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The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of intra-organizationaltrust in public organizations by studying interpersonal trust in both vertical andhorizontal relationships from a bidirectional perspective. Previous research hasfocused on trust at a single level of analysis, ignoring influences from other organizationallevels, which has led to gaps in our understanding of trust. In addition, fewstudies take a bidirectional perspective where a trustor is simultaneously a trustee andvice versa. Through a case study, we contributed to filling this gap by studying theantecedents of trust – ability, benevolence and integrity.

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to generate further knowledge about strategic management accounting (SMA) in the public sector context. The authors attempt to do this through a study of SMA work in a public sector agency (PSA), the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The paper elaborates on the formation of the agency's strategies and the challenges the agency's SMA work had to deal with, and focuses its analysis on the interplay between SMA and the characteristics of the public sector as well as how it is constitutive of strategy.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical material was gathered between 2013 and 2015 and consists of documents that include the STA's appropriation, mandate, strategic and operational plans, and balanced scorecard, as well as interviews with 35 civil servants at various levels of the STA.FindingsThe study finds that, depending on the performances of PSAs in their specific environment and the influences from the environment's constituents, SMA may function as an instrument that makes or breaks strategies. The characteristics of the public sector context may therefore affect SMA, and by extension, strategy, in several ways. First, the present case shows that the inherent reduction that the focus of SMA techniques entails, and their inability to deal with the complexity of a PSA's context, places them at constant risk of becoming strategically irrelevant in the eyes of knowledgeable local managers in a PSA. Second, interventions from the government may override a PSA's SMA and in effect make a PSA's strategic focus ambiguous. Third, outside monitoring performed by such actors as the National Audit Office and the mass media may influence a PSA's SMA work both directly and indirectly when the agency and the government are responsive to the agenda set by such scrutiny.Originality/valueThe paper broadens the scope of earlier SMA research in the public sector by including the specific characteristics of the public sector in the analysis

In our paper we try to understand strategic management (SM) at the Swedish Public Employment Services (SPES), one of the largest tax-funded central agencies in Sweden. The agency has been struggling to strategically manage not only contradictory goals and wicked problems due to rapid changes in political governance, but also a rapidly growing unemployment in society due to the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 epidemic. We have studied SPES between 2015-2021 and treated it as a case using qualitative methods of document studies, observations and 180 interviews with e.g. board members, managers and employees at SPES as well as politicians and union representants. To understand how SPES “do” SM we have used Moore’s (1995) strategic triangle as an analytical framework. Recently, an increasing number of scholars have taken an interest in SM from a public value approach (see e.g. Bracci et al., 2019; Bryson et al., 2014a; 2014b; 2015; 2017; Hartley et al., 2017; Mintrom and Luetjens, 2017). The three nodes of the strategic triangle framework – the authorising environment, public value creation and operational capacity – recognise that there are key issues affecting most, if not all, public sector organisations (Alford and Greve, 2017). However, as several researchers has noted there is a lack of empirical research on the subject of SM and public value (see e.g. Bracci et al., 2019; Bryson et al., 2017b; Hartley et al., 2017; Höglund et al, 2021), as well as on how people “do” SM in practice (se e.g. George and Desmidt, 2014; Höglund et al., 2018a; Höglund and Mårtensson, 2019). Our paper is an attempt to contribute to this call by addressing the following RQ: How do public organizations “do” SM during extraordinary times? The findings suggest that SM tend to fall short in extraordinary times as COVID19, due to ad hoc management that focuses on short term goals that most of the times do not align with previous stated strategic goals and/or the creation of lon, Arbetsförmedlingen har bidragit finansiellt till detta papper. Kan dock inte hitta dem som forskningfinansiärer etc.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of public value in practice by applying Moore's (1995) strategic triangle as an analytical framework to study strategic management and management control practices in relation to public value. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses an interpretative longitudinal case study approach including qualitative methods of document studies and interviews between 2017 and 2019. Findings In the strategic triangle, the three nodes of authorising environment, public value creation and operational capacity are interdependent, and alignment is a necessity for a strategy to be successful. But this alignment is vulnerable. The findings suggest three propositions: (1) strategic alignment is vulnerable to management control practices having a strong focus on performance measurements, (2) strategic alignment is vulnerable to standardised management control practices and (3) strategic alignment is vulnerable to politically driven management control practices. Originality/value With the strategic triangle as a base, this paper tries to understand what kind of management control practices enable and/or constrain public value, as there has been a call for this kind of research. In this way it adds to earlier research on public value, to the growing interest in the strategic triangle as an analytical framework in analysing empirical material and to the request for more empirical studies on the subject. The strategic triangle also embraces political factors, government agendas and political leadership for which there has also been a call for more research.

A regional smart specialization initiative is investigated from aquadruple helix framework (industry, government, academia, andusers/civil society). Based on a qualitative case study, we examinethe interdependencies of actors, resources, and activities from amicro perspective. The aim is to understand the relationships andthe value created between the different actors. From the resultswe conclude that the fourth helix should be viewed as a whole –an arena where triple helix actors in different value addingrelationships take on different roles – where they create valueto civil society, for example, new jobs or products for improvedelderly care. In line with this, we state that the fourth helix is farmore complex than limiting it to simply become a fourth separatehelix of users or civil society. There is a complexity in thatthe fourth helix consists of both different users (including triplehelix actors) as well as civil society. Users in the quadruple helixframework can also be defined in several ways depending on thecontext of the arena (the fourth helix) and what value addingactivities they bring to civil society. Thus, users can be businesses,organizations, citizens, society, and many more things.

In this paper, we study how entrepreneurial and strategic processes develop in a public-sector organisation through a theoretical lens of Strategic Entrepreneurship (SE). Previous literature on SE practices identified a number of organisational aspects—such as organisational culture, structure, and entrepreneurial leadership—that are important to manage in order to benefit from new opportunities and strategic actions. So far, there is little knowledge about SE practices in the public sector and their possible consequences. There are also few qualitative studies in the field of SE, though arguments have been made for it. Our study is based on a longitudinal and qualitative process approach focusing on the work of the Swedish Public Employment Service’s (SPES) efforts to realise its new strategy through entrepreneurial and strategic processes. The results showed that there are several organisational tensions in relation to the processes of entrepreneurship. We have empirically contributed to previous literature by studying the SE practices of simultaneously balancing the processes of entrepreneurship and strategy. We have also contributed to a more nuanced discussion of the complexity of implementing SE practices and their relationship to organisational culture, structure and entrepreneurial leadership., Projekt Arbetsförmedlingen vid SCORE, Stockholms universitet

The aim of this study is to contribute to the debate on publish and perish, which is a phenomenon that, for a long time, has been a theme of discussion. This phenomenon has affected many academic disciplines (Miller et al. 2011), including accounting. It is described to be the result of the increased competition that has developed based on the desire to identify the productiveness of universities, departments and faculties. It has created the pressure on scholars to produce quality outputs in the form of publications in high-ranked international refereed journals. This study adopts the idea that high-ranked academic journals are setting the context for what is valid and not valid in accounting scholarship, i.e. high-ranked international refereed journals becomes the prevalent discourse for how researchers supposed to write and think about research in accounting scholarship. The purpose of this paper is through a discourse analysis study if the same phenomena that are apparent in the prevalent discourse of accounting set by top journals also can be seen in the less prestigious and lower-ranked journals of accounting.

This study reports on an attempt to remove management accounting's calculative practices at the operational level of a Swedish Public Agency. Using a Habermasian perspective, the study shows how the agency has attempted to replace the previous accounting practice, which involved target setting, performance management and measurement with a new leadership philosophy, and accounting practices that aim at generalizing the individual's private interest toward organizational interests. The result is interpreted as an attempt to make the individual responsible for the welfare of the collective in which, in its absence, the kind of validity that accounting's calculative practices enable is very much present as a longing to soothe the anxiety and uncertainty brought about by the responsibility to lead oneself.

Strategic management (SM) is argued to be increasingly important for shaping the performance of public organizations (Poister, 2010; Andrews et al. 2012). In relation to performance, activities of monitoring and evaluation are described as important to succeed with strategy work in public sector (Plant 2009; Poister 2010), but few studies have been done on this area (Höglund 2015; Höglund et al., 2018). This is despite the fact that an important part of SM in the public sector is reporting on performance through some form of administrated performance information (see e.g. Weiss, 2016). It is, nevertheless, not easy to incorporate SM into the public sector (Elbanna et al., 2016; Poister 2010; Weiss 2016), as these theories builds on private sector ideas that focus on profitability, competitive advantage, a unique market position, and growth through market-shares, performance aspects not always well-suited to the public sector (Ferlie and Ongaro 2015; Höglund et al., 2018; Lane and Wallis 2009). One of the few that explore possible performance measurements in public sector context is Lane (2008) who suggest that public sector should focus on delivering service e.g. the quantity of service, quality of service, service satisfaction and distribution of service. That this kind of performance measurements are important to understand in order to get an idea of what kind of value a public organization is contributing to the society and its citizens. Drawing upon the aspects of performance and public value we introduce public value management (PVM) by addressing the strategic questions of (Moore, 1995; Stoker 2006): Is it valuable for the public? Is it legitimate and politically supported? Do we have the operational capacity? In this way contributing with an analytical framework of SM in public sector that focus on performance and its relation to public value. In short, the proposed paper can be seen as an attempt to meet up with the call to enhance our understanding of

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study how different types of trust develop and change over time in the collaboration between an organization and its board. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a response to a recent call to apply the concept of trust in understanding the collaboration between a public organization, its board, and other stakeholders. Here, the authors study a single case, and based on a longitudinal in-depth case study method covering the period of 2003–2015, the authors have conducted 27 interviews, including the CEO and all the board members. Findings The authors introduce and advance the concept of trust in the public sector literature on board work. This paper shows that trust is complex and multidimensional at different units of analysis. The types of trust discussed in this paper are cognitive, affective, contractual, competence, and goodwill. Different types of trust are developed to make the collaboration between a governed organization and its board to work. Research limitations/implications Because this paper uses the case study method and only studies one single case, the findings of this paper might be questioned on the issue of generalization. Originality/value The authors conceptualize and adopt trust as a multidimensional, dynamic concept, and with different units of analyses, capture the nature of the collaboration between a public organization and its board, and its complexity.

This study uses the concept of interpretative repertoires, i.e., localized discourses, to examine how facts are constructed about strategic work in a central government agency. It analyzes strategic work in relation to the public sector context and draws attention to power struggles among different discourses in this context. The identified repertoires can be related to wider public sector management discourses that civil servants need to balance in their strategic work. These discourses can both enable and constrain strategy work, and we conclude that strategy in the public sector needs to be understood in relation to these discourses.

This article explores Robotdalen, a smart specialization initiative in the region of Malardalen, Sweden, and its impact on regional innovation systems (RIS). The Robotdaleninitiative, with the goal to create a regional center for robotics, was established based onthe triple helix innovation systems model of industry, university, and government interaction.This paper aims to understand the dynamic interactions of the smart specializationstrategy in relation to the RIS. It also includes the perspective of the fourth helix, whichcontains civil society and users. To date, there has been a scarcity of research whichexplores the challenges of quadruple helix models from a micro perspective to understandtheir complexity. To address this, a single case study approach is taken, which includes alongitudinal perspective of 10 years (2007–2016). The analysis includes micro activitiesexplored from a strategizing perspective. The research contributes by identifying threestrategic practices that have evolved over time for Robotdalen. It also presents an empiricaloperationalization of the fourth helix, as well discusses the arrival of the fourth helixperspective.

The purpose of this paper is to study how strategic and entrepreneurial processes develop in a public-sector organization. We do this through the theoretical lens of Strategic Entrepreneurship (SE). Previous literature on SE practices have identified a number of organizational aspects – such as culture, structure, and leadership – that are important to manage in order to benefit from new opportunities and strategic actions. So far, there is little knowledge about SE practices in the public sector and its possible consequences. There are also few qualitative studies within SE. When more qualitative features of SE are attained, it can provide a better understanding of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship in established organizations and SE. In line with this, our study is based on a longitudinal and qualitative process approach focusing on the work of the Swedish Public Employment Services (SPES) efforts to realize its new strategy through entrepreneurial processes. The results showed that there are several tensions between previous culture, leadership and structure in relation to entrepreneurial processes. We have contributed to previous literature by focusing on the organizational aspects of these tensions and the SE practices of balancing strategic management and entrepreneurship. Our results also show how entrepreneurial processes become the solution to strategic management problems in the public sector and a managerial tool for renewal., AES - Akademin för Ekonomistyrning i staten vid Stockholms universitet

There has been a request for more studies on how public sector organizations apply Strategic Management (SM) in practice. This paper is our attempt to meet this request by presenting a qualitative case study of how a digitalization strategy was used to apply SM in the Swedish Transport Administration, a central government agency in Sweden. The empirical data contains 67 interviews at different hierarchical levels, focus group interviews and document studies. Eight of the interviews specifically targeted the work on the digitalization strategy. To analyse the empirical data, we aligned with the strategizing perspective focusing on possible tensions in strategy work. Thus, the aim of the paper is to further develop our knowledge of strategy work in the public sector by enhancing our understanding of what tensions strategy work brings about in the public sector and how these tensions potentially affect strategy making. By analysing strategizing micro processes, our results indicate that when working on digitalization, public sector organizations need to be aware of at least four possible tensions that can enable or constrain strategy making. These tensions are: legitimacy vs. practicality, administrative management vs. innovative approaches, accessibility vs. security and planned vs. emergent strategies.

Despite growing interest in discourse and strategy, few studies have examined their role in the public sector. This study uses the concept of interpretative repertoires, i.e., localized discourses, to examine how facts are constructed about strategic work in a central government agency. It analyzes strategic work in relation to the public sector context and draws attention to power struggles among different repertoires in this context. The identified repertoires can be related to wider public sector management discourses that civil servants need to balance in their strategic work. These discourses can both enable and constrain strategy work, and we conclude that strategy in the public sector needs to be understood in relation to these discourses.

Previous research has called for an enhanced understanding of the dynamic and interactional aspects of board work in public sector governance. Using a longitudinal case study of Robotdalen, this paper attempts to meet this call through a processual and qualitative study of board work in public organisations. The aim of the paper is to enhance our understanding of the human side of governance and the interactions between a board, the management in the governed organisation and other stakeholders. We do this by addressing the theoretical concept of an expec- tations gap. The results demonstrated how funding regimes in uence governance functions, structures and practices at the organisational level, and how internal actors such as managers also carry out governance functions. Moreover, the results show how an expectations gap shifts and changes over time. In this way we have contributed a more nuanced theoretical understanding of how the governance func- tion is co-produced and the importance of understanding the expectations gap to further understand the dynamics of public sector board work.

The purpose of this paper is to study the first phase—from 2014 to 2016—of the Swedish Public Employment Service's renewal journey by examining how the agency worked to achieve its new strategy through processes of strategic management and entrepreneurship. We did this through the theoretical lens of strategic entrepreneurship (SE). The results showed that the agency's renewal processes are simultaneously entrepreneurial and strategic. The agency is historically well known for its detailed management and control, which creates several tensions with entrepreneurship. We contributed to previous literature by focusing on the organizational aspects of these tensions and the SE practices of balancing entrepreneurship with strategic management.

A strategic transformation process of a Swedish agency, i.e. the Swedish Public Employment Service, is discussed from a trust framework. Lately, the agency has been heavily criticized internally (by managers and employees) and externally (by different stakeholders) for failing in fulfilling its goals and deliver inadequate services. In 2014, the agency launched a new strategy – to become trustworthy and to deliver better services to its customers. It was the agency’s attempt to move away from the old authoritarian bureaucratic management style towards introducing trust-based management control. The old and the new way of managing the agency creates tensions that are difficult to overcome and where mistrust at different levels within the organization is a major obstacle affecting the ongoing transformation process. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how trust is reconstructed in vertical and horizontal relationships within a public service delivery agency that experiences an extensive transformation process. Drawing upon a processual case study approach, we have conducted 65 interviews, observations and document studies. The results show how the agency have suffered from low levels of trust in both vertical and horizontal relationships and that low levels of trust in vertical relationships seem to have negative impact on horizontal collaborations within the agency. The paper contributes to previous research in the following ways. First, the reconstruction of trust is discussed from a time perspective, pointing at the importance of discussing the development of trust in terms of a past, a present and a future. Second, within the paper, trust is discussed in both vertical relationships (i.e. relationships between employees/managers) as well as horizontal relationships (i.e. relationships between co-workers) within the same analytical framework, which enables a discussion about the impact of trust development in vertical relationships on the development of trust, AES - Akademin för ekonomistyrning i staten vid Stockholm Business School

The present article asks how strategy is expressed through different strategic management accounting (SMA) techniques in a public organization - the Swedish Transport Administration. Strategic management (SM) emphasizes the importance of long-term, proactive and holistic thinking in strategic work. The results of this study, however, shows that these characteristics are much more difficult to represent in public organizations. This is due to the contextual conditions in the public sector. For example, public organizations do not have the authority to influence all aspects of SM. The results also show that it is not only the contextual conditions that a public organization must take into account in order to understand its strategic work, but also the management practice and the specific SMA techniques used. One conclusion is that we need another dimension of strategic management accounting, namely management accounting of control practices. On the basis of the identified tensions in relations to SMA, namely between; parts/hole, short-/ long-term, reactivity / proactivity and complexity/simplicity, we propose a conceptual model to characterize management accounting of control practices with reference to strategy.

Won the best paper award.

Objectives The main objective of this paper is to enhance our understanding of entrepreneurship in established organizations, and the activities labelled as strategic entrepreneurship (SE). Literature review Drawing upon the literature on interpretative repertoires (IR) and the SE literatures interest in the practice of balancing between opportunity and advantage-seeking activities, I have meet the objective by addressing the following research question: how are opportunity and advantage positions constructed? In this way contributing to the most recent research on SE practices, but also adhere to the linguistic turn within entrepreneurship research. Approach/method Following the linguistic turn, I take an ÍR approach by the study of the discursive practice of constructing opportunity and advantage positions. Empirical material has been generated qualitatively through 28 interviews and document studies within two middle-sized firms in Sweden. Results/Findings The results show how opportunity and advantage positions were constructed by the use of multiple IR. Moreover, the results indicate the importance to understand what repertoires are consumed and produced within the organization as IR have constitutive effects upon what will be privileged within the firm or not. In the studied firms the repertoires used were constructed upon reactivity while the firm tried to position themselves as proactive. Value/ Implications Few entrepreneurship scholars have studied how IR are used and produced, and even fewer has studied the discursive practice of constructing opportunity and advantage positions, an approach that gives us an alternative understanding and a new language of SE practices and the construction work of people in practice. In this way making several important theoretical contributions e.g. by suggesting that opportunities and advantages are not dual, rather they are co-constructed and emerge in social interaction.

Taking a micro-perspective of governance that includes problem-solving and stakeholder involvement capabilities as part of the strategic steering role, we wish to contribute to the understanding of the human side of governance. Thus we have studied the relationships between the board and its management and stakeholders, and in so doing we recognize internal and external actors as well as the board itself, and how they all contribute to the implementation of the governance function. Methodology/approach Based on an interpretative approach that focuses on change over time, we performed a qualitative empirical study of the governance of Robotdalen, a small non-profit public organization in Sweden that is a joint public and private collaboration. This chapter forms part of a longitudinal study that has been carried out since 2009. It is based primarily on interviews with board members, management and other stakeholders, and complemented by document studies and observations. Findings Governance practice entails multiple and multilevel tasks, and the tensions between representativeness/professional boards, conformance/performance, and controlling/partnering up with management, are prevalent in both small non-profit and public organizations. According to our results the apparent choice between the extremes of each tension is, however, not a choice at all but rather a balancing act. In trying to balance tensions through collaboration between managers, board, financiers, and the hosting university, new governance structures and practices emerge at the organizational level. Originality/value By following the process of the emergence of a new board, we illustrate how various actors work together to co-produce governance functions in practice. In the past little or no effort has been made to take into account contextual factors such as organizational size – an aspect that may influence or shape board characteristics and work methodology. We therefore attempt to do so in our cha

This is a book about entrepreneurship in established organizations: an organizational form of entrepreneurship. The classical view of entrepreneurship, both in literature and society in large, has been that of the entrepreneur starting a new business or venture. Nevertheless, the importance of entrepreneurship in established organization has grown significantly in past decades, and one way to address this phenomenon has been through the concept of strategic entrepreneurship. Hence, it has been argued that management of strategic entrepreneurship practices is the key to long term wealth creation and survival, of both public and private organizations, by leveraging on innovation. In this way drawing upon entrepreneurship to become more dynamic and flexible towards their market. The first part of the book will give you as a reader a state of the art literature review on what has been privileged in strategic entrepreneurship research, while the second part will enhance our understanding of strategic entrepreneurship by taking on an interactional and processual view. In this way reframing strategic entrepreneurship into organizing renewal in established organization. As such, challenge what has been taken for granted among strategic entrepreneurship scholars by providing alternative versions and a new language that paints another picture of what strategic entrepreneurship could be in organizations, its practices and how it could be studied. The book is written mainly with business students on an advanced or PhD level in mind, but also for people that take an interest in learning more about strategic entrepreneurship practices in a context of organizing renewal in established organizations.

Strategic management (SM) is now prominent on the agenda of public administration (PA) scholars and practitioners e.g. in Swedish Central Agencies, and is said to become increasingly relevant in public organizations due to new public management (NPM) changes. Some scholars even suggests that the models of SM takes us beoynd NPM towards something new where SM becomes the core of the organization. SM has so far mainly been studied in a context of the private sector, and the main concern in public sector research on SM has been on how to translate the concepts of competitive advantage, growth and profitability into a public sector context. We however argue the importance to further elaborate on the nature of strategy by addressing a greater range of SM theories, and its usefulness for PA. There is also a lack of studies investigating how public organizations actually apply SM in practice. We have studied how SM has been applied in the Swedish Transport Administration (STA), a central government agency. The empirical material is based on document studies and interviews with 85 top- , middle- and lower-level managers, strategists and other employees. SM is supposed to lead to e.g. decentralization, a long term holistic perspective and strategic thinking. However, our results indicate when public sector do their interpretation of SM they tend to become quite centralized, fixated on shortterm measurements and focused on operative matters. One explanation for this seems to be that SM is translated into a NPM discourse, altering the initial intentions with SM. This suggests that NPM becomes an important contextual aspect to consider when SM-are implemented in the public sector. Key words: strategic management (SM), public administration (PA) public sector, strategy, new public management (NPM).

In this paper, we have studied the implementation of strategic management in the Swedish Transport Administration, a central government agency. We do this by taking on a discourse approach and by the study of discursive practices this paper aims to highlight and problematize different events and possible challenges of implementing strategic management in the public sector and what the consequences of such work has on the civil servant. Most previous research on strategic management has so far been made on the private sector showing that it is a complex task to get a whole organization to fully embrace a strategy, which makes the implementation process difficult and to receive expected performance of the strategy. However, our results indicate that the complexity increases even more in a context of a central government agency were there are several conflicting discourses of Public Administration (PA), New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG) that the civil servant needs to balance in their strategic work. A conclusion is drawn that the implementation of strategic management in public sector needs to be understood in a context of these conflicting discourses.

In this paper we study the doings of practitioners in established firms and how theydraw on practices in the opportunity- and advantage-seeking process. A processreferred to as strategic entrepreneurship (SE) by many scholars. SE is not a newphenomenon, thus it has been research in this area by scholars in the domain ofentrepreneurship as well as in strategic management. However it has only recently beenconceptualized into a construct of practice. A problem though is when trying to furtherconceptualize this research area, to learn more about the practice of SE, previousresearch has a tendency to ignore the actions of humans and the unit-of-analysis hasbeen on a level of the industry, firm and/or resources. Therefore, in this paper wesuggest an alternative unit-of-analysis that draws on social practice theory and theconcepts of practice, praxis and practitioners. Thus, incorporate more of human actionsin the SE-process.