A scoping review of frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care

Aging populations are facing an increasing need for older people care services and many countries are experiencing a shortage of professional care workers (OECD, 2020). Care professionals’ working conditions in older people care have raised concerns (OECD, 2023; Ganann et al., 2019). Many feel that they receive inadequate support from their superiors (Aerschot et al., 2022). Better leadership has been raised as a key component of supporting the mental well-being of care professionals working in older people care (Ellis et al., 2025). Indeed, evidence is strong that leadership that focuses on social relations has positive effects on care professionals’ work-related well-being (Ferreira et al., 2022; Zonneveld et al., 2021).

Contemporary leadership styles, including coaching (de Bruin et al., 2022), servant leadership (Bayati et al., 2025), shared governance (Kanninen et al., 2019) and transformational leadership (Ystaas et al., 2023) are promoted in the management of care services, also in the management of older people care (Keisu et al., 2018; Zonneveld et al., 2021). Such contemporary leadership styles are united by their emphasis on relationships and the importance of social interaction between managers and other actors, most importantly their subordinates. This scoping review focused on how previous research has examined and interpreted frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care services.

Interaction is regarded as an integral part of managerial work. Across disciplines, social interaction is increasingly understood as an element that constitutes, composes, transforms and sustains an organization (Cooren et al., 2011; Hallett and Hawbaker, 2021). The linguistic turn in organization and management studies in particular has made many scholars interested in interactional and discursive practices (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2000; Samra-Fredericks, 2008). Scholars in this line of research suggest that interactional and discursive practices not only reflect but also generate relations and realities in an organization (Cooren et al., 2011; Hosking, 2011).

Social interaction concerns more than the way in which people communicate with one another; it is also a process that shapes reality (Burr, 1996). By social interaction and interactional practices, we refer to instances in social and organizational life in which two or more persons are present and use verbal or nonverbal communication to accomplish social tasks (Hallett and Hawbaker, 2021; Rawls, 2008). For example, managers in older people care services can motivate, activate and inspire care workers, or legitimate their actions to the older people receiving care, their relatives, or societal actors such as policymakers or researchers. Meaning-making is a key interactional practice: It refers to discursively constructing, interpreting and making sense of the surrounding environment, actions and actors within it (Burr, 1996; Hallett and Hawbaker, 2021). Through discursive meaning-making, managers can take part in constructing their own or their subordinates’ identities as well as the identities of other actors such as the recipients of care, their colleagues or societal actors. These discursive and interactional practices of frontline managers in older people care can contribute to the working conditions of the care professionals, the care culture of the organization and services that fulfill the needs of older people. Therefore, it is important to gather and map research on the interactional and discursive practices of frontline managers working in older people care.

Scientific discussions on managers’ discursive practices in older people care are scattered. Some recent comprehensive reviews on the management of older people care services have focused on, for instance, the role of leaders in fostering person-centeredness in nursing homes (Anker-Hansen et al., 2025), effectiveness, economic evidence of management interventions (Vartiainen et al., 2025) and the challenges encountered by nurse managers working in home care (Jordal et al., 2022). However, none of these reviews have focused on managers’ discursive practices from the perspective of how they construct meanings through talk-in-interaction. This scoping review aims to fill this gap in the research.

The aim of this scoping review was to map the existing research on frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care services. It focused on managers’ discursive accomplishments rather than the topics they discussed or their descriptions of their practices. By doing so, it aimed to identify the various ways in which managers’ interactional and discursive practices shape the different aspects of their work. The review also aimed to identify potential gaps in knowledge.

We chose a scoping review because it is a relevant method for obtaining an overview of a certain topic and for identifying gaps in research knowledge (Munn et al., 2018; Peters et al., 2015). It differs from systematic reviews, which aim to provide implications for practice – a scoping review is useful for examining how research on a certain topic is conducted and for identifying and analyzing knowledge gaps (Munn et al., 2018). To ensure methodological and reporting quality, we used a PRISMA checklist for scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018).

We identified relevant studies by conducting a structured search in January 2026 of the following databases: ProQuest, Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, CINAHL and PsycINFO. The search terms, which we adjusted to each database thesaurus, were “older people care”, “long-term care”, “care home”, “home care”, “manager”, “management”, “social interaction”, “discourse”, “conversation analysis”, “ethnomethodology”, “positioning”, “narrative”, “meaning-making” and their synonyms. The search strategy, which was reviewed by a university librarian, is described in more detail in the supplementary materials. We did not limit the publication year, but did limit the search in the databases to peer-reviewed research articles where possible. The initial search yielded 1140 records. This number dropped to 798 after we removed the duplicates.

First, we agreed on the inclusion and exclusion criteria (see Table 1), after this we screened the records for titles and abstracts. We selected studies that focused on older people care settings, whose data covered frontline managers and whose articles presented the study data and interpretations of the managers’ interactional practices. We did not limit the scope of the search to any particular interactions but included all articles that presented data on managers’ interactions with, for example, researchers, care workers, other care professionals and care recipients or their relatives. We chose to include articles even if their data partly derived from care services other than older people care. We also chose to include studies that analyzed the managers’ interactional and discursive practices as part of more extensive data that also covered care workers, for instance. However, in these cases, we excluded articles that contained no evidence on or interpretations of managers’ interactional practices.

We set no strict criteria for methodology. However, we excluded studies that described participants’ subjective experiences or perceptions without analyzing how they were expressed or negotiated in social interaction. We only included studies that examined the interactional and discursive practices of operational/frontline managers who worked closely with care workers, namely supervisors, first-line or middle managers, nursing managers, or the like.

After rigorous pre-screening and the removal of duplicates, a total of 48 records were retrieved with full texts. Three reviewers screened these independently. Any discrepancies were resolved through discussion. Nine articles were excluded because they were descriptive, that is, they described the participants’ subjective experiences or perceptions without analyzing how they were expressed or negotiated in social interaction. Five articles did not cover older people care, 15 did not specifically analyze managers’ interactions, two did not include frontline managers, and one was in Spanish.

We then searched the reference lists of the selected articles for additional studies, and found one new article. We also consulted senior scholars for additional articles, and found three more. Figure 1 presents a flow chart of the scoping review. In total, 20 articles were included.

The data extraction form was created jointly by the reviewers. The elements in the form were: author, publication year, journal, country of (data) origin, aims, context, methodology and key findings related to the aims of this scoping review. One reviewer extracted data from each article, which was then verified by the other reviewers.

In line with scoping review methodology (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005), we examined and synthesized the results of the selected articles using thematic content analysis (e.g. Silverman, 2011), which provided a deeper insight into the current research on frontline managers’ interactional practices. We read and reread the articles, focusing on their results and how the managers’ interactional practices were studied and interpreted. We noticed that the articles were mainly interested in managers’ discursive meaning-making practices. For example, they did not focus on the ways in which the managers issued commands or requests but rather on the ways in which the managers constructed meanings for their organizational environments and the actors in those environments. Consequently, the guiding question for the analysis was: What do managers construct during social interaction? These sections of the text were highlighted, coded and then scrutinized. Similar texts were placed into groups, which formed subthemes, which were then further grouped into main themes. All the authors read the articles and had several discussions on their recurring topics and themes. Finally, we reached a joint understanding, and formed three themes:

1. Frontline managers caught between bureaucratic norms and care values;

2. The ideal care worker as an active, responsible and committed worker; and

3. The changing care work environment.

The key characteristics of the included articles are presented in the supplementary materials. Of the twenty studies, eight were conducted in Finland, five in Sweden, three in Denmark, one in Norway, one in Spain, one in the USA and one in Ireland. They were published between 2008 and 2025, and most (n = 16) had been published in the last ten years. The articles claimed that their data had been gathered from nursing homes (n = 5), care homes (n = 3,) home care (n = 3), long-term care facilities (n = 1), elder care centers (n = 1), or assisted living (n = 1). Five had utilized data from several care services. One had focused mainly on older people care services’ municipal administration but had also examined frontline managers’ practices.

Almost all the studies had gathered data from managers through one-on-one interviews or from focus groups (n = 16). However, we also found five articles that had used “naturally occurring data”, that is, data on real-life interaction between frontline managers and employees. Several analysis methods had been used to interpret frontline managers’ interactional practices. The most often used methods for examining managers’ interactions were different types of discourse analyses (n = 11).

Table 2 presents the results of the thematic content analysis, which indicate the objects constructed by the managers in their communication or social interaction. The following sections focus on the frontline managers’ interactional practices, especially on the ways in which their meaning-making processes were studied and interpreted.

Several studies examined how managers’ interactional practices shape and give meaning to their identity as leaders in older people care (Ajslev et al., 2019; Keisu, 2017; Keisu et al., 2016; Olakivi, 2020; Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Sørly et al., 2019; Lehto-Niskala et al., 2025; Grønvad et al., 2024). Managers seemed to construct themselves as bold (Ajslev et al., 2019), flexible, hard workers; even as heroes/heroines (Sørly et al., 2019).

In several articles, the frontline managers constructed their identity as someone who highlights the bureaucratic and economic effectiveness of the care organization. When studying how managers and professionals presented work in older people care as attractive, Keisu (2017) found that they used a discourse of organizational effectiveness and positioned themselves as bureaucrats who emphasize the usefulness of a well-functioning bureaucracy and organizational efficiency. When the interviewed managers spoke from the position of an economically oriented bureaucrat, they were ambiguous about the importance of care professionals’ salaries and even doubted whether salaries were a relevant incentive for people to work in older people care (Keisu, 2017). The managers also used the organizational effectiveness discourse when they constructed representations of a good workplace in the research interviews. Here, they presented themselves as being responsible for employing organizational strategies and ensuring that organizational goals were met (Keisu et al., 2016; Olakivi and Lehto-Niskala, 2025). A similar discourse emphasizing organizational efficiency has been recognized by Lehto-Niskala et al. (2025). In the context of migrant worker recruitment, the managers constructed a position of a bureaucrat who followed the official language requirements of care professionals rather than making individual decisions (Olakivi, 2020).

In addition to their identity as someone who focuses on organizational effectiveness and rules, many of the articles showed how managers constructed themselves as defenders of human-centered values and the logic of care. Sørly and colleagues (2019) found that home care managers employed strategies to manage and transform efficiency-related documentation demands to align with the local care work context. They thus presented themselves as (senior) nurses who took care of their employees as opposed to agents of control and bureaucracy (Sørly et al., 2019). In a study by Ajslev and colleagues (2019), one manager mentioned technologies as a means to support the rationality of caring and of care workers. Thus, the writers argued, this manager positioned themselves as defending both the rights of older persons and the well-being of care workers’ (Ajslev et al., 2019). In Lehto-Niskala’s (2025) study, care home managers were positioned differently in relation to collaborative decision-making in team meetings: At times they encouraged diverse staff opinions, while at other times they primarily sought verification for their own decisions. Another study positioned care home managers as coaches who inspire and motivate care workers when negotiating their work-related concerns (Lehto-Niskala et al., 2025).

In the context of migrant worker recruitment, managers presented themselves as defending the softer values of care by presenting themselves as agents of migrant care workers and older people in need. By constructing a distinction between bureaucratic rules on the one hand, and good care on the other, and by positioning themselves as agents of the latter principles, managers could legitimize flexible recruitment practices that deviated from official language requirements (Olakivi, 2020). They also positioned themselves as opponents who criticized the current societal values that fail to prioritize older people care (Keisu, 2017) and as passionate individuals who empowered their employees and took responsibility for the older people in need of care (Keisu et al., 2016). The managers talked about care work with pride, and emphasized the high quality of care despite their limited resources (Keisu, 2017). In one study, a manager frequently used the term “we”, which positioned them, their employees and other managers as a collective (Grønvad et al., 2024; Olakivi, 2020).

In sum, the frontline managers of older people care services presented themselves in two ways: On the one hand, they presented themselves as leaders who followed bureaucratic norms, while on the other hand, they portrayed themselves as people who maintained the core values of care and caring. Both Lehto-Niskala et al. (2025) and Olakivi and Niska (2017) found that, in fact, in their self-presentations, managers also combine these economic and bureaucratic objectives with professional care ethics (Lehto-Niskala et al., 2025; Olakivi and Niska, 2017). Managers empowered staff members to take responsibility for the development of their work practices (Fejes and Nicoll, 2011; Lehto-Niskala et al., 2025). By highlighting their efforts to encourage their employees to provide better care, regardless of their difficult working conditions, they appeared to be democratic yet efficient facilitators. Care worker coaching was presented as a way with which to simultaneously solve economic difficulties and improve the quality of care (Olakivi and Niska, 2017).

The managers constructed ideal care workers as active (Fejes and Nicoll, 2011; Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Grønvad et al., 2024), responsible (Fejes, 2008; Fejes and Nicoll, 2011), reflective (Fejes, 2008, 2011), problem-solving (Fejes, 2008; Grønvad et al., 2024), passionate (Keisu, 2017), knowledgeable (Fejes and Nicoll, 2011) and self-governing workers (Keisu et al., 2016; Olakivi and Niska, 2017) who had social competence (Fejes, 2008). A good care worker was willing to apply new technologies to care work (Ajslev et al., 2019). A good care worker was also constructed as being altruistic (Keisu, 2017; Olakivi and Lehto-Niskala, 2025), someone for whom care was a vocation (Keisu et al., 2016; Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Timonen and Lolich, 2019) – a “calling” (Keisu et al., 2016).

The managers constructed an ideal care professional as someone who should enjoy their work, feel passionate about it and have “the right attitude”. They should have a desire to work in elderly care (Keisu et al., 2016; Keisu, 2017). Employees were evaluated negatively when they were positioned as unmotivated and not willing to develop their work practices (Grønvad et al., 2024). They were also evaluated negatively when their suggestions for improving work practices depicted them as inflexible, difficult, unrealistic (e.g. staffing levels) or as prioritizing their self-interests (e.g. personal well-being) over those of their care recipients (Olakivi and Lehto-Niskala, 2025).

The managers portrayed care workers as people who should reflect on their activities and scrutinize themselves (Fejes, 2011; Olakivi and Niska, 2017). They claimed that reflection enabled care workers to break from their daily routines and become better care workers (Fejes, 2011). Appraisal interviews and individual development plans operated as techniques for fostering reflective care workers (Fejes, 2008). In their observation of staff meetings and workplace interaction, Fejes and Nicoll (2011) found that, a manager “invites” employees to identify solutions and set problems through language, and through this rhetorical technique, can activate workers (Fejes and Nicoll, 2011). Similarly, Lehto-Niskala et al. (2025) found that managers encouraged employees to take part in decision-making by asking them for verification or using open-ended questions and thus positioning them as proposal acceptors or care work experts (Lehto-Niskala et al., 2025). Hujala and Rissanen (2012) also recognized “invitations” in managers’ interactional practices in team meetings. These invitations made room for employees’ opinions and interactional practices, which gave the employees both responsibility and the position of a decision-maker (Hujala and Rissanen, 2012). To claim such agency, the managers had to construct their staff members in particular ways: as targets of development (Olakivi and Niska, 2017). They also made efforts to transfer their responsibility and to promote independence among their care staff (Hujala and Rissanen, 2012).

The managers invited the care workers to reconfigure their occupational identity: to be more rehabilitation focused and effective (Jensen and Muhr, 2020) and to engage with technologies (Ajslev et al., 2019). In the managers’ talk, technologies could even contribute to the potential upskilling of care workers (Ajslev et al., 2019). One article showed that the ideal home care worker identity was reregulated from a “nurturer” to a “rehabilitative professional” (Jensen and Muhr, 2020). For instance, one nurse-manager in the study talked negatively about care workers who had not adopted their new rehabilitation ideology. In this rehabilitation discourse, therapists were constructed as experts of home care, and care workers were presented as non-professional nurturers (Jensen and Muhr, 2020).

Two articles contained contradictions in how managers constructed migrant care workers (Näre, 2013; Olakivi, 2020). On the one hand, migrant care workers, especially migrants from the Global South, were presented as ideal workers and constructed as natural carers, drawing on discourses and stereotypes of “race” and ethnicity (Näre, 2013; Olakivi, 2020). On the other hand, they were constructed as suspects who lacked skills and proper qualifications (Näre, 2013). Olakivi (2020) found that in their talk, managers constructed migrants recruited from the domestic labor market as active, motivated and self-directed ideal agents, whereas they constructed internationally recruited migrant workers as cheap labor willing to work for low wages. Through this dichotomy, managers privileged their own domestic recruitment practices over international recruitments. Olakivi (2020) and Näre (2013) showed that managers justified discrimination against migrant workers by referring to their care recipients’ old age and experiences of the Second World War. Although the managers seemed to resist the idea of ethnic differences, they still ended up constructing a dichotomy between national and foreign-born workers (Näre, 2013). This contradictory and ambivalent presentation of care workers was also shown in Timonen and Lolich’s (2019) article about home care workers, many of whom were immigrants. Although the home care directors showed positive emotions toward these care workers, they also talked about them as less trustworthy and reliable workers, who should not get too close to the care recipients (Timonen and Lolich, 2019).

In sum, the identity constructed for care workers was less ambivalent than that constructed for managers: The ideal care worker was an active, responsible and committed worker for whom working in older people care was a vocation or calling. The ideal care worker participated in collaborative decision-making, but also remained flexible, positive and realistic in their demands. Contradictions in care worker identity mainly arose when the managers portrayed migrant care workers.

As already indicated in the previous sections; while talking about themselves and their care workers, managers also talked about their organizational environment and drew on related discourses. In addition, they topicalized and evaluated the sociopolitical changes and transformations in their environment. Studies identified a discourse on organizational effectiveness that embraced the logic of New Public Management, an approach that has been described as emphasizing managerialism and marketization, and has been changing organizational cultures in the public sector for the last few decades (Keisu, 2017; Keisu et al., 2016).

The frontline managers used the New Public Management discourse in several ways. They emphasized efficient care work in their portrayals of new rehabilitative home care culture (Jensen and Muhr, 2020), good workplaces (Keisu et al., 2016) and attractive work (Keisu, 2017) as well as in their constructions of effective care workers (Olakivi and Niska, 2017). Imposed home care innovations were interpreted in the managers’ talk as being part of New Public Management demands (Sørly et al., 2019). However, they did not always take the new culture of efficiency for granted. The managers’ emphasis on what researchers interpreted as feminine values of care work such as the ethics of care, close leadership and relationships showed that they were resistant to the ideas of control and bureaucracy (Sørly et al., 2019). They seemed to oppose the current status of older people care in society, that is, the lack of resources for and prioritization of this care (Keisu, 2017; Olakivi, 2020; Sørly et al., 2019). They presented themselves as having little power to solve these problems (Olakivi and Lehto-Niskala, 2025) and blamed policymakers for not keeping their promises to increase resources (Olakivi, 2020). They also criticized the media and how workers in the care industry portrayed work in older people care services (Keisu, 2017).

Deinstitutionalization means moving older people care services from institutional care to home and homelike care units, and this was both explicitly and implicitly present in the municipal care administrators’ talk. The managers highlighted the importance of home and homelike care settings and the change from traditional care to intensive service housing. They openly used national standards to legitimize their viewpoints. Defining new institutions as homes or homelike settings legitimized the deinstitutionalization of long-term care, the responsibility of the older care recipients and the reviewed fee policy (Anttonen and Karsio, 2016). Other studies also emphasized homelike environments. Assisted-living managers talked about the care environment as a home and in this way affirmed the rights and autonomy of the residents. However, this notion of home and the residents’ rights showed contradictions when the issue of sexual freedom was raised. Managers justified inhibiting residents’ rights by highlighting their responsibility to ensure the residents’ health and safety, consent and family concerns (Barmon et al., 2017).

Several studies also addressed the work and workforce in older people care. Although it is traditionally regarded as women’s work, more men are being recruited to work in care. Escoda and Puerta (2022) reported in their study that managers’ talk still constructs care as mainly women’s work. Home care managers also presented gendered ideals of care work by relating their department values to feminine characteristics, such as a focus on care, close leadership, relationships and ethical standards (Sørly et al., 2019). Care managers seemed to require justification for the increasing recruitment of migrant workers in older people care services. In a study by Olakivi (2020), the managers shifted among different interpretations. On the one hand, the increasing recruitment of migrants was constructed as a necessity over which frontline managers had little agency or influence. On the other hand, the new recruitment practices were constructed as an agentic way for managers to serve older people and migrant jobseekers in tandem (Olakivi, 2020). However, as demonstrated by Näre (2013), care managers also seem to require justification for the decision not to recruit migrant workers to particular care jobs. Here again, language requirements and the older care recipients’ perspectives were given as the reasons for these decisions (Näre, 2013). Finally, one study examined how new technologies are changing older people care work. The managers claimed that technologies were creating new demands and complicating care work, underlining their own abilities to lead care workers who lack appropriate skills. (Ajslev et al., 2019)

In sum, the articles identified a New Public Management discourse related to the efficient organization of care. The managers used this discourse not only to describe good care work but also to criticize and distance themselves from this discourse. It was connected to increased political control. Several changes to the care work environment were also addressed, including the shift of care to home and homelike environments and changes in older people care services’ workforce and work. These changes seemed to require either a critical or legitimating response from frontline managers.

The aim of this scoping review was to map the existing research on frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care services. Most of the research on frontline managers’ interactional practices had been conducted within the last ten years and in Nordic countries. The managers gave meaning to different aspects of their work in their interactions. We used thematic content analysis to examine frontline managers’ interactional and discursive meaning-making practices, and three themes emerged:

1. Frontline managers caught between bureaucratic norms and the values of care;

2. The ideal care worker as an active, responsible and committed worker; and

3. The changing of care work environment.

The meanings that frontline managers gave to care work and care workers, as well as their own roles as managers, revealed contradictions and ambiguity regarding their work. They identified as managers who follow the ideas of organizational effectiveness and New Public Management. At the same time, they presented themselves as senior care professionals, emphasizing traditional care values and the importance of care workers’ and care recipients’ well-being. This shows that frontline managers occupy a position in which they need to negotiate and manage conflicting expectations. For example, they need to manage the needs of both the upper management and the care workers (Ekholm, 2012). These conflicts were also negotiated in research interviews when frontline managers evaluated their work from various perspectives.

Frontline managers can manage conflicting expectations in many ways; for example, they can present themselves as empowering coaches and facilitators, as our scoping review showed. The few studies that we found of naturally occurring interactional practices between care workers and managers revealed how the responsibilization and activation of workers occurs during management interaction. By using language, frontline managers can invite care workers to participate in decision-making practices and construct them as responsible workers. Although not always explicitly discussed in the articles in our scoping review, through these positionings of care workers, managers construct themselves as empowering enablers of workers’ participation and professional development. This is in line with modern leadership styles that emphasize the relational aspects of management, empowerment and transformational leadership (e.g. Ystaas et al., 2023; Zonneveld et al., 2021).

Social interaction is not mere communication. It constitutes and transforms organizations (Cooren et al., 2011; Hallett and Hawbaker, 2021). Thus, it is important to pay attention to the nuanced interactional practices in care organizations, including the ways in which frontline managers justify and legitimize their work to various audiences. Previous research has shown how leadership styles affect the well-being of care workers and the quality of care (Ellis et al., 2025; Ferreira et al., 2022; Zonneveld et al., 2021). However, if leadership is understood as the product of dynamic interactions (e.g. Lichtenstein et al., 2006), the interactional practices between managers and other actors must be studied in detail. This scoping review showed that the majority of the current research on frontline managers’ interactional practices in older people care utilizes data from research interviews. Only a few articles had examined managers’ naturally occurring interaction with care workers. We found no research on managers’ interactional practices with other actors such as care recipients or their family members.

The results of our scoping review reveal that the studies interpreted managers’ interactional and discursive practices through several care-related policies or ideologies and other sociopolitical transformations. This shows that frontline managers operate within many, sometimes contradictory, societal norms and regulations. They might be under great pressure to pay attention to the efficiency of care and at the same time ensure that care values are followed in daily care work (Strömberg et al., 2019). The reviewed studies demonstrate how managers have developed various ways with which to manage the contradictions they face in their work, at least provisionally. However, these contradictions can cause moral distress for frontline managers.

As scoping reviews do not usually evaluate the quality of the included studies (Peters et al., 2015), we are unable to make solid recommendations for practice. However, we were able to map the current state of knowledge on frontline managers’ interactional practices in older people care and to find gaps in the research. As we included only English language articles, we may have missed some evidence written in other languages.

The articles obtained from senior scholars show that some research on the management of older people care may not clearly specify older people care and may focus on social care or care work in general. In addition, some research outside of our literature search may not be related to management, but to institutional interactions in general. The literature search conducted for this scoping review aimed to find studies of the management of older people care services specifically.

Aging societies are struggling to recruit professional care workers and to make work in older people care services an appealing occupation. One important pull factor is good leadership; a relational leadership style in particular. A focus on social relations is specifically important for frontline managers who work closely with care professionals. Frontline managers’ interactional practices can impact not only the work-related well-being of care workers but also societal impressions of care work. Managers can either criticize or justify ongoing developments in care work, such as changing professional requirements, new workforce constellations and increasing demands for efficiency. Moreover, through interactional practices and discourse, frontline managers can make sense of their difficult work and make it understandable and dignified.

This study mapped the existing research on frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care services. Its results show that despite an extensive amount of research on leadership in care work, studies focusing specifically on frontline managers’ interactional and discursive practices in older people care services are limited. Most current research on this topic utilizes research interviews as a means of data collection. Research that comprehensively investigates the naturally occurring interactions between supervisors and other actors, most importantly care workers, seems to be less common. It is important to understand the meanings that managers give to themselves, care workers and the socio-political environment in which care work is conducted. However, further research is needed on the nuanced dynamics of how these and other meanings operate within naturally occurring interactions.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.