Doctoral thesis: Linda Tallberg: Emotional conflict daily for animal shelter employees

Linda Tallberg has, for her doctoral thesis "Processing Puppies: An Animal Shelter Ethnography", studied the work of an animal shelter and claims that animal shelter employees often are subject to constant and intense emotional and moral conflict.

"Employees join the animal shelter organisation to save animals, yet due to organisational constraints, they are the ones who are tasked with the killing" states Linda Tallberg.

According to Tallberg the employees are motivated and strongly ideologically aligned to the organisational goals, following a lifestyle that values saving and caring for the neglected, unwanted and mistreated animals of society. Yet, in the daily work, management and frontline employees do not share the same view on how to deal with social problem of pet overpopulation.

Tallberg's results shows that the shelter organisation is based on a traditional hierarchical power distribution, where the ones performing the ugly tasks are the ones with no decision-making powers. By reducing the animal shelter workers to assembly line workers in a processing-plant, management ensures a smooth flow in the business model of the organisation.

Tallberg identified four coping mechanisms that employees deploy in order to handle the feeling of powerlessness and moral conflict they encounter in their daily work: Hero (relationship building), Victim (numbing), Professional (desensitisation) and Tourist (exit). These mechanisms can be found in other organisations as well. The categorisation can support HR professionals in, for example, identifying processes to minimise coping mechanisms that result in costly employee turnover. The results can also offer support in recruitment processes by setting expectations on a correct level.

Tallberg was employed for a year as an animal attendant in an animal shelter in Australia. She represents her findings by using poetry, pictures and narratives to engage the reader and to transmit understanding of the uniquely emotional context of the animal shelter organisation.

M.Sc. (Econ.) Linda Tallberg defends her doctoral thesis in Management and Organisation: "Processing Puppies: An Animal Shelter Ethnography" on Wednesday 11 June 2014.

Time: 11 June 2014, at 13
Place: Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, room Futurum
Opponent: Associate Professor Arne Carlsen, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Custos: Emeritus Professor Karl-Erik Sveiby, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki

For more information, please contact:
Linda Tallberg
+358 45 1850160
linda.tallberg@hanken.fi
Preferably before 11 June

A copy of the thesis can be downloaded here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/45434