Improving organizational and working conditions for managers in the Swedish public sector: A conceptual model and evaluation of interventions

Annika Härenstam, Anders Pousette and Erik Berntson
Additional contact information
Annika Härenstam: Stockholm University, Sweden; University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Anders Pousette: University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Erik Berntson: Stockholm University, Sweden

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2022, vol. 43, issue 1, 72-97

Abstract: The demands on managers seem to have increased as a consequence of management reforms. This study evaluates interventions aimed at improving working conditions and performance of managers in the Swedish public sector by changing organizational conditions. Six intervention organizations were compared to 34 reference organizations. Organizational conditions relevant for managerial work were surveyed and the results presented to the management teams who decided on the action plans and implemented changes. Fidelity to the intentions and contextual circumstances were documented. A psychometrically tested questionnaire was used for pre- and post-measurements of effects among a sample of 303 managers. The results showed that the interventions were associated with changes in managers’ quality of work and performance. The evaluation design made it possible to show that organizational conditions can be changed in order to improve the operations managers’ situation if there is fidelity to the intentions and support from the strategic level management.

Keywords: Management; organizational intervention; performance; public sector; working conditions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X19883017 (text/html)

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:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:1:p:72-97

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X19883017

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic and Industrial Democracy from Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().