Affiliations: National Institute for Working Life, Department of
Work and Health, Studentplan 1, House A, SE-831 40 Östersund, Sweden.
Tel.: +46 63 55 13 24; Fax: +46 63 55 13 20; E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract: The welfare sector in Sweden has undergone extensive changes during
the last 15 years, and private and cooperative actors have entered the public
market. In the light of high sick-leave rates, especially in female-dominated
professions, it is important to identify factors that can help to improve the
working conditions and promote health among employees. The purpose of this
study was to compare how two of these factors, participation and control, are
perceived by employees in three different forms of ownership: public,
cooperative and private. In all, 186 employees working at seven geriatric care
institutions with three ownership forms were invited to participate in the
study. 82% responded to a questionnaire containing issues related to working
conditions, e.g. control and participation. The one-way ANOVA and
Kruskal-Wallis were used to analyse the findings among the three groups of
employees working in public, cooperative or private setting. Results showed
that employees in cooperatives experienced more participation than employees
working in the public and private sectors in two out of four variables –
employee's voice concerning work environment issues and sympathetic response
from the manager and decision-making concerning work activities at large.
As expected, there were no difference in perceived control between ownership
forms, which might be explained by the fact that the work nature in geriatric
care is rather regulated, restricted and formalized, regardless of ownership
form, resulting in limited freedom over the work situation for the individual
employee.
Keywords: Control, participation, health promotion, public, cooperative, private
