Sweden’s institutionalized employment protection legislation, ‘LAS’, is interesting theoretically because parts of it are semi-coercive. The semi-coerciveness makes it possible for firms and unions under collective agreements to negotiate departures from the law. Thus, the law is more flexible than the legal text suggests. The present study explores intended and unintended consequences of LAS as experienced by managers of smaller manufacturing companies. The results suggest that managers support the idea of employment protection in principle but face a difficult balancing act in dealing with LAS. From their point of view, the legislation’s institutional legitimacy is low, producing local cultures of hypocrisy and pretense. The article gives insights into how institutions aimed at specific, intended behavior sometimes end up producing unintended consequences fostering the opposite.

瑞典的制度化就业保护立法“ LAS”在理论上很有趣，因为它的一部分是半强制性的。半强制性使集体协议下的公司和工会有可能就违反法律进行谈判。因此，法律比法律文本所建议的更为灵活。本研究探讨了小型制造公司的经理所经历的LAS的预期和非预期的后果。结果表明，管理人员在原则上支持就业保护的思想，但在处理LAS方面面临困难的平衡行为。从他们的角度来看，该立法的制度合法性很低，产生了伪善和伪装的当地文化。本文提供了有关机构如何针对特定，