Th e manifestly required qualifications in job advertisements in theJournal of the Swedish Dental Associationwere analyzed as indicators of th e organizational ideology in the Swedish Public Dental Health Servicefro m the employers’ viewpoint. Al l job advertisements that concerned dentists an d managers on differenthierarchical level s in general dentistry from January 199 0 to December 199 8 were included (n= 1152).Th e number of vacancies was 1856 . Th e textual material wa s analyzed by content analysis, permittingquantitative descriptions of the tex t and analysis of th e laten t characteristics. Words an d phrases wereclassified into categories on different level s of abstraction developed fro m the theoretical background an dthe purpose of the study. Altogether 5705 required qualifications wer e categorized. Th e inter-coderreliability of the first-level categorization resulted in 81% correspondence of the classification, an dl= 0.90 . Qualifications wer e mor e frequently required wit h higher hierarchical jo b positions, an dpersonality characteristics were mor e frequent tha n technical competence an d knowledge. Qualificationsinterpreted as related to economic goal s occurred mor e frequently than thos e related to odontologicalgoals. The qualification demands reflected the language of human resource management (HR M),emphasizing the ‘soft ’ people-centered approach an d was interpreted as an ‘ideal ’ model of HRM. Dentistswere regarded as a profitable organizational asse t rather tha n participants in relations wit h patients. Inconclusion, the results indicate an organizational ideology primarily of economic character.