Under the Surface of Individual and Differentiated Pay in Sweden: A Zero‐Sum Game of Performance‐Based Pay?

Ylva Ulfsdotter Eriksson, Bengt Larsson and Petra Adolfsson

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2021, vol. 59, issue 2, 398-417

Abstract: Wage formation in Sweden has been decentralized, and the introduction of individual performance‐based pay has increased employer discretion. This article explores practices of local‐level wage determination and argues that existing analyses still have too much focus on the formal (regulatory) institutions to explain what that is going on under the surface. Drawing on interviews with HR, managers, employees and union representatives from both public and private sector organizations, the study concludes that individual and differentiated wage‐setting is delimited locally by small budgets and the actors’ cultural–cognitive and normative expectations. Even though there have been radical changes in collective agreements and policies, we find strong elements of path dependency in local wage determination practices.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12561

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:59:y:2021:i:2:p:398-417

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0007-1080

Access Statistics for this article

British Journal of Industrial Relations is currently edited by Edmund Heery

More articles in British Journal of Industrial Relations from London School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().