‘White knuckle care work’: violence, gender and new public management in the voluntary sector

Abstract

Drawing on comparative data from Canada and Scotland, this article explores reasons why violence is tolerated in non-profit care settings. This article provides insights into how the predominantly female (paid) workers’ orientations to work, the desire to care and the intrinsic rewards from working in a non-profit context interact with the organization of work and managerially constructed workplace norms and cultures to offset the tensions in an environment characterized by scarce resources and poor working conditions. This article also outlines how the same environment of scarce resources causes strains in management’s efforts to establish these cultures. Working with highly excluded service users, workers find themselves working at the edge of their endurance, beginning to participate in various forms of resistance, suggesting that even among the most highly committed, ‘white knuckle care’ may be unsustainable.