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- Andersson, Roger, et al.
(author)
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Kulturell friktion
- 1995
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Book (pop. science, debate, etc.)
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| 2. |
- Arvidsson, Niklas, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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The growth of project organisation and its effects on working conditions
- 2006
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In: Routes to a more open labour market. - : National institute for working life / Arbetslivsinstitutet. - 9170457999 ; , s. 88-102
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Greater personal accountability for results, strict demands in terms of social skills, and increased personal responsibility for companies’ financial risks. These are the realities facing increasing numbers ofemployees when companies use project-based working methods.According to Niklas Arvidsson and Eskil Ekstedt, more and more people are working more and moreoften on a project basis. This is one of the most important long-term changes in Swedish business life,noting that, on one hand, project-based work can be engaging and inspiring, but that it is also characterized by specific time frames and performance requirements that create stress. Swedish companies arechanging rapidly in order to adapt to, or rather survive in, a neo-industrial economy. But projects imposean entirely new set of demands on employees, who are compelled to take individual responsibility fortheir advancement and careers, sometimes even to the point of assuming the company’s business risks.Project-based work puts the emphasis on performance, and a special sort of leadership evolves in thiscontext that does not necessarily incorporate human or social aspects.
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| 3. |
- Borg, Elisabeth
(author)
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Work Liminality and Liminality Competence : a study of mobile project workers
- 2012
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is about people engaged in project-based work, a work context that is becoming increasingly common since more and more firms are relying on project-based forms of organization. More specifically, the thesis deals with a specific condition arising in projectbased work, namely that of ‘work liminality’. The thesis aims at enhancing the understanding of work liminality and of individuals who hold liminal positions. More specifically it aims to investigate how liminality could be understood in the context of project-based work, what practices project workers rely on to deal with work liminality. The thesis also deals with how project workers perceive their work and what competencies they have in relation to their perceptions.The concept of liminality stems from anthropology, in which it denotes a transition phase from one social position to another, e.g. the transition from being a boy to becoming a man. The notion of liminality has been brought into organization studies to depict a position of ambiguous belonging and temporality. It has been used to describe the position for e.g. contingent workers, who simultaneously work and affiliate with different firms and work in temporary assignments. This thesis, however, focuses on liminality in project-based work, and it introduces the notion of ‘work liminality’ to describe a specific work situation with inherent organizational ambiguity and transiency. Project workers hold a liminal position since they simultaneously belong to a line division and one or several projects, and moreover, projects are time-limited, and can be viewed as a transition for the individual, who continuously moves from one project to the next. In that respect, project-based work constitutes a particularly interesting empirical context for the study of work liminality, and compared to other liminality situations, this context has received relatively little scholarly attention in previous research.The study presented in this thesis focuses on a particular kind of mobile project worker, namely technical consultants. These are workers who move from project to project, often across client organizations, on a continuous basis. They thus work under liminal conditions, both in terms of having several organizational belongings, and in terms of continuously switching assignments. The thesis is based on altogether 37 interviews, 13 narrative weekly diaries written under a period of three months and a number of workshops and both formal and informal meetings, mainly with technical consultants but also with managers at one of Scandinavia’s leading technical consultancy firms (which is anonymous in the thesis).Based on how liminality has been used in previous organization studies it is rather unclear what it implies, the more objective liminal position and how this is perceived by individuals who hold it, is not clearly separated in these studies. This thesis therefore suggests the analytical distinction between on the one hand ‘work liminality’, as a work situation in which the individual holds a position that is characterized by organizational ambiguity and transiency, and on the other hand how work liminality is experienced by people who engage in it. Results from this study indicate that mobile project workers experience work liminality largely in two types of situations, one primarily technical and the other foremost social. Moreover it indicates that individuals approach these situations, here denoted as social and technical liminality, either actively or passively. This leads to the proposition that the mobile project workers rely on predominantly four different ‘liminality practices’ to deal with social and technical liminality, namely ‘reputation reliance’, ‘role carving’, ‘relaxation’ and ‘redefinition’. Furthermore, an interpretative approach is used to study mobile project workers’ ‘liminality competence’. The empirical investigation shows three different conceptions of work held by the mobile project workers: ‘work as assignment handling’, ‘work as a learning platform’ and ‘work as knowledge transfer’, which are linked to three levels of liminality competence, respectively. Liminality competence concerns how the mobile project workers deal with working in a position of work liminality, while liminality practices rather concerns how the mobile project workers deal with specific situations that arises due to work liminality.
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| 11. |
- Ekstedt, Eskil, 1945-
(author)
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Project work, a challenge to traditional work life institutions
- 2019
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In: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business/Emerald. - 1753-8378 .- 1753-8386. ; 12:2, s. 267-281
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate and problematize how the expansion of project and temporary work challenges the traditional industrial work organization and its internal and supportive institutions. It highlights the transformation dilemma, which occurs when traditional industrial institutions are confronted by project organizations. It also discusses how one may prepare to meet these challenges.Design/methodology/approachThe long-run incremental changes in organizational structures of the economy are described in an economic historical context, focusing on the organizational form of work and the employment regimes. Challenges, at the societal, organizational and individual levels, related to the “projectification” process are illustrated in considering the case of Sweden.FindingsProject dense industries, like media, entertainment and consultancy, are growing faster than the rest of the economy. The share of project work in permanent organizations is increasing. More than a third of all working hours in industrialized countries, like Germany, was labeled as project work in 2013. This transformation challenges basic conditions for how work is designed and regulated, like the stipulated and uniform work time or the permanent and stable work place. Central institutions of today, like the labor law and the educational system, are challenged.Social implications“Projectification” challenges traditional conditions of work and work life institutions and organizations, like the social partners, the educational and law systems.Originality/valueThe paper brings together and problematizes several aspects of “projectification” of work life. It highlights what kind of challenges work and work-related institutions meet and discusses how to handle some of them, like education.
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| 17. |
- Lundin, Rolf A., et al.
(author)
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Managing and working in Project Society : Institutional Challenges of Temporary Organizations
- 2015. - 1
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Book (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this book, leading authorities on project organizing explore the growing deployment of projects and other types of temporary organizations, with a focus on the challenges created by projectification. The way projects are coordinated and handled influences the success of innovation and change within organizations and is critical for strategic development in our societies, yet it is often at odds with the institutions of traditional industrial society. Drawing on both theoretical perspectives and real-world cases, this book sheds light on the transformation toward a project society and explores the effects, opportunities, and conflicts it has created. As change continues, the authors make a case for renewing institutions and mind-sets and provide a foundation from which to discuss societal changes for the future. This is an invaluable book for researchers and students in project management and organizational theory programs, as well as professionals involved in the management of projects.
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
- Rosengren, Calle, 1976-
(author)
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Arbetstidens symbolvärde : om historisk kontinuitet och förändring i synen på arbetstid samt normers inverkan på arbetstidens gestaltning
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The point of departure of the present thesis is what happens to working time in sections of the labor market where the content of production is becoming more knowledge-intensive, that is, where production is largely based on creativity, knowledge development and communication – processes that are difficult to control and locate in time. Paired with the rise in information and communication technology (ICT), room for interpretation is created by necessity as concerns the boundaries of work and what constitutes a satisfactory work effort. The thesis argues for the need to pay attention to social norms if we are to comprehend what guides action in such ”free” job situations – free in the sense that there is room for individual control of work hours. From a historical perspective, an understanding is sought of what constitutes the social norms surrounding working time and in what way they contribute to the temporal patterns the worker gives to his/her workday. In order to grasp the nature of temporal norms, two papers presented in the thesis study historical sources reflecting the way in which working time has been valued and debated in Sweden during the 20th century. In order to elucidate the relationship between work and work hours in knowledge-intensive jobs, two groups of wage earners with great influence over when, how and where their work is to be carried out have been studied. On the basis of these two cases, the thesis discusses on what grounds work expectations are created and how these expectations are handled. The results indicate that, in a historical perspective, working hours have been surrounded with normative conceptions. However, it was not until the formal employment contract was loosened that these norms had any real impact on the temporal pattern the individual gives to his/her working day. This is explained by the fact that, under this kind of loose contract, the worker is exposed to social expectations in a more direct way. The title, “On the symbolic side of working time”, implies that in giving working time a specific temporal pattern, the individual is expressing his/her identity, loyalty, commitment and status. Further, the thesis increases our understanding of the ways in which social norms both facilitate and limit our relation to working life; how these norms are refracted against a changing world, and how they are manipulated, debated and ever changing in content. At the same time, the thesis shows how different forces are working to restructure our conception of what is to be viewed as a satisfactory work effort and in the long run also how and when we work.
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| 20. |
- Sandqvist, Ulf, 1976-
(author)
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Digitala drömmar och industriell utveckling : en studie av den svenska dator- och tv-spelsindustrin 1980-2010
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse the development of the Swedish video and computer game industry. The main focus is on the Swedish game development industry. The research was conducted with two different methods. First with a macro approach where all Swedish game developers were identified and general data from the annual reports was collected. The second part is a case study with three Swedish game developing companies focusing on the production and development of the firms. The game industry has expanded and some of the successful games have generated spectacular revenues. In Sweden the industry has received attention from different actors like universities, government bodies and media. Yet little research has been done about the Swedish game industry. In general the game industry outside the larger videogame producing countries USA, Japan and the UK has been ignored to a large part in academic research. The first computer games were made for some of the very first computers in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In the 1970’s, a market for games was created when arcade machines and somewhat later home consoles were introduced. The industry has grown and today it includes some of the largest companies in the world. The Swedish industry follows the international pattern. Evidence suggests that the first Swedish games were created in the 1950’s at the large university computers. But a game developing industry seems to have developed a bit later than internationally when the first Swedish game companies were founded in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The Swedish industry entered an introduction phase from the middle of 1980’s, a couple of years after the introduction of personal computers, until the end of the 1990’s. An expansion phase started in 1998. The expansion was strong between 1998 to 2002 and 2006 to 2008. In 2008 the number of people employed in the industry had increased to over 1300. During the studied period the industry seems to have had constant problems making a profit. Especially in 2002 and 2003 the industry had economic problems and some of the larger companies went bankrupt. The distribution among the companies shows that the concentration within the industry is growing. A few companies have expanded rapidly and have well over a hundred employees. The industry is very gender segregated and the number of women working in the industry is under ten percent. To study the development on a micro level, three Swedish game developing companies were selected. The focus was the development and change in production and organisation. The structure of the industry seems to have been changing with the fast technical development. A more modular structure seems to be emerging within the industry. In a number of areas a modular system has emerged. It is possible to buy more parts and productions capacity on the market. It is possible to buy game engines and outsource motions-capture work to other specialized companies. The relation to game publishers seems to influence the companies and create uncertainty for the game developers when they do not own the rights to the intellectual properties. The three game developers also have a similar development being founded by computer interested young men wanting to pursuit their interest as a job. The Swedish subculture around the so called “demoscene” seems to have been a factor in the early development of the industry and a recruitment base for the early developers.
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