Business administration is the largest subject at Higher Education Institutions in Sweden with about 12 per cent of all students enrolled in higher education. As such, it is important for universities and students alike to understand and discuss how the study choice of business administration is constructed by students. Business administration has in previous research been described as a practical study choice with close connections to industry, but also associated with status and potential prosperous careers in the labour market (Brunsson, 2011; Engwall, 2009; Hasselbladh och Holmqvist, 2013; Rehn, 2007). This paper builds on an interview study with twenty first semester business students at two Swedish universities of different societal status (Lindell, 2016). The students were asked to describe and explain their study choice and their expected future. The interviews were analyzed using analytical perspectives from discursive psychology. Interpretative repertoires are locally produced discourse or locally available linguistic constructions (Gilbert och Mulkay, 1984; Wetherell och Potter, 1992). Aim of the paper is to identify, spell out and discuss the ideological dilemma that appear when business administration students have reflected about their study choice. We use interpretative repertories for positioning, which means linguistic construction of identity (Edley och Wetherell, 1997; Korobov, 2013; Wetherell, 1998). Through language we can both construct positions, adopt positions, and resist positions in a given social context. When using interpretative repertoires ideological dilemmas occur when conflicting positions are created around an individual or group of individuals (Billig m.fl., 1988; Edley, 2001). In the interview material the student’s accounts create an ideological dilemma that is handled by adopting positions as individualists or altruists. The paper concludes with recommendations for business programs to handle these positions.
Keywords: business administration, first semester business students, discursive psychology, ideological dilemmas
References
Billig, Michael, Condor, Susan, Edwards, Derek, Crane, M, Middleton, D, & Radley, A. (1988). Ideological Dilemmas: A social psychology of everyday thinking. London: SAGE.
Brunsson, Nils (Red.). (2011). Företagsekonomins frågor. Stockholm: SNS Förlag.
Edley, Nigel. (2001). Analysing Masculinity: Interpretative Repetoires, Ideological Dilemmas and Subject Positions. I M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Red.), Discourse as Data. Glasgow: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Edley, Nigel, & Wetherell, Margaret. (1997). Jockeying for position: The construction of masculine identities.Discourse & society, 8(2), 203-217.
Engwall, Lars. (2009). Mercury meets Minerva. Business studies and higher education. The swedish case. Stockholm: EFI The Economic Research Institute.
Gilbert, G Nigel, & Mulkay, Michael Joseph. (1984). Opening Pandora's box: A sociological analysis of scientists' discourse. Cambridge: CUP Archive.
Hasselbladh, Hans, & Holmqvist, Mikael (Red.). (2013). Företagsekonomin och samhället. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Korobov, Neill. (2013). Positioning identities. A discursive approach to the negotiation of gendered categories. Narrative Inquiry, 23(1), 111-131.
Lindell, Eva (2016). Företagsekonomistudentens studieval. Mannen, individualisten och altruisten. Mälardalen University Press Dissertations No. 215. Västerås: Mälardalen University Press.
Rehn, Alf. (2007). Vad är företagsekonomi. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur.
Wetherell, Margaret. (1998). Positioning and interpetive repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse & Society, 9(3), 387-412.
Wetherell, Margaret, & Potter, Jonathan. (1992). Mapping the language of rasicm: Discourse and the legitimisation of exploitation. New York: Columbia university press.
2a. Provision, quality of and access to education
