| 1. |
- Arora-Jonsson, Stefan, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Konkurrens som organisation
- 2019
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Ingår i: Organisation & Samhälle. - Stockholm : Föreningen Företagsekonomi i Sverige (FEKIS). - 2001-9114 .- 2002-0287. ; :1, s. 22-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 2. |
- Arora-Jonsson, Stefan, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Organizing a Competitive Logic in the Swedish School Market
- 2019
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Ingår i: Academy of Management Proceedings. - : Academy of Management. - 1543-8643. ; :1
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A common assumption in organizational literature is that the “rules” by which organizations compete in a market emerge from processes of mutual adjustment among competitors to the constraints posed by market structures and institutions. While this may often be the case, we point the analytical gaze to the arguably prevalent but understudied case where the rules for competing are decided, i.e. result from an attempt at organizing by an organizer, rather than by mutual adjustment among competitors. We explore the formation and change of a competitive logic among Swedish upper secondary schools, using archival and interview data from two municipalities. We find how a broad-sweeping reform initially failed to shape a competitive logic, i.e. schools did not think they were competing. Over time, however, the idea of competing for students took hold, resulting in the organization of two very different competitive logics. Our findings speak to literatures that deal with institutional, geographical, and structural perspectives on competition, adding the notion of organizers as central actors in processes where competition forms and changes.
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| 3. |
- Arora-Jonsson, Stefan, Professor, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Teaching schools to compete : the case of Swedish upper secondary education
- 2024
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Ingår i: Socio-Economic Review. - : Oxford University Press. - 1475-1461 .- 1475-147X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Significant efforts have been made to promote competition in public service sectors, expanding the reach of competition into non-economic fields. Surprisingly little is, however, known about the process by which competition is introduced into such settings. We examine this process, focusing on a Swedish municipality’s efforts to implement competition for students among its schools. By incorporating recent theoretical advancements regarding competition as an organized relationship, and utilizing a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, we shed light on the organizational efforts undertaken by politicians and bureaucrats to teach their schools to compete. We find that introducing competition can be complex, time-consuming and that it requires substantial organizational commitment. We highlight the existence of varying perceptions of competition among different stakeholders following its introduction. These findings suggest the need for future research that addresses questions about the costs of, and interests behind, introducing competition, as well as questions about responsibility for the subsequent effects of competition.
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| 4. |
- Arora-Jonsson, Stefan, Professor, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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The Construction of Competition in Public Research Funding Systems
- 2023
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Ingår i: Handbook of Public Funding of Research. - Cheltenham : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781800883079 ; , s. 172-184
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Competition is a core feature of public research systems. Previous literature has mainly focused on the consequences of competition for research funding in such systems. These consequences are important, but the literature has largely assumed that competition for funding is inevitable in public research systems. This assumption masks the extent to which competition is a constructed phenomenon requiring explanation. When and why is there competition for research funding in public systems? In this chapter, our aim is to develop new knowledge about the ways that various allocations of funding are or are not constructed as competition for funding. We utilise recent theorising to analyse competition for research funding as a phenomenon that eventually comes about through organising efforts. Our chapter revitalises previous literature, and offers policy implications and future inquiry avenues that highlight the importance of understanding how competition for funding is constructed, and potentially revoked, in public research systems.
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| 5. |
- Bomark, Niklas, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Convincing Others That They are Competing : The Case of Schools
- 2021
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Ingår i: Competition. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 9780192898012 - 9780191924460
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The past decades have seen numerous attempts to introduce competition into new sectors of society, but we still know little about the processes by which competition is realized in a new setting. We study three decades of organizational efforts of a Swedish municipality that sought to introduce competition for students among its upper secondary schools following a national reform in the early 1990s. Our study shows that declaring competition was far from sufficient for its realization; the path to competition was lined with hesitation, uncertainty, and a rich variety of organizational challenges to be overcome. One particularly vexing challenge was to convince the principals of the schools that they should view each other as competitors for students. Our findings contribute to previous literature by demonstrating that competition need not be a prerequisite for choice; that several organizers of competition may operate at once; and, more generally, that competition is introduced through stepwise, piecemeal processes.
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| 6. |
- Edlund, Peter, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Caring about competition in eldercare? : Staff groups, nursing homes, and Swedish market-inspired reforms
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Journal of Social Work. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1369-1457 .- 1468-2664. ; 25:5, s. 909-921
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the past 30 years, Swedish eldercare has undergone extensive reforms featuring, among others, far-reaching efforts to construct municipal markets characterised by competition between nursing homes for service provision. Our aim in this paper is to develop new knowledge about how eldercare professionals currently approach the role of competition after it has been present for three decades as a key idea throughout Sweden’s market-inspired reforms. To address that aim, we build on insights from organisational theory, and conduct a study consisting of 39 interviews with professionals working as frontline or management staff in publicly or privately operated homes. Our findings show how competition was similarly perceived across public and private nursing homes: eldercare professionals regarded it as a phenomenon primarily affecting their work in relation to tendering periods. Important differences, nonetheless, existed between staff groups in homes. Thus, the findings of our study also indicate that perceptions of competition ranged from a more employment-focused and episodically occurring phenomenon among frontline staff, to a more visibility-focused and continuously occurring phenomenon among management staff. We finish by discussing competition as a central and peripheral phenomenon in nursing homes, and by highlighting the relevance of our findings for additional eldercare contexts across Europe.
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| 7. |
- Edlund, Peter, 1986-
(författare)
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Constructing an Arbiter of Status : A Study of the European Research Council's Emergence in the Field of Science
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to shed light on how certain actors are constructed into third-party arbiters of status. Such arbiters mediate the triadic relations in which status is created, assessing and suggesting certain candidates as particularly worthy of deference from audiences.While previous literature has provided us with compelling insights into the pervasive authority of status arbiters, less attention has been paid to the ways in which these arbiters reach their authoritative positions. I seek to build new knowledge on the processes through which third-party status arbiters are constructed by exploring how the European Research Council (ERC) was transformed into an authority in science. In a short period of time, the ERC’s evaluations of funding applications and subsequent allocations of research resources came to be approached as a benchmark of scientific quality, which scientists, departments, universities, and countries anxiously compared their research performance with. I suggest that these evaluations and allocations soon became more than instances in which quality was assessed and resources were distributed, thus turning into potent bases for status creation as well.In three empirical chapters, which draw upon documents, interviews, and observations, I place the ERC within the context of a field, showing how its construction into a third-party status arbiter needs to be understood as a process that unfolded over time. First, I look at major tensions and struggles that surrounded Europe-level science in the advent of the ERC’s founding. Then, I examine the active efforts with which the ERC attempted to engender acceptance for its evaluations of Starting Grant (StG) funding applications. Finally, I explore the status consequences of ERC StG allocations for the careers of scientists, the milieus within departments, and the relations between universities in Sweden.My findings contribute to previous literature by demonstrating how arbiters are constructed through mutually reinforcing relations in which the status-creating potential of evaluations is continuously framed and validated. My findings also contribute by showing how the creation of status over time requires constant maintenance efforts to sustain the agreement between arbiters and audiences in terms of candidates that are worthy of deference.
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| 8. |
- Edlund, Peter, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Från ideal till golv : Marknadsliknande reformer i mötet med dagens äldreomsorg
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Marknadsliknande reformer i början av 1990-talet innebar att svensk offentlig sektor genomgick en omvälvande transformation där statligt centraliserad styrning med likvärdighet och standardisering som ledstjärnor till stor del byttes ut mot kommunalt delegerad styrning med valfrihet och effektivitet som grundläggande principer. I denna rapport använder vi oss av organisationsteori för att studera hur 1990-talets reformer 30 år senare tar sig uttryck inom dagens äldreomsorg. Vårt fokus ligger framförallt på hur dessa reformer idag manifesteras i mötet med de som kan sägas vara äldreomsorgens kärnfigurer –den personal som arbetar på äldreboenden. Vi studerar detta möte genom intervjuer med vårdande, administrerande och ledande personal bland offentliga, privata och ideella äldreboenden i två svenska kommuner åren 2018-2019. Vår nästintill självklara utgångspunkt är att reformer förändras under deras väg från den politiska nivån (”idealet”) till den verksamhetsnära nivån (”golvet”). De uttryck som det tidiga 1990-talets marknadsliknande reformer tar sig i mötet med nutida personal på äldreboenden är dock en öppen empirisk fråga, vilken vi undersöker utifrån tre sammankopplade perspektiv: konkurrens, identitet och ansvar.
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| 9. |
- Edlund, Peter, 1986-
(författare)
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More Than Euros : Exploring the Construction of Project Grants as Prizes and Consolations
- 2024
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Ingår i: Minerva. - : Springer. - 0026-4695 .- 1573-1871. ; 62:1, s. 1-23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In previous funding literature, ample attention has been devoted to the consequences of competition for project grants. These consequences tend to be fueled by status distinctions among grants, but scant attention has been directed toward how such distinctions are constructed. My aim with this paper is to develop new knowledge about the ways in which scientists ascribe meanings that construct status distinctions among grants. Employing qualitative data and a Bourdieu-inspired field perspective, I analyze how early-career scientists in Sweden attributed meanings that constructed and distinguished the status of European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants (StGs) and Swedish Research Council (SRC) Reserve Grants (RGs), which were otherwise closely connected by common evaluation procedures and equivalent monetary amounts. My findings show how scientists - despite having received equivalent monetary amounts - ascribed starkly different meanings to ERC StGs and SRC RGs, building on perceptions of minimal, yet competition-grounded and expert-sanctioned, divisions introduced by panelists among top-graded applicants during the ERC's evaluations. These divisions were amplified when scientists recast StGs as 'prizes' and RGs as 'consolations'. Such recasting was largely unaltered by acknowledgments that ERC StGs generated much more administrative burdens and economic troubles than SRC RGs. Those burdens and troubles were approached by StG and RG recipients alike as the cost of status, and they believed universities adopted a similar approach. I use my findings to propose contributions, policy implications, and future inquiry avenues suggesting evaluation procedures may play a larger role than monetary amounts for the construction of status distinctions among grants.
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| 10. |
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