstract

This contribution aims at the empirical investigation of the relationship between professional agency and professional development in the domain of geriatric care. A two-stage qualitative interview study was conducted to answer the following research questions: 1) How do employees in geriatric care agentically affect their professional development at work?, 2) What individual and situational factors foster or hinder the engagement in such efforts?, and 3) How are those agentic efforts related to expertise development and work performance? Overall 19 staff nurses with extensive work experience were interviewed. The empirical findings provide evidence that nurses exercise agency at work and that such efforts are indeed positively related to competence and expertise development.

Authors

• Michael Goller, University of Paderborn

• Christian Harteis, Paderborn University