Required qualifications in the Swedish Public Dental Health Service as indicators of organizational ideology

Abstract

The manifestly required qualifications in job advertisements in the Journal of the Swedish Dental Association were analyzed as indicators of the organizational ideology in the Swedish Public Dental Health Service from the employers' viewpoint. All job advertisements that concerned dentists and managers on different hierarchical levels in general dentistry from January 1990 to December 1998 were included (n = 1152). The number of vacancies was 1856. The textual material was analyzed by content analysis, permitting quantitative descriptions of the text and analysis of the latent characteristics. Words and phrases were classified into categories on different levels of abstraction developed from the theoretical background and the purpose of the study. Altogether 5705 required qualifications were categorized. The inter-coder reliability of the first-level categorization resulted in 81% correspondence of the classification, and u = 0.90. Qualifications were more frequently required with higher hierarchical job positions, and personality characteristics were more frequent than technical competence and knowledge. Qualifications interpreted as related to economic goals occurred more frequently than those related to odontological goals. The qualification demands reflected the language of human resource management (HRM), emphasizing the 'soft' people-centered approach and was interpreted as an 'ideal' model of HRM. Dentists were regarded as a profitable organizational asset rather than participants in relations with patients. In conclusion, the results indicate an organizational ideology primarily of economic character.