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THE GREAT DUTCH WORK DISABILITY EPIDEMIC: CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTION

Robert Hooijberg (Rutgers‐the State University of New Jersey)
Richard H. Price (University of Michigan)
Akkeneel Talsma (University of Michigan)

The International Journal of Organizational Analysis

ISSN: 1055-3185

Article publication date: 1 April 1994

79

Abstract

We propose that institutional actors do not just ceremonially comply with the cultural values in their environment, as institutional theorists have suggested. Instead, we argue that institutional actors can use conflicting cultural values as tools to further their interests and, in doing so, affect significant social problems and cause unanticipated changes in their core goals and policies. To present support for that proposition, we describe an epidemic of work disability that occurred in the Netherlands between 1967 and 1988. The epidemic is examined in light of conflicting Dutch cultural conceptions of the meaning of work and the meaning of economic security in the welfare state. The behavior of key institutional actors, including the government, medical institutions, employers, and labor unions, is examined to identify their roles in the epidemic. We assert that, by pursuing its own interests while upholding Dutch cultural values, each institutional actor produced conditions in which the work disability epidemic could occur.

Citation

Hooijberg, R., Price, R.H. and Talsma, A. (1994), "THE GREAT DUTCH WORK DISABILITY EPIDEMIC: CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTION", The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 384-404. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb028817

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1994, MCB UP Limited

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