Anneli Matsson
About Anneli Matsson
I am an organizational sociologist and earned my PhD in 2022 with the dissertation The Handshake: Organizing Silence – A Case Study of Pragmatic Differential Treatment in Working Life. The dissertation is a monograph based on an organizational ethnographic case study conducted at a large hospital in Sweden. Three research fields meet in the dissertation: ostracism, organizational politics, and social policy. The work adopts a gender perspective. I argue that differential treatment is a phenomenon within working life that needs to be studied within social work, partly because it is a problem that leads to social exclusion and potentially being maneuvered out of employment—which in turn can result in difficulties supporting oneself due to stigmatization and challenges in obtaining references—and partly because differential treatment leads to mental health problems and increased risk of suicide, and is in principle always traumatizing. The dissertation arrives at a definition of pragmatic differential treatment, which refers to how, when uncertainty in an organization is activated, exclusionary processes are triggered to remove employees who do not match the organization’s politics.
Based on the dissertation, I have received funding from FORTE for a project on silence strategies directed toward female managers in social services: https://www.gu.se/forskning/att-organisera-tystnad. The project runs from 2025 to 2027.
Another research project I am involved in—together with sociologist Louise Svensson at Linköping University and Associate Professor Jörgen Lundälv in Social Work at the University of Gothenburg—concerns buyouts and their role in the labor market. In a collaboration with SSR, we conducted a pilot study with union negotiators who handle buyout agreements involving employees and managers. One article has been accepted in A & A and is awaiting publication. Two additional studies within the project have been initiated: a media analysis and a follow-up focus group with SSR’s negotiators. https://www.gu.se/forskning/utkop
I am also involved in a research project focusing on policy studies of governing documents in the public sector regarding abusive conduct and whistleblowing. Three articles have been published so far within this project (see publications).
My central research interests concern the dynamics of social policy and the labor market, and how these shape currents in working life related to exclusion/control, inequality, safety climate, and risk management within organizations. I am interested in interdisciplinary studies that examine social problems related to working life, such as differential treatment, sexual harassment, instrumental and psychological violence, whistleblowing, buyouts and exclusion from the labor market, rehabilitation policy, inequality norms, as well as labor market crime and corruption. All of these constitute obstacles to sustainable working life, and knowledge about how such practices are enacted and contextualized is crucial for developing models that promote sustainable work environments.
Theoretically, I am primarily interested in ostracism theory, which explains phenomena such as rejection, being ignored, invisibilization, cultures of silence, and organizational maneuvering. Ostracism research intersects with numerous relevant social issues, including marginalization and exclusion from working life, asymmetric conflicts, labor market crime, inequality, eviction, and violence. A gender perspective is central. Theories of epistemic governance and injustice, gendered organizations, and working conditions help illuminate inequality practices in working life generally and within social services specifically. Another theoretical strand is organizational politics, which explains decision-making and what shapes organizational interests, alliances, and how they influence norms, agendas, and decisions. I am also inspired by social philosophy, particularly how societal ideas influence labor market policy and are reproduced in organizational governance and management systems—for example, critiques of NPM/NPG and their underlying logic.
Before entering academia, I worked as a practitioner—mainly in occupational health services—for nearly 20 years. My educational background includes a Master’s degree in psychology, conflict management, social work, and Level-1 training in cognitive psychotherapy. As a practitioner, I specialized in differential treatment and developed an investigation model based on AFS 2015:4. I have extensive practical experience in work environment management, rehabilitation, psychosocial treatment, and supervision of both professionals and managers.
I have also written two popular science books on the subject: Konflikters liv och död (2007; 2017) and Kränkt eller särbehandlad? (2017).
Additionally, I hold a Master’s degree in creative writing and am interested in narrative, storytelling, essayistic writing, metaphors, and how academic writing can be enriched by other literary genres.