Temporal orientations in human agency: a case of homecare practitioners as mobile phone users

Abstract

Purpose: In Nordic societies, the use of mobile phones for record-keeping during homecare visits has become an unquestioned routine. Care practitioners’ agency with these technologies has been explored mainly as a situationally constrained activity, neglecting their long-term orientations. Our empirical contribution is to explore care practitioners’ agentic relations to technology in a more nuanced way by including both dimensions. The theoretical contribution is to show synergy between temporal conceptualizations in theories of human agency and technology-in-practice, which highlight human agency as deliberation between situational and long-term temporal orientations. Design/methodology/approach: Seven Finnish care practitioners were interviewed, and their entire work shifts were observed, consisting altogether 48 video-recorded homecare visits. The analysis of the ethnographic material was focused on situational and long-term temporal orientations of the care practitioners related to technologizing care. Findings: Care practitioners in old age care approached technology use with three different kinds of temporal orientations: adapting – preferring to remain in the present; opposing – longing for the past; and engaging – viewing the technologization of old age care as positive for the future. Practical implications: The situational usability of technology is not the only problem to be solved when technology is adopted for human-centred care; longer-term visions of how care and care work will change should also be voiced in healthcare organizations. Originality/value: Temporal orientations may explain how and why care practitioners either just adapt to technology-use in care or act as change agents transforming both technologies and care.