DISPUTERAD OCH KLAR- ÄNDÅ INTE ANSTÄLLNINGSBAR. Personalens upplevelser av anställningstrygghet och karriärmöjligheter vid ett svenskt universitet

Abstract

This study examines university employees’ perception of their employment situation and career opportunities. By tradition, fixed term contracts are used in the Swedish research community due to dependency on insecure funding. There is a current debate that questions this use of insecure employments. The employments are said to negatively affect the university’s societal role and international competitiveness. The study's aim is to explore this tendency of insecure employments by using theories of psychological contracts, employability, employment and income security. The study’s empirical findings, based on qualitative interviews, show that the respondents experience unfulfilled psychological contracts due to an insecure employment situation in combination with the unfulfilled wish for a permanent employment. Therefore, the employees compensate and cope for the experienced job insecurity through different actions, among others by employability enhancement. Furthermore, the employed endure feelings of insecurity, worry and loss of commitment to their work caused by insecure working conditions. The experienced lack of future job security forces individuals to invest in their employability in order to increase their opportunities to find jobs outside of the university. This fact suggests that the organization´s pursuit of numerical flexibility have a negative impact on the organization’s activities and its staff and in the long run the competence maintenance of the organization.