ABSTRACT
A basic idea of this study is that investments in measures that aim to improve employees’ health and well-being operate as principal means in the management of contemporary organizations. By drawing on our study of Scania, we will explore this managerial dimension of health promotion practices by distinguishing first, what the different policies, programs and activities devised by Scania’s Health Organization (HO) focus on and seek to alter among those individuals whom they concern. That is, what type of problems induces these investments in the health and well-being of Scania’s employees? Furthermore, what ethical substance are they trying to change or rectify in order to solve these problems and in order to improve the condition of the individual employees? Second, we discuss how the policies, programs and activities devised by the HO seek to achieve this ‘improvement’ of the condition of the individual employees. That is, through which methods and principles do the professionals at the HO try to alter specific aspects of individual employees’ behavior, their physical and psychological conditions? Third, what kind of employee do these policies, programs and activities either implicitly or explicitly idealize? That is, what type of individual subject do the policies, programs and activities that the HO offers try to bring forth? In relation to that, what type of individual subject do they seek to prevent from surfacing? Finally, we wish to discern the underlying goals or visions that motivate this whole endeavor. That is, what does Scania intentionally or unintentionally achieve through the policies, programs and activities undertaken by the HO?
