Abstract
This thesis aims to investigate religious faultlines in the healthcare workplace. Faultlines are
hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more
attributes. The faultlines construct has derived from diversity studies, but has since developed
into its own literature field. Research has suggested that various faultlines can have
inconsistent, positive and negative effects on workplace processes/outcomes. Moreover,
religious faultline effects have been overlooked in the faultline literature. Therefore the three
papers of this thesis will attempt to examine religious faultlines and their impact on various
workplace outcomes, as well as on professional interactions amongst healthcare professionals.
Firstly, meta-analyses evaluate the current state of the faultline literature in order to assess an
overarching effect of faultlines across the faultline types, research contexts, samples and
methodological designs included in this paper. Specifically, we report how faultline strength
(i.e. the resultant degree of within-subgroup similarity) impacts overall group- and
organisational performance. Faultline strength had statistically nonsignificant overarching
implications on the performance of groups and organisations. From this, the second paper
which is a quantitative field study, incorporates a social identity, previously overlooked in the
faultlines literature, namely religious identity. This was conceptualised in an attempt to
establish more in-depth reasonings behind the varying faultline effects reported in the
literature. The effect of religious faultline strength on group mood, satisfaction and
performance was tested. Additionally, this paper evaluates whether levels of identification with
the superordinate workgroup are a potential boundary condition influencing the nature of
religious faultline strength effects, on these outcomes. Questionnaire data was collected from
NHS healthcare professionals (N=157) across 20 trusts throughout England, over three time
points. Religious faultlines had statistically nonsignificant implications on workplace
outcomes, that were not dependent on workgroup identity levels. As a result, the third paper
investigated religious faultline activation (i.e. the degree these hypothetical divides based on
religious identities, are perceived to split groups into subgroups). Interview data is analysed to
unpack the everyday lived experiences of activated religious faultlines and whether they play
a role in informing the intrapersonal identity negotiation between an individual healthcare
professionals’ religious and occupational identities. Religious faultlines inform the quality of
interactions between and within religious subgroups. Moreover, perceptions of religious
faultlines shaped the degree of congruence between individual healthcare professionals’
religious and occupational identities. Overall, these findings suggest religious faultlines are a
complicated yet exciting new avenue of research that could be explored further. We contribute
to the faultlines literature by introducing a novel faultline type and highlighting the importance
of activated faultlines.