Organizational Challenges in the Public Sector. A Qualitative Study of the Swedish Armed Forces and Elderly Care

Abstract

Society is continuously impacted by accelerating technical and social changes that challenge individuals, organizations, and societies. This appears to lead to the emergence of negative organizational behavior patterns that impose high levels of demands on employees. Firstly, the purpose of this study is to qualitatively examine how three organizational challenges—organizational anorexia, organizational greed, and organizational narcissism—are expressed in the Swedish public sector. Secondly, the Swedish Armed Forces and the field of elderly care are compared to discover additional organizational challenges by carrying out comparisons. The sample of organizations used is described in the Methods section. The study’s main findings show that these three organizational challenges have been experienced in different ways in these organizations. A new organizational challenge has appeared, organizational temporality, describing participants’ perceptions of time when carrying out their assigned tasks.