Browsing by Author "Olsson, Anders"

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Divergent Meanings of Politics - a Study of Social Representations in Swedish Twitter Conversations
(2017-07-07) Olsson, Anders; University of Gothenburg / Department of Sociology and Work Science; Göteborgs universitet / Institutionen för sociologi och arbetsvetenskap
This article examines everyday thinking and common sense knowledge about the ontological meaning of politics. To map out patterns in such conceptions about politics the study analyzes Swedish political conversations on Twitter, an interactive social media platform where political news and issues – among other topics - are shared and discussed. Different meanings attached to politics in these conversations are analyzed within the framework of social representations , a social psychological theory developed by Serge Moscovici. The findings illustrate that politics can be understood as idealistic, complicated, antagonistic, cynical and more or less separable/inseparable from other dimensions of our lives. An analysis of how these themes interplay in the conversations shows that some of these different meanings are conflicting, which points to politics as a dilemmatic phenomenon. The divergent conceptions about politics are suggested to bring different entries to - and ways of interacting with - political reality. The article further discusses the collective potential of clichés about politics. It also discusses how the adopted views on politics may be affected by the argumentative context in conversation. The study provides new insights into how social representations theory can be methodologically used to analyze communication about contradictory topics. Further research is recommended to clarify how the divergent understandings of politics are distributed, nationally or globally, among different social groups and to investigate what emotional characteristics the divergent views are linked to.
Spelar värderingar någon roll för arbetsmiljön? : En studie om konsekvenser vid övergång till utländskt ägande och vid generationsskiften i företag
(Arbetslivsinstitutet, 2006) Oudhuis, Margareta; Olsson, Anders
Research shows that values held by company managers affect both working with working environment issues and the working environment itself. The questions this study is trying to answer are as follows: - Which values regarding working environment and working environment issues exist today and in the future? - Are values important for the working environment and when working with working environment issues? These research questions will be answered by two different studies: - The shift from Swedish to foreign management after takeovers of Swedish companies. Interviews were made with managers and safety delegates at two different case companies, one with American ownership and the other with British ownership. - The shift from older to younger generation in family companies. Interviews were made with managers at two different case companies, one small company and one multinational company. The first study shows a forceful change of values within the American company followed by a decrease in the psycho-social environment. In the British owned company notably no such changes had occurred. One reason for the different outcomes appeared to be that while top management in the British owned company was Swedish the American company was run by American top management. The conclusion drawn from the comparison between these two companies is that values held by management are of great importance. The second study focusing the shift of generations in family companies showed that in spite of many differences between the two case companies, such as line of business, size and age, there were many similarities in what took place after the shift. Improvements were made regarding efficiency, profit, health and well-being of staff. The management values had changed in a direction Hofstede found is in line with the contemporary Swedish values, such as an increase of delegation and involvement. In summary, our study as well as other research show that foreign management in many cases have conflicting opinions and values compared to the new management generation. The result also shows that on one hand there is an interest and ambition to focus on working environment issues among the companies in our study, but that a lot more needs to be done, especially concerning psycho-social environment issues. On the other hand there also seems to be forces working against improvements of the working environment. The basic line in our study is that management values had a direct impact on the working environment and on working with working environment issues.