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Sardiello, Tiziana, 1965-
(författare)
Playing the Matching Game : An Institutional Analysis of Executive Recruitment and Selection in Software Start-ups: Silicon Valley and Stockholm
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Software start-ups make media headlines daily, suggesting that it may take only a garage and two engineering students to begin such companies, and that these same people will constitute the core of the executive team until these organizations become multinational giants. Despite these spontaneous starts, newly formed entrepreneurial ventures have many obstacles to overcome in their resource and cultural environments when establishing their practices. These obstacles vary depending on the local institutional contexts and can exert relevant pressures on how, where and why start-ups recruit and select certain candidates for their executive teams.Based on interviews conducted in Silicon Valley and Stockholm with 40 key hiring and intermediary actors – entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, board directors, CEOs and executive recruiters - the general aim of this work is that of disclosing step-by-step the process of executive recruitment and selection in start-ups. At the same time, this study seeks to analyze how institutional environments, through the actions of states, governments, universities, professional associations and society in general, shape start-up practices. Finally, the work aims at testing the explanatory power of institutional theories in sociology.The analysis of the interviews shows that different local institutional environments differently and crucially shape organizational actors' interests, roles and patterns of behavior when constructing their practices. Two distinct ideal-typical dominant logics surface among key actors in the two geographical contexts. On one side, Silicon Valley actors recruit and select their executives by using a business logic based on an efficiency rationale. On the other side, Stockholm actors make use of a personal logic based on a rationale of cultural fit when calculating which specific candidate better matches a certain executive position.
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Sirén, Sebastian, 1985-
(författare)
Social Policy in Development Contexts : Drivers, Mechanisms and Outcomes
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Economic growth amidst staggering inequality in many low- and middle-income countries makes the quest to end global poverty more topical than ever. Calls to leave no one behind in the course of development underscore the need to reconsider the role of policy frameworks in emerging economies. Social policies have been expanded across the Global South during the last decades, and social protection is increasingly highlighted as a fundamental component of the global sustainable development agenda. This thesis, comprising three self-contained studies, analyses the drivers, mechanisms and outcomes of social policy reform in development contexts, asking which economic institutions could enable more rapid advancement towards ending poverty and reducing inequalities, and what conditions promote the expansion of such institutions?Study I investigates the driving forces of changes in social spending across 46 more recent democracies, with particular attention to the role of partisan politics. Using data from 1995 to 2015, multivariate fixed effect regressions reveal a positive association between left government and public social expenditures, also when controlling for structural and institutional factors. This finding indicates that interests and ideologies, articulated through partisan politics, matter for the evolution of social policy, also in development contexts.In light of the findings from this quantitative analysis, Study II investigates the mechanisms driving, and hampering, progress towards social policy expansion in a specific case. The politics surrounding a healthcare reform with the ambition to universalise access to public healthcare in Bolivia is examined using theory-guided process tracing methods. The study highlights how policy is shaped through an interaction between societal and state actors as well as how interests and ideas are intertwined in the process, but also how policy legacies give rise to reactive sequences militating against change.In Study III, the focus is on the outcomes of social policy. The study presents analyses of how government cash transfer systems moderate the effect of economic growth in both absolute and relative child poverty. Longitudinal data from 16 low- and middle-income countries included in the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) are analysed by means of descriptive statistics and multivariate regression techniques. Findings show that both economic growth and the expansions of transfer schemes are associated with declining absolute poverty. Meanwhile, growth is found to be related to reductions in relative child poverty primarily when combined with sufficiently extensive systems of government transfers, thus pointing to the relevance of social protection for inclusive growth.The findings from the three studies illustrate that central concepts from comparative welfare state research can be employed also in development contexts, converging on an analytical approach where changes in poverty and inequality are influenced by politics. Continued comparative analyses of social policies and their determinants in development contexts can accordingly generate much-needed insights into the causes of global poverty and inequality. Future research should further explore feedback effects of policy on politics and consider the potential synergies between social policy, equality, and economic growth.
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Bergman Blix, Stina, 1971-
(författare)
Rehearsing Emotions : The Process of Creating a Role for the Stage
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis takes as its starting point the dramaturgical metaphor of the world as a stage, which is used in sociological role theories. These theories often presume what stage acting is about in order to use it as a simile for every day acting. My intention is to investigate how stage actors actually work with their roles, in particular how they work with emotions, and how it affects their private emotions.The thesis draws on participant observation and interviews with actors during the rehearsal phase of two productions at a large theatre in Sweden. The results show that the inhabiting of a role for the stage is more difficult and painstaking than has been assumed in role theories so far. Shame and insecurity are common, particularly in the start up phase of the rehearsals. Interestingly, these emotions do not disappear with growing experience, but instead become recognized and accepted as part of the work process.The primary focus is the interplay between the actors' experience and expression of emotions, often described in terms of surface and deep acting, concepts which are elaborated and put into a process perspective. Analysis of the rehearsal process revealed that actors gradually decouple the privately derived emotional experiences that they use to find their way into their characters from the emotions that they express on the stage. Thus private experiences are converted to professional emotional experiences and expressions, triggered by situational cues. When the experience has been expressed the physical manifestation can be repeated with a weaker base in a simultaneous experience, since the body remembers the expression. It is important though, that the emotional expression is not completely decoupled from a concomitant experience; then the expression looses its vitality. The ability to professionalize emotions makes the transitions in and out of emotions less strenuous but can infiltrate and cause problems in the actors' intimate relations.
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Boye, Katarina, 1975-
(författare)
Happy hour? Studies on well-being and time spent on paid and unpaid work
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The present thesis focuses on causes and consequences of paid working hours and housework hours among women and men in Sweden and Europe. It consists of four studies. Study I investigates changes in the division of housework in Swedish couples when they become parents. The study shows that women adjust their housework hours to the number and age of children in the household, whereas men do not. Longer parental leave periods among fathers have the potential to counteract this change towards a more traditional division of housework. Study II explores the associations between psychological distress and paid working hours, housework hours and total role time in Sweden. The results suggest that women’s psychological distress decreases with increasing paid working hours and housework hours, but that a long total role time is associated with high levels of distress. The gender difference in time spent on housework accounts for 40 per cent of the gender difference in psychological distress. Study III asks whether hours spent on paid work and housework account for the European gender difference in well-being, and whether the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework is influenced by gender attitudes and social comparison. The results indicate that gender differences in time spent on paid work and housework account for a third of the gender difference in well-being. Gender attitudes and social comparison do not to any great extent influence the associations between well-being and paid work and housework, respectively. Study IV examines possible differences between European family policy models in the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework. Some model differences are found, and they are accounted for by experiences of work-family conflict among men, but not among women. For both women and men, work-family conflict appears to suppress positive aspects of paid working hours.
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Goldschmidt, Tina, 1988-
(författare)
Immigration, Social Cohesion, and the Welfare State : Studies on Ethnic Diversity in Germany and Sweden
2017
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Can social cohesion and solidarity persist in the face of large-scale migration? One particularly contentious hypothesis states that native majorities will be unwilling to support the provision of government-funded welfare to those whom they do not consider to be part of their own sociocultural ingroup, especially when sociocultural or ethnic otherness and socioeconomic disadvantage overlap. Consequently, majorities’ willingness to accept disadvantaged immigrant groups as legitimate and trusted members of the welfare community is central to the social cohesion of societies diversifying through migration.The dissertation consists of a comprehensive summary, followed by four original studies addressing the interplay between migration-induced diversity and social cohesion through the lens of majority attitudes and the micro and macro contexts within which they are embedded. The studies focus on Sweden and Germany, two European societies that host strong welfare states and large immigrant populations. Together, they seek to answer two central questions:First, does social distance between native-born citizens and immigrants lead the former to withdraw support from all redistributive policies, or are some types of welfare more affected than others? Second, how does the migration-induced diversification of societies come to matter for majority attitudes toward the welfare state and, as they are closely related, for majority attitudes toward the trustworthiness of others?Looking at the case of Germany, Study 1 shows that the conflict between diversity and welfare solidarity is not expressed in a general majority opposition to welfare, but rather in an opposition to government assistance benefiting immigrants – a phenomenon sometimes referred to as welfare chauvinism.Study 2 turns to the case of Sweden and investigates three pathways into welfare chauvinism: via the first-hand experience of immigrant unemployment and putative welfare receipt in the neighborhood context; via exposure to immigrant competition at the workplace; and via negative prejudice against immigrants. We find that the direct observation of immigrant unemployment in the neighborhood increases natives’ preference for spending on other Swedes over spending on immigrants, while competition with immigrants at the workplace does not.Using the same Swedish data, Study 3 hypothesizes that ethnically diverse workplaces imply trust-fostering inter-group contact. Yet, like in Study 2, we find a negative relationship between majority Swedes’ exposure to certain immigrant groups in the neighborhood and their trust in neighbors, while diverse workplaces neither seem to increase trust nor to affect the negative neighborhood-level association.Both Studies 2 and 3 show that negative attitudes toward immigrants increase welfare chauvinism and lower trust, even disregarding majority Swedes’ actual experience of immigrant presence or unemployment. Study 4 thus turns to a social force outside the realm of first-hand experience and explores German online news media debates on the welfare deservingness of various sociodemographic groups – among them, immigrants (as refugees in particular). However, rather than observing the persistent and particular stigmatization of immigrants as undeserving recipients or untrustworthy abusers of welfare, we find much more nuanced descriptions in our vast corpus of news stories.
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Halldén, Karin, 1977-
(författare)
What's Sex Got to Do with It? Women and Men in European Labour Markets
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis consists of four empirical studies on women and men in European labour markets. Study I examines effects of the sex of the immediate supervisor on the time men and women spend in initial on-the-job training (OJT) in Sweden. The results show that men receive longer initial OJT than women do, but men’s time in training is independent of the supervisor’s sex. For women in the private sector, the chances of receiving long initial OJT are higher if the immediate supervisor is a man. Study II analyses effects of labour market institutions on the quality of part-time work by comparing the skills and autonomy of female part-time jobs in Britain and Sweden. The results show that female part-time employees in Sweden hold positions of higher skill and have more autonomy compared to their equivalents in Britain. Both British and Swedish part-time employees face relative disadvantages when compared to female full-time workers. Study III examines associations between maternal employment policies and wage penalties for mothers by skill in 10 European countries. The results indicate that, net of variation in female labour force participation, extensive publicly funded childcare is associated with a modest decrease in the motherhood wage penalty, regardless of skill. By contrast, paid maternity leave is weakly associated with a larger motherhood wage gap in less skilled jobs only. Study IV examines the extent to which women’s opportunities to attain positions of high workplace authority are related to maternal employment policies, such as paid parental leave and part-time work. Based on data from 25 European countries, the results show that a high proportion of women working long part-time hours is associated with a wider gender gap in the attainment of high authority positions, to the disadvantage of women. However, paid parental leave appears to be unrelated to the gender authority gap.
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Kravchenko, Zhanna, 1978-
(författare)
Family (versus) Policy : Combining Work and Care in Russia and Sweden
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The twentieth century has witnessed a revolution in the ways in which the social division of labour is organised, and in terms of how waged work and caring for children are reconciled. This study explores family policy from the perspective of its capacity to manage the socio-economic risks emanating from combining the roles of breadwinner and caregiver which many parents are beginning to do in contemporary society. This study is focused on Russia and Sweden, countries which have a large share of their female population in the labour force and an institutionalised public policy directed towards meeting the challenges of childrearing in dual-earner families.In the first empirical stage of the study, I examine the establishment and development of family policies in these countries, and analyse their effects in terms of how they have attempted to reconcile the competing demands of work and family life in recent years, specifically, by focusing on three main components: parental leave regulations, the organisation of early childcare and education, and schemes of financial assistance and support for families with children (including their impact on poverty reduction, with the use of Luxemburg Income Survey data). The next stage, involved the exploration of the normative setting in which employment and parenting are realised. To do this I used survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), and its modules on Family and Gender Roles. In the final stage, by conducting in-depth interviews with families in Stockholm and St. Petersburg I was able to examine how decisions about using the available public means of assistance and support are negotiated within households, and which factors, other than public policy, influence such decisions. The results of these three empirical parts are juxtaposed in order to establish the relation between official inputs into family policy and the complex picture of its outcome in the two countries.
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