Ska du ryta ifrån när det händer dåliga saker på jobbet, trots att du riskerar din karriär? Ska du boka den där billiga Thailandsresan eller ska du avstå för klimatets och framtida generationers skull? Ska du jobba övertid som du lovade chefen, eller ska du stanna hemma och leka med barnen som du lovade dem? 

Det som tas upp i dessa frågor behandlas i denna bok som lojalitetskonflikter. Som människor kan vi nästan inte undgå att ha en rad bindningar eller lojaliteter till specifika personer eller fenomen. Våra lojaliteter kommer dessutom lätt i konflikt med varandra. 

I boken argumenteras för att lojalitetskonflikter är ett mycket generellt fenomen som finns på samhällets alla områden. Här presenteras en begreppsapparat för att förstå lojaliteter och lojalitetskonflikter. Även strategier för att hantera dem tas upp. Lojalitetskonflikter analyseras sedan i alltifrån lätta till svåra och omöjliga fall.

Boken vänder sig till en bred samhällsvetenskaplig läsekrets och syftar till att ge nya uppslag och vara grund för diskussioner inom ämnen som sociologi, arbetsvetenskap, socialt arbete och statsvetenskap.

En klassifikation av olika strategier för att hantera lojalitetskonflikter presenteras. En huvudindelning i denna klassifikation är mellan proaktiva och reaktiva strategier. Inom både den proaktiva och reaktiva inriktningen diskuteras sedan olika varianter. Särskild tyngdpunkt läggs påde reaktiva varianterna eftersom dessa bedöms vara de vanligaste. Exempel på reaktiva varianter som bedöms vara frekventa i arbetslivet är följande tre strategier: uppdelning som innebär att man med hjälp av tid eller rum skiljer på olika lojaliteter och på så sätt hanterar konflikten; gränssättning som innebär att själva gränsen mellan olika lojaliteter blir avgörande för enhantering; samt omdefiniering där konflikten omtolkas så att lojalitetskonflikten mildras ellerupphävs.  

Exploring time loyalty. The interweaving of time and loyalty in faculty administrator’s work strategies

This article has an exploring and theorizing approach and aims to explore the function of the notion of time together with the concept of loyalty. The notion of acceleration of time and the new ”flexible” working life has created a duality where bureaucratic and administrative systems exist side by side with a more flexible organization, within which people can organize and plan their work themselves. That creates unregulated spaces, where administrators have to navigate and manage conflicting loyalties and uncertain responsibilities, creating further uncertainty, putting questions about one’s use of time and loyalties in focus. We explore this development by using the concept time loyalty and use that connection to analyze interviews with administrative staff within a university.

This article concludes that there are ongoing negotiations regarding what to do, for whom, and when as well as legitimizing actions to justify fail responses to loyalty claims.

In this presentation we playfully theorizing the concepts of work and loyalty. It is not unusual to see these concepts related to each other in different ways – loyalty in the workplace and in organizations is a well known phenomenon. But here we intend to take one step further: we explore the possibilities for treating work and loyalty as synonymous. In our previous research we have defined loyalty as a ”binding to something specific”. This binding can exist in many different forms - for example in negative form (as absence of disloyalty), and in positive form (loyalty in form of presence – as emotions and commitment). We have identified six forms of positive loyalty. Vertical-involuntary loyalty, vertical-voluntary, horizontal-involuntary, horizontal-voluntary. Among the positive loyalty forms we also find two forms of self-loyalty – voluntary and involuntary. In our playful theorizing with the two concepts we look for interesting etymological similarities between the words and concepts. One similarity concerns ”legal” aspects of both concepts. Loyalty has roots in the french word ”loi”, and in some definitions of ”work” there is a notion of work as ”legal fulfilment”. In our playful way of theorizing we continue our effort to practice a ”conceptual archaeology” and thereby use some older nearly forgotten research about both work and loyalty. But we also make some important connections to new research. Methodologically we are inspired by Richard Swedberg´s approach of theorizing. Also Karlsson and Bergman´s ideas about the importance of theorizing have influenced us.

Det finns många tankeväckande studier om människors handlingar och beteenden som är värda att uppmärksamma även om de gjordes för 50, 60 eller 70 år sedan. Studierna om vårt sociala liv väcker olika sorters känslor - ibland skratt, ibland nyfikenhet och ibland förfäran - men de ger alltid nya insikter om människan och mänskligt samspel.

I boken presenteras ett urval av de mest kända klassiska socialpsykologiska studierna. Utifrån teman som auktoritet, lydnad, prestationer, strävan efter normalitet och människor i utsatta situationer visar författarna att de klassiska studierna är aktuella även idag. Det finns också tips på filmklipp som läsaren kan titta på genom att rikta sin mobiltelefon mot QR-koderna i boken.

SOCIALPSYKOLOGISKA EXPERIMENT OCH ANDRA MINNESVÄRDA STUDIER vänder sig främst till högskolestudenter inom samhälls- och beteendevetenskapliga utbildningsprogram och ämnen, men är även intressant för alla som vill veta mer om hur människor fungerar tillsammans.

This book discusses different ways in which the cross-roads between emotions and resistance can be theorised. While the sociological field focuses primarily on emotions that are entangled in the relationship between the individual and collective, the cultural studies field has recently started to emphasise affects as a ‘rescue’ from the deterministic aspect of the poststructuralist approach (in which language decides everything) (Hemmings 2005, 2014). Scholars promoting the ‘affective turn’ argue that affects and interpretations are inseparable. By taking affects as the point of departure, it is argued that it is possible to show how bodies move in their own ways, but still in relation to others. Departing from this, it becomes interesting to explore how emotions are involved in different power relations and how they feed resistance. If we accept that emotions and interpretations are entangled and inseparable then we must investigate emotions as powerful forces of resistance.

One way to conceptualize the complexity of working life is to see it through the lens of loyalty. When a person works several loyalties are active – the legal duty of loyalty to the employer; loyalty to colleagues, loyalty to the profession, et cetera.

It is common to make distinctions between different forms of loyalties – it is for example different to be loyal to your friend compared to being loyal to your country. In our own research we have focused on the differences between vertical and horizontal loyalties. But to the best of our knowledge one important distinction is quite absent from previous research about loyalty: The distinction is between negative and positive loyalty. This conceptual pair is inspired by Isaiah Berlins classical discussion about freedom . Berlin theorizes two different forms of freedom – negative freedom (freedom from coercion) and positive freedom (freedom as autonomy and personal development).

George P. Fletcher has in his classical study on loyalty come close to our distinction. He uses the concept of “minimum loyalty” (what we call negative loyalty) and “maximum loyalty” (positive loyalty). The problem with Fletcher´s terminology is that it connotes a quantitative difference when the difference in reality is qualitative. Some loyalties can be characterized as an absence of disloyalty (when a person obeys the legal duty of loyalty) – we call this form negative loyalty. And some loyalties are filled with the presence of emotions, commitment and so on – this is positive loyalty.

The present study is theoretically oriented, and methodologically we have been inspired by Richard Swedberg’s notion of theorizing and his ideas about its central role in social science.