1.
Backlund Rambaree, Brita, 1977-
(författare)
Contextualising Constructions of Corporate Social Responsibility : Social Embeddedness in Discourse and Institutional Contexts
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
‘Corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) and ‘socially responsible investment’ (SRI) have become predominant frameworks connecting business to society that have spread across the globe. They comprise a shared set of ideas and practices, such as those promoted in global reporting standards and by international organisations such as the UN Global Compact. Nonetheless, both are constructed and reproduced by companies in relation to context-specific social institutions, including norms and conventions shaping company engagement in social issues. Using a neo-institutionalist theoretical framework, the thesis examines constructions of social responsibility in discourse and within institutional contexts, across regions that are not often compared in the research terrain: two West European welfare states (Sweden and the UK) and two emerging African economies (South Africa and Mauritius). The purpose of the thesis is to add to the literature on CSR and SRI with a sociologically informed perspective that is comparative and connects institutional theory with social constructionism and a Foucauldian perspective on power. The thesis analyses how perceptions of CSR and SRI are constructed in relation to the social institutions that encase companies’ engagement with social issues, such as national level welfare configurations and the institution of financial investments. The main argument in this thesis is that CSR and SRI need to be seen as contextually constructed, in discourse and practice, in ways that draw the boundaries and set the conditions for company engagement with social issues.The thesis comprises three articles. Article 1 is a content analysis of company self-reporting on CSR and the article examines how the content given to CSR relates to broader welfare configurations and as such differs in four national settings across the divide between emerging African economies and Western welfare states. Article 2 is a discourse analysis that examines interpretative repertoires occurring in company self-reporting across the same set of four countries. The interpretative repertoires are analysed as discursive practices where power intersects with the production of knowledge on CSR. Article 3 focuses on SRI and examines responsible investing as a form of institutional work that institutional investors engage in. Based on an interview study with institutional investors in Sweden, the article analyses institutional work as a process that has the effect of both institutional creation and maintenance and it connects these institutional processes to the construction of meaning on SRI. In its entirety the thesis contributes a sociological perspective on how prevailing understandings of corporate social responsibility come into being and are reproduced.
2.
Rostami, Amir, 1981-
(författare)
Criminal Organizing : Studies in the sociology of organized crime
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
What organized crime is and how it can be prevented are two of the key questions in both organized crime research and criminal policy. However, despite many attempts, organized crime research, the criminal justice system and criminal policy have failed to provide a shared and recognized conceptual definition of organized crime, which has opened the door to political interpretations. Organized crime is presented as an objective reality—mostly based on anecdotal empirical evidence and generic descriptions—and has been understood, as being intrinsically different from social organization, and this has been a justification for treating organized crime conceptually separately.In this dissertation, the concept of organized crime is deconstructed and analyzed. Based on five studies and an introductory chapter, I argue that organized crime is an overarching concept based on an abstraction of different underlying concepts, such as gang, mafia, and network, which are in turn semi-overarching and overlapping abstractions of different crime phenomena, such as syndicates, street-gangs, and drug networks. This combination of a generic concept based on underlying concepts, which are themselves subject to similar conceptual difficulties, has given rise to a conceptual confusion surrounding the term and the concept of organized crime. The consequences of this conceptual confusion are not only an issue of semantics, but have implications for our understanding of the nature of criminal collaboration as well as both legal and policy consequences. By combining different observers, methods and empirical materials relating to dimensions of criminal collaboration, I illustrate the strong analogies that exist between forms of criminal collaboration and the theory of social organization.I argue in this dissertation that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing. In fact, the dissertation illustrates the existence of strong analogies between patterns of criminal organizing and the elements of social organizations. But depending on time and context, some actions and forms of organizing are defined as criminal, and are then, intentionally or unintentionally, presumed to be intrinsically different from social organizing. Since the basis of my argument is that criminal organizing is not intrinsically different from social organizing, I advocate that the study of organized crime needs to return to the basic principles of social organization in order to understand the emergence of, and the underlying mechanism that gives rise to, the forms of criminal collaboration that we seek to explain. To this end, a new general analytical framework, “criminal organizing”, that brings the different forms of criminal organizations and their dimensions together under a single analytical tool, is proposed as an example of how organizational sociology can advance organized crime research and clarify the chaotic concept of organized crime.
3.
Aslan, Pinar, 1986-
(författare)
How Do They Make It? : perspectives on labour market participation among descendants of immigrants in Sweden
2019
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This is a compilation dissertation based on a comprehensive summary and four empirical articles. The overarching aim of the dissertation is to study influences on the occupational aspirations and attainments of employed descendants of non-European, non-Western immigrants in Sweden, from their own perspectives. The results are based on qualitative interviews with 9 men and 12 women, all born in Sweden with two immigrant parents. At the time of the interviews, the respondents were aged 25–35 years and had been employed for a minimum of six months, most of them for at least three years.Article I analyses and discusses family influences on the occupational aspirations of the descendants of immigrants. It employs a theoretical framework of cultural capital to demonstrate that descendants’ interpretations of their parents’ experiences and living conditions before, during, and after migration shape and positively influence their own occupational aspirations. The article also shows that siblings may function as important transferrers of knowledge and information.Article II examines how the descendants of immigrants perceive that interactions with public officials have benefitted their occupational aspirations and attainments. Using the concept of social capital as an analytical tool, the article draws three conclusions. First, public officials who establish a sense of connectedness in interacting with descendants of immigrants may transmit substantial symbolic resources to them. Second, it is important for public officials to support their clients’ personally meaningful goals and to focus on possibilities for achieving those goals. The article also shows that public officials may help descendants of immigrants to form and fulfil occupational aspirations by transmitting important knowledge and information to them.Article III explores how descendants of immigrants understand labour market conditions, and how these conditions influence their occupational pathways and strategies. The article employs the concept of habitus to analyse approaches and strategies on the labour market in relation to objective conditions. Three themes are presented in the article. The first theme, being in the “right” field, covers respondents working in branches with labour shortages and/or a high demand for employees with an immigrant background. These respondents used their personal backgrounds as “selling points”, turning the general disadvantage of having an immigrant background into an advantage. The second theme covers respondents who could learn through failing in entering and participating on the labour market, indicating a trial-and-error approach. The third theme deals with respondents who had actively searched for jobs in branches which value their particular skill set. The article highlights the important relationship between active individual agency and external, objective opportunities and constraints.Article IV explores perceptions of labour market participation in relation to gender norms and parenting ideals among men and women of migrant descent. Starting from the literature on work, family, and gender in a context of migration, and in relation to the Swedish social and political context, four themes are presented in the results. The male and female respondents viewed labour market participation from different, gendered, perspectives. The women saw labour market participation as a source of emancipation, whereas the men perceived it as a means for providing for a current/future family. Thus, while they depicted themselves as dedicated to norms of gender equality, they also expressed gender- biased views on work and family arrangements. These gender-biased views largely reflect those of Swedish people in general, as demonstrated in earlier studies. Nonetheless, the results reveal that the immigrant heritage of the descendants of immigrants influences their views on labour market participation, perceptions of gender norms, and parenting ideals. The article shows how these descendants interpret and actively challenge gender inequalities in the immigrant generation in ways that support intergenerational changes in work-family arrangements.
4.
Jerre, Kristina, 1974-
(författare)
The Public's Sense of Justice in Sweden - a Smorgasbord of Opinions
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The public’s views on what constitute appropriate reactions to crime, have come to assume an increasingly central position in the crime policy rhetoric of western countries. In Sweden this manifests itself in recurrent referrals to the public’s sense of justice. Any clear definitions of what the public’s sense of justice is, how it is expressed and how it can be read are however absent from these referrals.In this thesis the use of referrals to the public’s sense of justice as a legitimizing ground for penal legislation is problematized from an empirical perspective. Paper I points out the substantial variation found in the public’s view on what constitutes appropriate sentences. According to Paper II society’s reactions to crime are expected to fulfill different, and often contradictory, objectives simultaneously. Paper III also points to the assumption that views on what constitutes appropriate sentences are based on deliberations where different dimensions of society’s reaction are weighed against each other.The public’s sense of justice, thus, consists of diverse, variable and complex opinions. Referrals to it as a legitimizing ground for changes in penal legislation becomes a matter of choice between whose and which opinion it is that should be emphasized. For this choice to be perceived as legitimate it should not be made without at the same time motivating it.If crime policy is to be both knowledge-based and fitted to the public’s sense of justice the public must be given the opportunity to develop an informed and well-grounded sense of justice. Especially since, compared to other political matters, crime policy and its consequences are something that only a small portion of the public comes into direct contact with. The suggestion is that the public criminal policy debate is framed so that it matches the complexity of the public’s sense of justice itself.
5.
Sandlund, Jonas
(författare)
Position-matching and goal-directed reaching acuity of the upper limb in chronic neck pain : associations to self-rated characteristics
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Neck-shoulder pain is common in the general population and causes individual suffering as well as large costs for the society. Despite substantial efforts, there is still a shortage of methods for objective diagnosis and effective rehabilitation of such disorders. Thus, there is a great need to develop and evaluate new methods for these purposes. From clinical observations and recent research it has become evident that sensorimotor control can be impaired in people with neck-shoulder pain and may play a role in the pathogenesis of these disorders. In this thesis, precision of goal-directed arm movements, a previously unstudied class of movements in neck-shoulder pain, was studied. The main aim of the thesis was to investigate if people with chronic neck-shoulder pain have a reduced acuity of goal-directed movements of the upper extremity. A second aim was to study associations between reduced movement acuity and symptoms and self-rated characteristics. Upper limb repositioning acuity was assessed in blindfolded subjects performing tests of active, ipsilateral position-matching of two target positions (long and short) in movements constrained to horizontal-adduction of the shoulder. Reduced repositioning acuity, suggesting impaired shoulder proprioception, was found for both subjects with whiplash associated disorders (WAD) and non-specific neck-shoulder pain (NS). The degree of reduced acuity was shown to correlate with self-ratings of various health concepts, functioning and pain. A conspicuous finding was that there was lack of correlation between short and long target errors, along with the fact that associations between repositioning acuity and symptoms and self-rated characteristics was primarily found for the short target position. To further investigate the possible mechanisms underlying the disassociation between long and short target movement control, the association pattern between the outcome of several variants of ipsilateral position matching and velocity-discrimination tests, were studied. It was found that the perception of limb position in position-matching of short target locations appears to be predominantly based on movement velocity, whereas perception of limb position in movements to longer target locations may rely on a location-based perception mechanism. To extend the research on reduced upper extremity proprioception in neck-shoulder pain to a more natural movement situation, acuity of goal-directed pointing including full vision and 3D multi-joint movements was investigated in WAD, NS and healthy controls subjects. The results revealed a reduced acuity for both neck-pain groups. Moreover, distinct associations between end-point acuity and neck movement problems, limitations of some physical functions and, in WAD; some aspects of pain, were revealed. The findings demonstrate that the precision of upper limb movements can be reduced in chronic neck-shoulder pain. Substantial associations with symptoms and self-rated functioning suggest a clinical relevance of acuity measures of goal-directed arm movements. The findings indicate that tests of sensorimotor control can provide objective measures that may be useful in biopsychosocial profiling and characterization of subgroups of patients with chronic neck-shoulder pain, and that training target control of goal-directed movements should be considered in rehabilitation programs of people with these disorders.
6.
