Cooperation and negotiations in the home-healthcare sector

The degree of cooperation between home-healthcare agencies on the one hand and other providers and financing agencies on the other hand is characterized by a complex work process. The predominant analysis of insufficient cooperation is rather a description of its structural conditions, and says less about how work is actually performed. The presented study utilizes the Negotiated Order Approach by Strauss and colleagues to analyze how different perspectives are translated, how tasks are planned and how different commitments are made compatible. Cooperation is accomplished in symbolic arenas which have distinct characteristics and that demand communicative competency among home-healthcare workers.