1.
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.
2.
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.
3.
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.
4.
Ma, Li, 1970-
(författare)
Female Employment and Fertility Change in South Korea
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
A large amount of literature has addressed the relationship between women’s employment and fertility in the Western context. We have less relevant knowledge about the context of East Asia. This thesis addresses this situation by providing insight into how women’s employment is interrelated with their fertility in South Korea. I investigate women’s life-course transitions to motherhood, labor force return after childbearing, and second childbearing, respectively. Data used for my analyses come from the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS).My studies show that the traditional practice of leaving the labor market at an early stage of family life has gradually been replaced by a pattern of staying at work until and during pregnancy. Among wage earners, women with stable employment positions are more likely than others to become a mother. Further, women with a good labor market standing are more likely to return to the labor force immediately after childbirth without any career interruption. Still, a considerable number of women shift to homemaking after childbirth. The outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 pushed mothers to hold tighter to the labor market than before. Labor force participation after first birth depresses women’s likelihood of having a second child.These studies suggest that a good labor market standing facilitates both motherhood entry and job continuity after childbirth in South Korea. However, the considerable number of women that shift to homemaking during motherhood and the depressed second birth rates of mothers in the labor force reveal that Korean women still face hardships when trying to combine work and family responsibilities.
5.
Polanska Vergara, Dominika, 1980-
(författare)
The emergence of enclaves of wealth and poverty : A sociological study of residential differentiation in post-communist Poland
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Since the fall of communism, some crucial political, economic and social changes have been taking place in the former communist societies. The objective of the thesis is to examine the processes of residential differentiation taking place in the urban landscape of the Polish city of Gdańsk after the introduction of the capitalist system. The focus is on different forms of residential differentiation and the social, economic and historical factors behind these forms. The empirical material that forms the basis of the thesis consists of interviews, newspaper articles, a questionnaire, official (national and local) reports and documents.Study I examines the way in which different social, economic, historical and physical conditions coincide in the formation of space and the processes of decline in the period of transformation in Poland. The focus lies on a specific residential area in the center of Gdańsk and the lack of improvements in this particular area, which would stop its successive decline.Study II explains the emergence of gated communities in the post-communist urban context and discusses the reasons for their increasing numbers and popularity. The main argument is that the popularity of gated communities is tightly intertwined with the communist past, emerging in reaction to the housing conditions that prevailed under communism.Study III investigates how social class markers are constructed in the discourse on gated communities in post-socialist Poland. The “new” capitalistic system, with its inherent social divisions, is described in the discourse as creating demands for “new” forms of housing, where gates function as separators, protectors and class identifiers.Study IV concentrates on the support for the formation of gated communities in the legal and regulatory framework in Poland since 1989. The paper asserts that the outcome of liberal politics and legal regulation in the country is the neglect of spatial planning and imprecise urban policies.
6.
Sandberg, Carl, 1979-
(författare)
On Board the Global Workplace : Coordination and Uncertainty on Merchant Ships
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how work and social life are coordinated on board merchant ships. The merchant ship is a global workplace where people from different nationalities come together to work and live for an extended period of time.The study is based on ethnographic field work on board merchant ships. The core of the study is field work on two Swedish-flagged RoRo-ships with ethnically mixed crews coming from Sweden, the Philippines and Eastern Europe. Participant observation and interviews are the two methods that have been used to generate the material.The empirical material shows that although the ships have a formal organization, the ships with mixed ethnic crews are in a disorderly state, a state of dissonance. The dissonance is due to a conflict between two evaluative principles. One principle refers to the Swedes’ way of doing things, which involves a flattened hierarchy and autonomous workers. The other principle refers to the Filipinos’ way of doing things, a formalized relationship between officers and crew and respect for the chain of command. These two principles sometimes come into conflict in the coordination of work tasks. The analysis also shows that social life on board is coordinated by ethnic networks, i.e. the seafarers spend their free time segregated by ethnicity. Furthermore, the results show that these two evaluative principles are in a hierarchical relationship. They form a hierarchy of worth where the Swedes’ way of doing things is seen as superior.
7.
Wahlgren, Paula, 1976-
(författare)
De laglydiga : Om skolans brottsförebyggande fostran
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Politicians and scholars often frame schooling as one of society’s most important crime preventive measures. The object of the study is to examine and problematize the hopes and ambitions that have evolved around what the study conceptualizes as the crime preventive educational task of public schooling and its historical trajectory as articulated in government publications. Drawing on governmentality theory, the study focuses on the liberal conception of the autonomous and self-regulating subject, and how the liberal mode of government works through the governing of freedom. The study identifies three discourses on crime preventive education: The emancipatory (1970s onwards), the deterrence (late 1980s onwards) and the safety/security discourse (21st century). The discursive shifts identified are further analysed in respect to how i) the explanation of crime, and the relationship between the deviant and the law-abiding subject, ii) control and iii) freedom and responsibility, are conceptualized over time. The conceptualization of criminal behaviour goes from being caused by social deprivation, becoming instead a calculated rational act. Subsequently, the deviant is altered from a person in need of reintegration to a deterrent example and a risk. The problematization of control has a trajectory from being a matter of social control and integration, ending instead as a matter of risk control and prudentialism. The conceptualization of the kind of freedom and responsibility the crime preventive education should foster is also reframed, from a strategy to counter a lack of democracy and influence, to a way of making prudent citizens. In this, the notion of a collective responsibility has been superseded by a belief in individual responsibility. The key problematization vindicating the process has gone from how to integrate youths into a society in constant flux, to how to restore control if lost and how to protect a pre-given social order.
8.
Ullberg, Susann, 1968-
(författare)
Watermarks : Urban Flooding and Memoryscape in Argentina
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The relationship between social experience and action in the context of recurrent disasters is often thought of in terms of adaptation. This study problematises this assumption from an anthropological perspective by analysing the memoryscape that mediates past experiences of disasters. The inquiry is based on translocal and transtemporal ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2004-2011 in the flood-prone city of Santa Fe in Argentina. The study examines how past flooding is remembered by flood victims in the middle- and low-income districts and by activists of the protest movement that emerged in the wake of the 2003 flood. It deals with flood memory in the local bureaucracy, in local historiography, myths and popular culture. The analysis reveals that the Santafesinian flood memoryscape is dynamically configured by evocative, reminiscent and commemorative modes of remembering, which are expressed in multiple forms, ranging from memorials and rituals to bureaucratic documents, infrastructure and everyday practices. The study addresses the relationship between memory, morality and social inequality and discusses the implications for questions regarding vulnerability, resilience and adaptation.
9.
Lundqvist, Catarina
(författare)
Möjligheternas horisont : Etnicitet, utbildning och arbete i ungas berättelser om karriärer
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Den här avhandlingen handlar om hur unga med utländsk bakgrund berättar om sina liv och om hur de föreställer sig sina karriärval avseende utbildning och arbete. Syftet med avhandlingen är att analysera hur möjlighetshorisonter i relation till karriärskapet – de processer som genererar olika typer av karriärval – framträder i individuella berättelser. Studiens empiriska material grundar sig på fältarbete i en gymnasieskola under ett års tid. I fokus står två klasser med elever som studerats genom deltagande observationer och intervjuer.Studien belyser hur familjens sociala position och föräldrarnas karriärer är en viktig hållpunkt mot vilken ungdomarna bedömer sina egna framtidsmöjligheter. Studien pekar på hur en av både social klass och etnicitet, strukturerad individualisering påverkar ungas karriärval och färgar deras möjlighetshorisonter. Dessutom belyser studien hur karriärval måste förstås i relation till en möjlighetshorisont som har både en temporal och en rumslig dimension. Ungdomarnas möjlighetshorisonter fördunklas dock av en uppfattad etnisk diskriminering på arbetsmarknaden men även av de etniska kategoriseringarnas påverkan på karriärskapet i skolan. När ungdomarna i narrativ mening positionerar sig i (föräldrarnas) hemlandssammanhang vidgas handlingsutrymmet i symbolisk men även i praktisk mening. Genom att ta hänsyn till en translokal position kan vi förstå hur positioneringar i skilda rumsliga sammanhang hänger samman med skiftningar i den möjlighetshorisont som karriärval relateras mot.
10.
Almquist, Ylva, 1983-
(författare)
A class of origin : The school class as a social context and health disparities in a life-course perspective
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of the present thesis is to examine various aspects of the school-class structure and their links to health in a life-course perspective. The empirical studies are based on two longitudinal data materials of cohorts born in the 1950s, followed up until middle age. In the first study, the overall status distribution in the school class was shown to be associated with both minor psychiatric disorder in childhood and self-rated health in adulthood. Thus, ill-health was more common among individuals who attended school classes less equal in terms of status. The second study demonstrated that it was more common among those who had fewer mutual friendships in the school class to report poorer health as adults. Socioeconomic career emerged as the primary explanation for men while, for women, these findings were largely unaccounted for by any of the included child and adult circumstances. Findings from the third study suggested the child’s status position in the school class, i.e. peer status, to be related to a wide range of health outcomes in adulthood. In particular, lower peer status was linked to an excess risk of mental and behavioural disorders, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Childhood social class did not confound these associations to any large extent. The fourth study examined two types of social isolation in the school class: marginalisation (low peer status) and friendlessness. Hospitalisation due to any disease was more common among marginalised children compared to among non-isolates, whereas no corresponding association was found for the friendless. For both types of isolates, the number of hospitalisations was greater than among non-isolated individuals. Of the studied childhood factors, scholastic ability emerged as an important mechanism. In sum, this thesis points to the relevance of the school class for health development across the life course and to the complexity of pathways through which influences of the school class may operate.
