Introduction

In this issue, there are three concepts that stand out as particularly important: Equality, Trust, and Agency. Three articles have equality as normative guideline. In the first article, it is analyzed how inequality is reproduced in recruitment practices, even when laws and formal rules are respected. A second article examines class and gender inequality, related to berth, maternity leave, work orientation, and the return to the labor market. A third article examines the evolution of government policy for gender equality. The concept of trust is analyzed theoretically in one article. Agency is highlighted in two articles. The analyses of the first article is at the micro level. Here, it is investigated how agency in daily work is challenged when municipalities are exposed to major reforms. Analyses in the second article are on the macro level. Here, it is investigated how European trade unions can influence EU policy (...

A short introduction

For us in the editorial board this is a very special event - the appearance of the first issue of our new journal. Things have moved quite fast for us towards the realization of this project. We met for the first time in December 2009, and now the journal is a reality! The vision, scope and plans of the journal will not be presented here. They are to be found at our homepage: www.nordicwl.dk. If you haven’t done it yet we will strongly recommend you to subscribe to the newsletter of this journal. We also recommend you to sign up for the established community of debate related to the journal and participate in the development of the journal. We are very grateful for the many, high quality papers we already have had submitted to us. For this first issue we have selected papers that together illustrate the diversity in working life research both in topics and in methods. That we are able to do this confirms that our ambition to make a journal that is relevant both for researchers and ‘professional practitioners’ in the development of working life is realistic and should have wide appeal (...

Introduction

In this issue, six articles are presented analyzing quite different issues and using very different methods. A common denominator for all of the articles is, however, that they examine new trends and issues in work life, discussed in the public debate and experienced in the working life of many employees. Two articles highlight the current trend toward a labor market with temporary and precarious employment: One article examines artists' work orientation and working conditions. Artists have a long tradition of working in employment arrangements that increasingly characterize the current labor market. Another article explores how our understanding of temporary migrant care workers is constructed.A third article contributes to our understanding of the effect of New Public Management on working conditions: the article analyzes coping and resistance when employees in the public sector experience moral distress as a result of New Public Management.Personality seems to have increasing importance in the differentiation at the labor market. A fourth article examines how the assessment of personality actually is performed by recruitment consultancies.Two articles examine the opportunities to improve working conditions under the new conditions: One article examines the effects of interventions designed to improve the work-life reconciliation. Another article examines the public regulation of the psychosocial work environment (...

Introduction

The first article within this issue deals with the history of Swedish working life research. Carin Håkansta is the author of this interesting article.In the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden had an absolute dominance in the Nordic working life research, but from the mid-1990s, there was a gradual dismantling of the institutions that had carried the Swedish working life research. The most serious attack on the Swedish working life research came in 2007, when the National Institute for Working Life was closed down together with the Swedish Council for Working Life Research. A number of ‘Work Science’ departments at universities were established around 2000, but many of these institutions are now being integrated into larger institutions without any specific working life identity.The rise and fall of the Swedish working life research is associated with the rise and fall of the Swedish Social Democrats: as Håkansta points out, the strong public support to working life research in the 1970s and 1980s was linked to the Social Democrats' efforts to find a third way between capitalism and communism. The economy should be democratized, working life should be democratized and working life should be an arena for human development (...

Introduction

In Jan Ch Karlsson’s debate article in this issue he urges all of us to reveal “factoids”. Factoids are statements that are repeated so often that they appear as facts even though they are not, and he provides us with some examples of common factoids concerning working life. This issue presents seven articles dealing with different subjects within working life research, all providing us with new knowledge and insights on working life conditions with potential to reveal factoids. The articles also provide us with knowledge that can be used in practical contexts in working life.In addition to these seven articles the issue contains two comprehensive book reviews, books that contribute to the conceptual development of working life research, namely a review of Nancy Harding’s book “On Being at Work. The Social Construction of the Employee”, and Steven Peter Vallas’ book “Work” (...

Introduction

Ann Bergman has in this issue an interesting commentary about the future. Bergman urges working life researchers not to look into the future, it is quite unpredictable, but to imagine different futures, and by that contribute to the creation of the future.  A book about the future is reviewed by Pekka Kosonen, namely Dølvik et al: The Nordic Model Towards 2030. However, most working life researchers tent to study the past and the present, and not the future. That is also the case in the six articles published in this issue. However, all of them present research that calls for an action, to create a better future. In this issue, gender equality, health promotion and temporary work arrangements are studied. Problems are identified, and in some cases, solutions are also suggested. The research presented in this issue thus has potentials to influence the future (...

Introduction

In this issue, two of the articles present studies on the creation of working conditions through work place communication—informal communication at the workplace  and at formal meetings, respectively. An article examines how young unemployed people position themselves in relation to the dominant discourse on unemployment. An article examines the impact of collective agreements on the employment of older workers, and finally, an article presents a study on employment in the third sector (...

Introduction

In this issue, NJWLS opens a new section with reviews. We review three new books, based on professional research, on “Organizational Misbehavior,” “Dirty Work,” and “The Work of Managers.” In the coming issues, we will bring more reviews of English-language books based on Nordic working life research.This issue includes six articles where we start off by Abrahamsson and Johansson, who give us a short but comprehensive presentation of how psychosocial work environment has been understood in research and policy over 100 years, with Sweden as the focal point. Short, because they write in the format of an article. Comprehensive, because the authors take a broad understanding of the psychosocial work environment comprising “health/illness,” where factors such as stress and burnout are central, “management and development,” where employee involvement, learning, and innovation are central, and “problematization,” which includes critically oriented research on the nature of work. The article not only provides an overview of the research that has been done in this area in the last 100 years but also relates research to policy and practice. The article thus provides a valuable perspective on today’s research and public debate on the works, with a Nordic perspective (...

Introduction

Also in this issue, we present articles that represent working life research widely. Working life and the Nordic labor market model is examined in three articles: Two articles present studies about current challenges for the Nordic model illustrated by case studies of low-paid service work, largely done by migrant workers. A third article contributes to the understanding of the Nordic model through a study of employers' involvement in active labor market policy. Two studies are dealing with employee involvement in the renewal and transformation of the public sector, respectively, on family-related social service and in hospitals. We present a study of how conflicts at the workplace affect the working environment with a large nongovernmental organization (NGO) as case. Finally, a study of how working conditions affects intention to retire is presented, with a university as case (...

Introduction

In this issue we present six articles, which are quite different in both scope and methodology. Changes in the quality of working life are however a common interest in all articles. Two articles deal with the tension between passion and exploitation in current working life—one is a theoretical article, the other is primarily empirical. Two articles deal with the effects of flexibility on the quality of working life: one examined the effects of the ‘flexicurity model’ on the quality of working life; the other examined how the flexibility of work in elder care affects the quality of working life.  Another article examines the importance of personal relationship to the nearest leader for well-being. In the last article the position of women at the labor market is analyzed in the perspective of the last 50 years (...