“Nordic Lights. Work, Management and Welfare in Scandinavia”
Edited by Åke Sandberg, Stockholm University, Stockholm: SNS förlag
This book gives critical Scandinavian perspectives, “Nordic lights” on management and the new working life, in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Twentyfive researchers contributed to this project aiming at taking stock of what we know about working life, organization and management in Nordic welfare capitalism. A basic idea has been that of ‘productive justice’, that there is no trade-off between welfare and equality on the one hand, and productivity on the other hand. This social contract of ‘solidaristic individualism’ is today challenged both on an ideological level and in practice as part of a dismantling of welfare arrangements. But essential elements are still there. Politics can change the future.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Paul Adler 7
Preface 9
1. How Bright are the Nordic Lights? 13
Åke Sandberg and Fredrik Movitz
Part I
2. Contested Models: Productive Welfare and Solidaristic Individualism
31
Fredrik Movitz and Åke Sandberg
3. Management: Still a Fashion Industry 91
Torsten Björkman
4. A New World of Work Challenging Swedish Unions 126
Anders Bruhn, Anders Kjellberg and Åke Sandberg
Part II
5. Volvo and a Swedish Organisation and Management Model 189
Anders Boglind
6. Assembly Systems and Work in the Swedish Automotive Industry 225
Bo Blomquist, Tomas Engström, Dan Jonsson and Lars Medbo
Part III
7. When the Blues Meets the Blue Eye 257
Christian Koch
8. Organisational Change and Resistance in Norwegian Working Life 277
Egil J. Skorstad
9. Management of Working Environment 296
Annette Kamp and Klaus T. Nielsen
Part IV
10. Gender in New Management 329
Martha Blomqvist
11. Gendering Management 348
Anna Wahl
Part V
12. Flexibility in Practice 371
Birgitta Eriksson and Jan Ch. Karlsson
13. New Management and Good Work? A Swedish Experience 384
Christofer Edling and Åke Sandberg
14. NPM in Sweden: The Risky Balance between Bureaucracy and Politics 406
Patrik Hall
15. Flexibility, Boundarylessness and the Strategies of Work 420
Michael Allvin and Gunnar Aronsson
16. The New Economy Rhetoric and Interactive Media Workers 436
Fredrik Movitz
17. Quality of Work and Product in Digital and Print Media 449
Åke Sandberg and Helena Norman
18. Employee Board Representation in the Swedish Private Sector 471
Fredrik Movitz and Klas Levinson
Part VI
19. Swedish Research on Organisations and Management 487
Sten Jönsson
The authors 508