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The spread of performance-based and variable pay systems has affected expectations on employee contributions and remuneration, which have become increasingly personalized and individualized. Based on a theoretical valuation studies approach, this study of performance-based pay systems in Sweden shows that performance appraisals are (e)valuations of employees’ yearly performance in which they are prized and (ap)praised at the same time. Through a document analysis of performance criteria from four organizations, the study analyzes how values expressed refer to Boltanski and Thévenot’s six orders of worth. The analysis resulted in a theoretical construction of a joint ideal of Employees of Greatness, against which employees are measured and remunerated. The existence of the ideal of employee greatness is explained by the increasing congruence of organizational ideals in private and public sectors, as principles from emotional and cognitive forms of capitalist organization are superimposed on traditional industrial capitalist organizational ideals.

The spread of performance-based and variable pay systems has affected expectations on employee contributions and remuneration, which have become increasingly personalized and individualized. Based on a theoretical valuation studies approach, this study of performance-based pay systems in Sweden shows that performance appraisals are (e)valuations of employees' yearly performance in which they are prized and (ap)praised at the same time. Through a document analysis of performance criteria from four organizations, the study analyzes how values expressed refer to Boltanski and Thévenot's six orders of worth. The analysis resulted in a theoretical construction of a joint ideal of Employees of Greatness, against which employees are measured and remunerated. The existence of the ideal of employee greatness is explained by the increasing congruence of organizational ideals in private and public sectors, as principles from emotional and cognitive forms of capitalist organization are superimposed on traditional industrial capitalist organizational ideals.

This study analyses the legitimacy of different pay determination principles in Swedish public sector organisations. The aim is to explore what dimensions of worth exist in pay determination and to analyse the extent to which differences in legitimacy can be explained by organisational position, professional identity and organisational context. Theoretically, the article is influenced by “valuation studies” and the “institutional logics” and “orders of worth” approaches in analysing the existence of multiple dimensions of pay determination. Empirically, the study is based on surveys to employees and managers. The main results are that individual performance is the most legitimate dimension of worth, although job requirements and employee behaviour also have a high level of legitimacy. Formal individual competence and market value have a somewhat lower level of legitimacy, while organisational results is the dimension that has least legitimacy. In addition, the perceptions of legitimacy are shown to vary somewhat with position, profession and organisational context.

In this article, changes in the content of the job advertisements of pharmacies are analyzed. The profession in focus in these advertisements is the pharmacist, a profession with a long history. The job advertisements are for positions at pharmacies in a Swedish context between 1903 and 2013. By using a theoretical framework including both new institutional theory and cultural theory, shifts in how pharmacies and professionals are presented can be described. The results indicate that the identities of the organizations in the pharmacy sector simultaneously relate to similar social and cultural dimensions. Therefore, organizational identity and institutional logics seem to evolve dynamically whereby the professional logic seems to be recurrently important while other logics seem to be important to various degrees and for certain lengths of time. In other words, neither organizational identity nor institutional logics are static. Instead, different constellations of logics are fashionable at different periods of time, which legitimizes certain ways of presenting the pharmacy.

In this article, changes in the content of the job advertisements of pharmacies are analyzed. The profession in focus in these advertisements is the pharmacist, a profession with a long history. The job advertisements are for positions at pharmacies in a Swedish context between 1903 and 2013. By using a theoretical framework including both new institutional theory and cultural theory, shifts in how pharmacies and professionals are presented can be described. The results indicate that the identities of the organizations in the pharmacy sector simultaneously relate to similar social and cultural dimensions. Therefore, organizational identity and institutional logics seem to evolve dynamically whereby the professional logic seems to be recurrently important while other logics seem to be important to various degrees and for certain lengths of time. In other words, neither organizational identity nor institutional logics are static. Instead, different constellations of logics are fashionable at different periods of time, which legitimizes certain ways of presenting the pharmacy.

In today’s society, cities on a global scale are competing for resources and publicity. According to Richard Florida’s creative capital theory, highly educated, creative people are the driving force behind regional economic growth. Creativity has become a main keyword in urban marketing around the world. What the “creative class” is looking for in a place is openness to diversity of all kinds. Hence cities are trying to attract the creative class by communicating this trait. How is diversity in general and gay friendliness more specifically communicated through websites promoting cities? That is the overriding question posed in this article. The article examines the official websites of three of the five largest cities of each continent. Inspired by the work of Florida, the studied websites are seen as examples of how gayness works as a form of cultural capital. The results indicate a variation in how gay friendliness is presented globally, indicating the need for awareness on the part of city marketing officials as to how material is produced and what interests are represented in the final content. The results also suggest that the communication of gayness can be understood as the production of cities as sites of creativity, cosmopolitanism, and coolness.

This study of perspectives and opinions on a Swedish nuclear power plant and an old building in a Swedish city center employed an ethnographic approach. Such methods are found to be applicable to research situations when it is of crucial importance to establish trustworthy relationships with the informants. The use of ethnographic research methods, especially photography, enabled the researchers in the project to collect a wide range of narratives about different matters regarding the role of the sites and buildings in the past, future prospects of the power plant and the old building and their location. By employing qualitative methods, the project aimed at gaining insight into the meaning-building processes of the actors involved and how they made sense of a place that was turned into a locality of energy production and city planning. This paper elaborates on photography as part of an ethnographic approach and the authors argue that photography helps the researchers to extract the seen and unseen as well as values connected to sustainability in the daily life of local actors.

In his work on political performances and their symbolic features, Victor Turner probes how social actions, resulting from the flouting of social norms of behavior and conduct in social communities by certain actors, acquire form through a four-step ritualized movement. This paper suggests that the same four phases may occur in democratic efforts to increase the public’s participation in social planning. Drawing on the case studies in three cities, this paper investigates how individuals became mobilized in negotiations regarding specific sites. Through focusing on the meanings, intentions and aspirations of the concerned actors, the paper analyzes the particular circumstances in which the actors involved in a participatory process in these cities operate. The cities are Helsingborg and Barsebäck in Sweden and Cape Town in South Africa. It will be demonstrated that in such engagement processes, participatory practice is situated in a certain historical and social context that gives structure and meaning to these procedures. Further, this participatory process manifests a complex situation where cultural identity, diverse interests, expediency and morality are indivisible.

The city of Gothenburg is undergoing large changes, being a growing city with many initiated and ongoing urban planning projects. The study presented in this chapter explores how sustainability, as part of politicians' visions, has become part of urban planning activities. To describe the travel and concretization of sustainability, from a visionary ideal to local practice, the concept of translation is used as an analytical lens. The results highlight the importance of unintended consequences. These may cause trouble in terms of deadlines and financial results, but they can also constitute learning situations generating new organizational solutions that can benefit the organization.