Hannes Landén (2025)
PhD thesis in sociology. Uppsala: University of Uppsala
- External reviewer: Bertil Rolandsson
- Supervisors: Patrik Aspers, Andreas Melldahl, Michael Allvin
Abstract. In sociological accounts of post-industrial societies, rising work complexity and increasing demands on workers’ competencies are seen as defining features. However, since recruitment and work are typically studied in isolation and without employer perspectives, how the expectations placed on workers during recruitment correspond to work content remains underexplored. This thesis builds on a case study of Swedish pharmacy retail – an industry marked by labour shortages and tensions between professional standards and redefined service ideals following a 2009 marketisation reform. It examines: (1) the meanings and practices through which recruitment is organised; (2) the challenges of pharmacists’ everyday work; and (3) the extent to which ideal pharmacists, as constructed in recruitment, align with actual work content. Theoretically, the thesis draws on economic sociology to conceptualise employers as situated between labour markets and customer markets, enabling an analysis of how asymmetries between them shape the purchasing and use of labour power.
The study shows that employers’ preferences for extroverted, flexible, and engaged pharmacists align with tasks requiring swiftness and interactional skills – especially in maintaining legitimacy for an industry at the intersection of welfare and commerce. Yet other findings reveal a divergence between employer practices. Although professional development features prominently in attraction discourses, the main complexities at work arise in areas partly unrelated to pharmacists’ disciplinary expertise. Moreover, selection processes are driven by a commitment to finding competence, leading to hiring thresholds beyond actual needs, even as companies opt to provide services with limited pharmacist involvement. These findings are understood through the concept of loose couplings, which can help employers meet strategic goals while reinforcing organisational control and discipline among job-seeking pharmacists.
Rather than confirming a straightforward link between complex work and higher skill demands, the thesis shows how competence is revalued across market contexts.
Extract: “Whereas the second empirical chapter focus on candidate traits, the third chapter examines how evaluations are made, that is, it examines outines, practices, tools, and ideals for what an ideal process looks like. This chapter relies on interviews with evaluators (that is, pharmacy managers, recruiters, and sometimes regional managers acting as deputy pharmacy managers). The coding procedure for this analysis focused first on the different evaluation tools, procedures, and ideals for how to evaluate candidates (cf. “conventions” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006; Brandl 2020; Larquier and Marchal 2016)), and second on what may be termed an attitudinal dimension. In line with what in the theory chapter is called a commitment (as opposed to legitimacy as appearance), I coded instances where evaluators articulate the importance of the whole practice of selection, and to what extent spending resources (in terms of time, attention and organisational finances) on it seems worthwhile.” (p. 112)
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
GdL (30 octobre 2025). Labour Power in Purchase and Use. Employers’ Divergent Valuations in Swedish Pharmacy Retail. Économie des conventions. Consulté le 9 février 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/152bt