University of Bath PHD Navigating emotionally demanding work: a narrative study of HR practitioners' experiences Rivers, Elizabeth Award date: 2020 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 Navigating emotionally demanding work: a narrative study of HR practitioners’ experiences Elizabeth Eloïse Rivers A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath School of Management May 2020 Copyright notice Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author and copyright of any previously published materials included may rest with third parties. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it understands that they must not copy it or use material from it except as licenced, permitted by law or with the consent of the author or other copyright owners, as applicable. Declaration of any previous submission of the work The material presented here for examination for the award of a higher degree by research has not been incorporated into a submission for another degree. Candidate’s signature: Declaration of authorship I am the author of this thesis, and the work described therein was carried out by myself personally. Candidate’s signature: i Table of contents List of tables iv List of figures v List of photographs vi Acknowledgements vii Abstract viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Literature review: ‘Do HR practitioners have emotions?’ 13 HRM theory versus practice 13 Emotion research 27 HRM and emotions: What conclusions can be drawn from this 47 review? Chapter 3: Methodology: Researching emotion from a narrative 50 perspective Research philosophy 50 Narrative 54 Methods of data collection 61 Photo-elicitation methods 64 The interview 73 Reflexivity: The emotions of the researcher researching emotions 82 Data interpretation 87 Evaluating research 100 Research ethics 103 Chapter 4: Findings (1): How does it feel to work in HR? 107 ‘No-one likes us’ 107 ‘I’d hate your job!’ Handling toxic emotions 124 We’re different 139 Chapter 5: Findings (2): Navigating emotionally demanding work 156 Protecting ourselves 156 Doing repair work 174 Chapter 6: Discussion 190 Summary of findings 190 The emotionally saturated nature of HR work 192 Uncovering experiences of emotions through photographs 210 The potential of mimesis and diegesis in narrative interviews 213 ii Conclusion 224 Chapter 7: Conclusion 225 References 232 Appendices 260 1. Publications and conference papers arising from this thesis 261 2. Study timeline 290 3. Participant information sheet 292 4. Participant consent form 293 5. Participant pen portraits 294 6. Photograph catalogue summary 302 iii List of tables 3.1 Summary of research design 50 3.2 Differing features of narratives and stories 59 3.3 Participant log 75 3.4 22 first cut narratives 90 3.5 Mimetic and diegetic narrative features 95 3.6 Mimesis and diegesis related to research interviews 99 3.7 Application of Tracy’s ‘big tent’ criteria 101 5.1 Collage responses 175 iv List of figures 2.1 Map of the emotion literature 30 3.1 Photo-elicitation and photo-voice 66 3.2 Mind map of narratives 91 6.1 The emotionally saturated nature of HR work 205 v List of photographs 4.1 ‘I just thought this was funny cos nobody does, do they?’ 110 4.2 HRBP memes 114 4.3 ‘Being an underhanded crocodile’ 117 4.4 ‘A bit of a lonely existence’ 121 4.5 ‘It (HR) can be a lonely place’ 122 4.6 ‘Feeling like Switzerland’ 122 4.7 ‘It’s (HR work) more negative than just one negative’ 125 4.8 ‘I get dragged into too much unnecessary admin that admin 129 should be doing’ 4.9 ‘When it feels like it gets too bleak’ 137 4.10 ‘That was a pointless waste of my time’ 142 4.11 ‘Providing the bridge for people’ 146 4.12 ‘There’s all this good power trapped’ 147 4.13 ‘They make my blood boil sometimes’ 150 4.14 ‘Is there an emotion called aaggghh?’ 151 5.1 ‘Being kind to yourself a little bit’ 160 5.2 ‘Meetings can result in tears’ 161 5.3 ‘Sometimes you just feel like you need a tissue’ 162 5.4 ‘My sort of happy place’ 169 5.5 Elaine’s collage 181 5.6 Natalie’s collage 182 5.7 Anna’s collage 186 vi Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Professor Nancy Harding and Professor Ann Cunliffe for their supervision, guidance and ongoing support since commencing my PhD research. Thank you to both of you for your inspiration, sharing of ideas and encouragement as I have developed my passion for qualitative research. Your invaluable guidance on academic writing is a craft I will continue to develop and refine. Second, to the HR practitioners who participated in this study, thank you for volunteering your time for the interviews, for taking the photographs which helped me better understand your feelings about working in HR, and for your contributions. Thank you for sharing your recollected feelings with me and expressing emotion in the interview - what I remember most distinctly is the shared laughter! Last but not least, to my husband Jamie, for supporting and listening to me talk about my study whilst I spent many weekends working. To my family and friends for your encouragement and for posing the question every PhD student dreads – ‘when will you be finished?’ I never imagined that I would complete my PhD in the midst of a global pandemic and so look forward to thanking you all in person post ‘lockdown’ but for now give virtual hugs on Skype! vii Abstract That the human resources (HR) role is beset with tensions and ambiguities is well established, but little is known about how HR practitioners are affected emotionally by their work. This thesis addresses this lack of knowledge by exploring how HR practitioners experience and navigate emotions in their working lives. It shows that HR practitioners are emotional human beings who struggle with the tensions of working in a professionalised managerialist culture which requires them to give the appearance of acting in unemotional ways, while experiencing deep emotions around their work. The study is located in a subjectivist ontological and interpretivist epistemological position and is informed both theoretically and methodologically by a narrative perspective/paradigm. This contrasts with research into emotions in organisations that is dominated by an objectivist and functionalist perspective of rationalisation and control. This recognises that the personal experience of emotion cannot be detached from the social world, nor studied as such. Data gathering involved participant-led photo-elicitation methods in in-depth unstructured interviews. Narrative interpretation required development and refining of an approach that uses mimesis and diegesis that facilitates deep insights into the experiences of emotions in day-to-day working lives. This shows that HR practitioners deeply experience emotions in their work that they try to conceal. The study’s first contribution lies in proposing a theory of the emotionally saturated nature of HR work. HR work is emotionally saturated because of the irreconcilable tensions and struggles experienced by HR practitioners while doing work that is ostensibly unemotional but deeply experienced. The second contribution of this thesis is the development/refinement of an innovative approach to narrative interpretation using mimesis and diegesis. Mimesis refers to the content of participants’ narratives, diegesis to how participants narrated/retold their experiences. The first involves translation of the narratives; the second explores how they are performed and how the researcher experiences participants’ narratives with them. These together facilitate a deeper and more nuanced understanding of emotion and offer a lens through which to view interviews as emotion-rich narratives. viii Chapter 1 - Introduction Tensions within HR work are well documented in the academic literature. Legge and Exley (1975, p.52) first highlighted ‘a basic ambiguity that pervades the function’. This ambiguity resulted from personnel managers’ overlapping responsibilities with managers, an inability to clearly pinpoint their contribution, and their uncomfortable positioning between managers and employees. These ambiguities resulted in HR practitioners being caught in ‘vicious circles’ creating tensions within the role which still persist as academic research shows 40 years later (see for example: Keegan, Brandl and Aust, 2019; Lang and Rego, 2015; Sandholtz and Burrows, 2016; Sheehan et al., 2014). It is therefore surprising that far less is known about how HR practitioners experience their work and try to deal with these tensions. How does it feel to be an HR practitioner? This issue lies at the heart of this thesis, which seeks to understand how HR practitioners experience and navigate emotions in their working lives. Work itself has long been assumed to be emotion-free, although academics have argued for the last 30 years that this is a misapprehension (Albrow, 1992; Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995; Bolton, 2005; Fineman, 2003, 2008; Hochschild, 1983; Lindebaum, Geddes and Jordan, 2018; Sieben and Wettergren, 2010).