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Human Relations
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The language of teamwork: Reproducing professional divisions in the operating theatre

Rachael Finn, PhD

Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham, rachael.finn{at}nottingham.ac.uk

Bringing together arguments from organizational studies and medical sociology, this study views teamwork as a discursive resource through which the social world is constituted in particular ways. Drawing upon an ethnographic case study of the operating theatre department, the nature and effects of these constitutive practices are examined. Significantly, this article argues that rather than unifying the professions, teamwork produces unintended divisive effects. Teamwork is used to promote unity, whilst at the same time pursuing divergent professional interests around the nature of collectivity. Employing distinct interpretive repertoires, professions construct different versions of team work and make competing legitimacy claims. These discursive practices both reflect and reproduce structural inequality between the professions. Ultimately, the privileged position of surgeons and anaesthetists over nurses and operating department practitioners is legitimated and maintained. This discursive action has far-reaching effects beyond the control of team members, with implications for policy-makers and organizational management. Exposing its performative and ideological nature, this analysis highlights teamwork discourse as co-constitutive with the structural context in which it occurs. The importance of critical reflection on the nature of teamwork as a concept is demonstrated.

Key Words: communication • discourse • healthcare organizations • professions • teamwork

Human Relations, Vol. 61, No. 1, 103-130 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726707085947
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