Pay Reform Justifications and Criticisms - Institutional Logics in the Legitimation and Delegitimation of a New Managerial Practice

Sini Jämsén

Research output: ThesisDoctoral ThesisMonograph

Abstract

This study concentrates on the legitimation and delegitimation of a new pay system in an organisation, and how institutional logics are present in this process. During the 1990s and 2000s, pay systems based on job evaluations and performance appraisals spread widely in both the public and private sectors of Finland. The Evangelical Lutheran Church was one of the last major public organisations in Finland to introduce the evaluation-based pay system in 2007. This thesis reports a case study of the pay reform, and the reception of the new system. The empirical data consists of 77 trade union member journal articles from the years 2005-2010, and semi-structured interviews of 66 people (32 individual and 9 group interviews). The analysis focus on how the legitimacy and illegitimacy of the new pay system are constructed by the justifications and criticism produced by various actors. Legitimacy is a central concept in organisational institutionalism, and a prerequisite of the institutionalisation of specific practices. Many researchers have argued that actors shape the legitimacy of practices by making persuasive arguments that justify and rationalise practices. In the thesis, the justifications and criticisms are studied through qualitative analysis of articles published in relevant specialist journals and interview data of key change agents and other members of local organisations. The results illustrate how the justifications of the new pay system were quite general, and very loosely connected to specific features of the Church. In comparison, the criticisms of the pay reform focused more on the specific features of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, drawing on contextualised arguments. The findings also reveal the role of various institutional logics in constructing the pay reform and its legitimation and delegitimation. The thesis examined institutional logics in the data, understood as bodies of cultural beliefs, interests, values, and assumptions that influenced the actors' perceptions of legitimacy, among other things. Institutional logics were captured through the analysis of keywords constituting institutional vocabularies. The analysis highlights three central institutional logics prevalent in the construction of legitimacy and illegitimacy: the logics of the new pay system, the Church, and labour market organisations. A central implication of the analysis is the systematically different ways in which various social groups viewed the pay reform: justifications and criticisms given of the reform differed across the various trade union journals and interviewee groups. Moreover, the analysis revealed an inconsequential number of remarks concerning the fit between the Church mission and the new pay system. In effect, the new pay system appeared to be decoupled from the core logic of the organisation. The strong position of trade unions in the pay reform is a probable reason for the decoupling in this case.
Translated title of the contributionUuden palkkausjärjestelmän perustelut ja kritiikki - Institutionaaliset logiikat uudistuksen legitimoinnissa ja delegitimoinnissa
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDoctor's degree
Awarding Institution
  • Aalto University
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Vartiainen, Matti, Supervising Professor
  • Maaniemi, Johanna, Thesis Advisor
Publisher
Print ISBNs978-952-60-7751-2
Electronic ISBNs978-952-60-7752-9
Publication statusPublished - 2017
MoE publication typeG4 Doctoral dissertation (monograph)

Keywords

  • pay reform
  • pay system
  • job evaluation
  • performance appraisal
  • institutional theory
  • legitimation
  • evangelical lutheran church of finland
  • trade union

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