Coordination versus organization: Diverging logics of firm cooperation in Denmark and Sweden

Abstract

Employers and their business associations have become increasingly important actors promoting market competition – even in once highly coordinated and regulated European economies. Based on a comparison of the Danish and Swedish telecommunications industries, we ask how differences in business association structures relate to the ways firms cooperate in competitive markets. In Denmark, fragmented, competing business associations encouraged a more unstable logic of coordination, with firms predominately focussed on pursuing particularistic interests in public policy lobbying and exit‐oriented strategies in employment relations. In contrast, the unified business association in Sweden encouraged a logic of organization, with firms predominately seeking collective good provision in public policy lobbying and engaging in mutual gains bargaining. Findings contribute to debates on the role of business associations in fostering firm cooperation and collective regulation.

Explaining varieties of social solidarity in supply chains: Actors, institutions and market risks distribution in outsourced public services

“…Extant literature has demonstrated how an intensified price-based competition promoted through outsourcing can trigger processes of institutional erosion, thus leading to a massive redistribution of market risks towards workers (Greer & Umney, 2022). Recent researches have shown a general redirection of employer collective action towards 'market-enhancing' ends, also in traditionally solidaristic and inclusive systems like the Danish and Swedish ones studied by Ibsen et al (2023). Nevertheless, such an employers' approach to public procurement still encountered the obstacle of an encompassing institutional framework able to re-embed disruptive market dynamics in the system through solidaristic forms of coordination (Thelen, 2014).…”

“…However, this literature suffers from two shortcomings. First, by concentrating on inter‐model country variation, inferring the explanatory capacity of institutions of labour regulation (Doellgast et al., 2009; Grimshaw, Rubery, Anxo et al., 2015), it underestimates the intra‐model granular distinctiveness and heterogeneous developments between analogous systems (Ibsen et al., 2023; Oliver, 2011). This may give rise to the risk of overestimating the explanatory capacity of institutions and the distributional effects of their configuration for employment and working conditions.…”

“…From this perspective, social solidarity pursued by inclusive institutional configurations can be defined as the willingness to collectively share market risks -'the risks produced by the functioning of the labour market' (Votinius, 2014:367) -and accept the resulting distributional implications between workers and employers, thereby generating a redistribution that goes from high-risk groups to low-risk ones (Reil et al, 2006). However, most studies concentrated on this dichotomous inter-model country variation, inferring the explanatory capacity of institutions of labour regulation and labour-market factors (Doellgast et al, 2009;Grimshaw, Rubery, Anxo et al, 2015), but they have underestimated the intra-model distinctiveness between analogous systems (Ibsen et al, 2023;Oliver, 2011). Neglect of heterogeneous developments among similar systems may give rise to the risk of overestimating the explanatory capacity of institutions and the distributional effects of their configuration on working conditions.…”

“…However, most studies concentrated on this dichotomous inter‐model country variation, inferring the explanatory capacity of institutions of labour regulation and labour‐market factors (Doellgast et al., 2009; Grimshaw, Rubery, Anxo et al., 2015), but they have underestimated the intra‐model distinctiveness between analogous systems (Ibsen et al., 2023; Oliver, 2011). Neglect of heterogeneous developments among similar systems may give rise to the risk of overestimating the explanatory capacity of institutions and the distributional effects of their configuration on working conditions.…”

“…Neglect of heterogeneous developments among similar systems may give rise to the risk of overestimating the explanatory capacity of institutions and the distributional effects of their configuration on working conditions. Moreover, this body of research has only marginally incorporated the actors into the heuristic framework by treating their agency as a determinant of (divergent) outcomes within both different and similar institutional configurations which shape constraints and opportunities in their strategies (Benassi et al., 2016; Bosch, 2018; Helfen et al., 2020; Ibsen et al., 2023; Krachler et al., 2021).…”