This chapter deals with the consequences of occupational polarisation in terms of changes in trade union membership levels and attitudes towards unions. The aim is to explore whether such changes have occurred, among which categories, and to what extent they are related to institutional changes in the Swedish industrial relations system. The chapter describes the main institutional changes: the decentralisation of wage formation, and the changes in both the unemployment insurance funds and the regulation of employment forms during the period from the mid-1980s to 2010. Against this background, the chapter analyses the change in union density among different groups on the Swedish labour market. The focus then turns to changes in attitudes to trade unions, based on surveys conducted in 1997, 2006 and 2018. The analyses focus on whether employees prefer to negotiate wages individually or collectively through trade unions, and on what issues workers of different categories think trade unions should pursue.

This article analyses the development of FinTech companies in relation to traditional banks in four countries: Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands and Sweden. Based on approaches drawn from the sociology of markets and field theory, we analyse and theorize about empirical data from secondary sources, official documents and 38 interviews with key actors. Whereas digital technologies have been commonly depicted as a source of disruption for established business models, suggesting that the rise of FinTech leads to competitive upheaval in the financial sector, more recent studies argue that such interpretations are exaggerated. Here, we propose the emergence of a ‘coopetitive’ market ecosystem that combines co-operative and competitive connections between incumbents and challengers who often share the same infrastructure. FinTech firms are shown to function as catalysts in the transformation towards this ecosystem shaped by coopetitive interdependence between the actors.

This study contributes to our understanding of what lifestyle factors affect thesocial status of women and men in contemporary postmaterialist societies.We examine the dimensions and determinants of social status qualifiersamong Swedish people using a survey of 1,650 Swedish respondents whoranked the importance of 14 qualifiers for the social status of a woman anda man. The analysis showed surprisingly strong similarities in what factorsaffect the social status of women and men – both in the importance ofindividual status qualifiers and in the three underlying status dimensions:The highest-ranked dimension included status qualifiers related to externalmaterial resources and properties. The second most important dimensioncomprised interactional resources such as manners, looks, being marriedand having children. The third dimension concerned the importanceof interest and engagement in politics, the environment, and fine art,which were of the least importance for social status. The few significantdifferences in ascriptions of status for a woman or a man were rather genderstereotypical. In addition, the analysis revealed some significant differencesin status perceptions among the respondents: Gender, class, educationalbackground, and country of birth were among the main determinants ofsuch differences.

European industrial relations are strongly articulated in a multilevel structure connecting local, sectoral, national, and European organisational levels and dialogue between trade unions and employers. An important aspect of the functioning of such multilevel governance and dialogue systems is the communicative articulation between levels. This study sets out to explore to what extent communication concerning health and safety issues takes place in the sectors of hospitals/healthcare and social assistance/elderly care. We focus in particular on aspects of disarticulation between levels – or rather, impediments in the communicative flow in the existing articulated system – here conceptualized as instances of decoupling. Empirically the study is based on interviews with trade union officials and representatives for employer associations placed at the sectoral and/or national level in six countries (IT, DE, LT, UK, PL, SE). That is, the point of departure for the analysis is the experiences of the actors at the mid-levels in this multilevel system. Thematically, the study explores to what extent information and influence from lower levels are received and used at higher levels, and to what extent decisions/regulations and support/guidance/tools from higher levels are received and implemented and/or used at lower levels. Through this country comparative case study-analysis, based on a selection of country context that aims to maximise variation of industrial relations regimes, we thus aim to capture both recurrent and more country specific problems created through the decoupling of communication on H & S in these two sectors – against the background of institutional divergencies between national contexts.

Traditional approaches in the wide field of employment relations focused on a small and clearly delineated set of actors, such as trade unions and employers’ organizations, operating within the constraints given by formal, nationally confined institutions. It is becoming increasingly clear that traditional approaches are insufficiently able to account for employment relations processes and outcomes in a world wherein formal institutions are being rapidly transformed and partially dissolved, national boundaries become porous, and the sheer number of actors involved is increasing substantially. A shift in perspective is necessary, past the nationally bounded actor-institution dichotomy, towards an understanding of employment relations as fundamentally mediated by complex and emergent networks that connect a multitude of actors within and between countries.

This volume provides a seminal starting point for such a paradigm shift by applying theories and methodologies from social network analysis to the study of employment relations. It develops a theoretical toolkit of mechanisms that operate within networks and shape employment relations processes and outcomes, such as wages, labour market policies and labour conflicts. It brings together insights from various projects that investigate the structure, functioning and impact of networks in employment relations through quantitative and qualitative methods. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of employment relations across business and management, economics, political science, and sociology disciplines, as well as those interested in social networks. Managers, trade unions, employers’ organizations and state authorities at national and international levels will find it helpful in understanding how networks shape their world.

Welfare professional decision-making has been at the centre of two debates over the past decade in Sweden. On the one hand, the balance between NPM and trust/discretion has been debated in relation to the so called “trust reform”. On the other, both hopes and fears have been discussed regarding the possibility to replace professionals with automated AI-based decision-making. This paper presents one of several case studies from a project studying the actual balance in practical welfare professional work between discretion and “programming” of decisions in terms of rules and instructions, process maps and software programs. The case in focus is the execution/foreclosure (verkställighet/utmätning) process at the Swedish Enforcement Authority (Kronofogden). The study is based on interviews with staff working on the cases, documents guiding the work, and instances of contextual inquiry – in which case officers show their work process through interfaces with digital systems. Besides describing the context for case handling, this paper will try to theorize how decisions are taken (individually vs. collectively; at one point in time vs. in processes), to what extent principles (e.g. law and rules) and programs (e.g. software and information systems) delimit different aspects of discretion, and how digitalization is performed from both above and below (i.e., the extent to which input and “appification” of digital help systems trickle down from the central organisational management vs. to what extent they are initiated and adjusted at local levels).