No abstract

Since diversity management was introduced in Europe in the late 1990s, it has been debated whether this new concept would act as a catalyst of organizational change in favour of underprivileged groups. This article argues that diversity management is interpreted in a specific societal and organizational context, and indicates how strong institutions make their impact on Danish versions of diversity management. On the basis of a case study of the implementation of diversity management in a specific organization, the authors analyse how discourses of diversity management and corporate social responsibility are combined. The study suggests that this version of diversity management potentially leads to changes in the positions of ethnic minorities, primarily in the form of assimilation, as it maintains a focus on the sameness of people, not on the value of difference or otherness.

This article explores how a nationwide reform initiative, calling for a rehabilitative, activating and 'training' approach to elderly people in Danish homecare services, may transform gendered and embodied conceptions of 'the professional care worker'. Care work for the elderly is a low-paid and low-status occupation, affected by the stigma connected with elderly bodies. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a homecare unit, this article shows how the adoption of a new distanced, goal-oriented approach to elderly bodies attempts to transform professional identities, and how care work is constructed as reflexive and change oriented, in contrast to emotional and relational approaches. This transformation potentially leads to a more advantageous position for care workers in gendered professional hierarchies. Simultaneously this process seems to render care workers' own bodies more visible, problematizing what are perceived as uncontrolled and unhealthy care worker bodies. The article thus argues that rehabilitative eldercare leads to an intertwining of two forms of bodywork, where work on the care worker's own body and the elderly body mutually constitute each other in a novel body-body articulation.

Welfare technologies have within the last few years become a new mantra for reforming the Nordic public health and social care, and are increasingly making their impact on working life of care professionals.Welfare technologies – a term exclusively used in a Nordic context – is a broad and loosely defined concept that covers a wide array of technologies such as tele-care solutions, automatic toilets, eating robots, GPS-trackers, and many others. They are envisioned as leading to a new and smarter form of retrenchment, promising better quality, empowerment of clients, and work that is smarter and more qualified (e.g., Danish government et al. 2013). Together with other reform initiatives like coproduction, rehabili- tation, and user-involvement, welfare technologies aim at enabling a change in the role of the clients/patients, stressing their resourcefulness and potentials and encouraging to self-responsibilization and self-care (Rose 1998; Triantafillou 2017).This implies a fundamental reorganization of care work, a transformation of what care and care work is about, and consequently of meaning and identity in work (see, e.g., Barnes & Cotterell 2012; Järvinen 2012; Kirkegaard & Andersen 2018; Meldgaard Hansen & Kamp 2018). More concretely, we may expect changes in work tasks, social relations and forms of cooperation between occupational groups, and new relations to clients/patients and their relatives. This may not only imply new challenges and strains in work but may also present new possibilities for employees to engage creatively in shaping work in ways that makes care work more meaningful and sustainable. (...)

Purpose -Focus on the qualities and rhythms of time are important in order to understand strain and learning opportunities in modern working life. This article aims to develop a framework for exploring the qualities of time in boundaryless work, and to explore self-management of time as a process, where the relations between time and tasks are negotiated. Design/methodology/approach -The article consists of a theoretical part that takes inspiration from newer time sociology and leads to proposal of a framework that focuses on the relation between identity, meaning and qualities of time. The empirical part illustrates the use of the framework. The authors present a case study of teachers' work at an elementary school based on qualitative data collected by observations, teachers' time dairies and individual and group interviews. Findings -The authors suggest an analytical framework where temporal order is a core concept, and points at conflicts between multiple temporal orders as a focus for empirical studies. On the basis of the case study the article discusses how mastering of time conflicts is an integrated part of doing the job and how professional identity and meaning is at stake in this process.Research limitations/implications -The article urges for a renewal in research on time and strain at work, and discusses how self-management of time becomes a new area for learning at the workplace, implying that collective arenas should be established. Originality/value -The article offers an original contribution to understanding and studying temporal aspects of work and the role of learning processes.