While we can conceive of the processes that construct and define an organisational representation of a social worker, along with the processes that regulate and police adherence to it, as outlined in Chapter Five, the social workers could not simply be considered as organisational automatons. Even when they engaged in habitualised routines and practices that conformed to all of the meanings and expectations of the organisational representation, they did so with awareness and purpose (see Battilana and D’Aunno, 2009). Furthermore, while a social worker could actively identify with the organisational representation, they could also actively resist it (see Breakwell, 2001; Duveen, 2001), with a range of possibilities in between (see Oliver, 1991). Further still, one social worker could actively identify with it in one context while actively resisting it in another. While emotions and identities have surfaced in the theory and research on social work decision-making (eg Platt, 2005; Taylor and White, 2006; Keddell, 2014, 2017; Platt and Turney, 2014; Saltiel, 2016), the role of self-conscious emotions has not (Gibson, 2016). Furthermore, while there is some literature on social workers’ responses to pressures to conform to organisational expectations (eg Wastell et al, 2010; Carey and Foster, 2011; Leigh, 2017), the role of self-conscious emotions in these processes has not been well developed. Indeed, reviewing the literature on social work decision-making in child and family social work, Shlonsky (2015: 154) states that:

This chapter provides a conceptual framework to understand the processes, relevant to self-conscious emotions, through which social workers come to acquiesce or resist organisational attempts at control. It explicates the individual experiences of self-conscious emotions in relation to such institutional processes. This framework is then illustrated with empirical data within Chapters Seven and Eight to demonstrate and detail this framework within the case example. The foundation of this framework is, of course, the experience of self-conscious emotions.