Pandemicracy and organizing in unsettling times

• The present pandemics called for new ways of organizing work. Social distancing and other measures taken by many governments to manage the COVID19 crisis have created new working conditions, and new types of work. Because of the crisis, some organizations are struggling for survival, whereas other grow and thrive. The changes are especially visible in public sector organizations that shoulder many of the core responsibilities for managing the pandemics.In this chapter we describe a phenomenon that we called "pandemicracy" – the governance efforts related to the pandemics. We have collected work stories from people working in various units of the Swedish public sector. These stories describe daily work in times of turmoil in a country that has been internationally deemed to be an exception in the way the pandemics has been managed. Indeed, Sweden has decided not to introduce a general lockdown, even if many other measures have been taken. But in Sweden, like in all other countries, there are medical, societal and economic effects of the pandemics. One of those is the fact that notions such as sacrifice and solidarity, but also dejection, determination and mismanagement, are being added to the vocabulary of working ethos in public sector organizations.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Pandemicracy

Covid

Public sector

work

professions

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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