About me

My academic background is very diverse and interdisciplinary, ranging from studies in English Literature & Linguistics to Intercultural Communication, European Law & Politics and Sociology. My common interest in these different disciplines has always been the themes of interaction and communication.
 

Teaching

Undergraduate courses:

Organisation and Work, 7.5hp/ECTS

Graduate courses:

Sociological Perspectives on Organisations and Labour Markets, 7.5hp/ECTS

 

Research

 

Research interests

• gig economy
• psychological / informal contracts
• empowerment
• employment protection
• organisational change
• human resource management/development (HRM/D) and leadership
• theories on social exchange and reciprocity
• sociological and social-psychological theories of communication and interaction
   

Current research
 

I am a researcher at the Ratio Institute, Stockholm, and my current focus is on three areas: the gig economy, employment protection legislation (LAS) and psychological contracts. In the project on the gig economy, I am investigating with colleagues how food couriers in the digital platform economy reason about their jobs, why they are working like this, what they like/dislike and their view on their occupational future. In the project on employment protection in Sweden, we investigate how the employment protection act (LAS) works practically for employers, managers/bosses and employees. The project on psychological - or informal - contracts deals with the question how psychological contract breach manifests itself in labor court cases (Arbetsdomstolen).

 

PhD thesis

• Weidenstedt, Linda. 2017. A Sociology of Empowerment: The Relevance of Communicative Contexts for Workplace Change. Stockholm: Department of Sociology, Stockholm University.
   

Peer-reviewed articles

• Weidenstedt, Linda. 2020. "Employee Empowerment and Paternalism: A Conceptual Analysis of Empowerment's Embeddedness in Communicative Contexts." Management Revue - Socioeconomic Studies 4/2020. Forthcoming.

• Weidenstedt, Linda. 2016. "Empowerment Gone Bad: Communicative Consequences of Power Transfers." Socius 2: 1-11. doi:10.1177/2378023116672869.

• Schirmer, Werner, Linda Weidenstedt and Wendelin Reich. 2013. "Respect and Agency. An Empirical Exploration." Current Sociology 61(1): 57-75.

• Schirmer, Werner, Linda Weidenstedt and Wendelin Reich. 2012. "From Tolerance to Respect in Inter-Ethnic Contexts." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38(7): 1049-1065.

Book chapters

• Uddén Sonnegård, Eva and Linda Weidenstedt. 2019. "Hur flexibelt är anställningsskyddet?" s. 212-233 i Stern, C. (ed.), En dynamisk arbetsmarknad. Stockholm: Dialogos.

Reports

• Weidenstedt, Linda, Geissinger, Andrea and Monia Lougui. 2020. Varför gigga som matkurir? Förutsättningar och förväntningar bakom okvalificerat gig-arbete. Ratio Report Nr. 15, 2020. Stockholm: Ratio.

• Stern, Charlotta, Weidenstedt, Linda and Georgios Sideras. 2018. Anställningsskyddets avsedda och oavsedda konsekvenser: Företagarnas perspektiv. Ratio Report Nr. 7, 2018. Stockholm: Ratio.

Working papers

• Stern, Charlotta and Linda Weidenstedt. 2020. "Broken commitments and unfulfilled expectations: An explorative study of Swedish labor court cases." Ratio Working Paper Nr. 339.

• Stern, Charlotta and Linda Weidenstedt. 2020. "Balancing employment protection and what's good for the company. Intended and un-intended consequences of a semi-coercive institution." Ratio Working Paper Nr. 333.

• Weidenstedt, Linda. 2017. "Does One Size Fit All? Investigating Different Empowerment Orientations in the Heterogeneous Workforce of the Swedish Retail Sector." Ratio Working Paper Nr. 296.