Title Hidden attractions of administration : the peculiar appeal of meetings and documents / Malin Åkerström, Katarina Jacobsson, Erika Andersson Cederholm and David Wästerfors

Edition First Edition Published New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021 © 2021

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Description 1 online resource Series Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Work, Professions and Organisations Contents Eigendynamik -- The administration society -- Seductive gatherings -- Sneaky work and aways -- A spark of magic -- Beauty and boost -- Spirals of meetings and documents -- Dramatizing administrative skills -- Muddy transparency -- The devotion to teaching -- Magic, emotions and morality Summary "This book argues that the expansion of administrative activities in today's working life is driven not only by pressure from above, but also from below. The authors examine the inner dynamics of people-processing organizations - those formally working for clients, patients, or students - to uncover the hidden attractions of doing administrative work, despite all the complaints and laments about 'too many meetings' or 'too much paperwork'. There is something appealing to those compelled to participate in today's constantly multiplying and expanding administration that defies popular framings of it as merely pressure from above. Hidden Attractions of Administration shows in detail the emotional attractiveness, moral conflicts, and almost magical features that administrative tasks often entail in today's organizations, supported by an ethnographic study consisting of over 200 qualitative interviews and participant observations from 10 organizational settings and contexts across Sweden. The authors also question and complement explanations in administration-related research that have previously been taken for granted, arguing that it is a simplification to attribute all aspects of the change to New Public Management and instead taking into account what the classic sociologist Georg Simmel called an Eigendynamik: a self-reinforcing tendency that, under certain circumstances, needs only a nudge in an administrative direction to get going. By applying ethnography to issues of bureaucratization and meeting cultures and by drawing on findings in emotional sociology and social anthropology, this volume contributes to both the sociology of work and the study of human service organizations and will appeal to scholars and students working across both areas"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes In English Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher Subject Ethnology -- Fieldwork -- Sweden Human services -- Sweden -- Administration Social work administration -- Sweden Health services administration -- Sweden Police administration -- Sweden Public institutions -- Sweden Meetings. meetings. Ethnology -- Fieldwork Health services administration Human services -- Administration Meetings Police administration Public institutions Social work administration Sweden Form Electronic book Author Jacobsson, Katarina, author Andersson Cederholm, Erika, 1965- author LC no. 2020054831 ISBN 9781003108436 1003108431 1000392279 9781000392272

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