Högskolan i Skövde

Drawing on the transaction cost analysis perspective, this study examines how three types of exchange risks influence performance in exporter-importer exchange relationships. These risks include cultural distance, which gives rise to behavioral uncertainty and its associated measurement problem; market turbulence, a dimension of environmental uncertainty that gives rise to an adaptation problem; and transaction-specific assets, representing a safeguarding problem. The conceptual model assesses how an informal governance mechanism, inter-organizational trust, responds to these three exchange risks and, in doing so, fosters relational and export performance. Based on a structural equation model conducted in PLS, our findings indicate that cultural distance relates positively to inter-organizational trust, and market turbulence positively relates to exporter-specific assets. Exporter-specific assets and inter-organizational trust were found to have a reciprocal relationship. This research also confirms the mediating role of relational performance concerning the effects of exporter-specific assets and inter-organizational trust on financial export performance. 

Tillitsdelegationens arbete har varit viktigt genom att det har fört upp tillit på agendan i offentliga organisationer. Men tillit är ingen styrform. Däremot är tillit en av många viktiga aspekter att ta hänsyn till när det gäller styrning och ledning av offentliga verksamheter. Det här kapitlet är ett försök att ta tillbaka tillit som begrepp och visa hur vi kan förstå tillit som fenomen.

Den inledande delen av kapitlet beskriver vikten av att inte använda etiketten New Public Management (NPM) svepande för att beskriva de problem som tillit ska vara lösningen på, utan i stället se NPM som en institutionaliserad del av offentlig verksamhet som vi behöver förstå för att också bättre förstå förutsättningarna för tillit i offentliga organisationer. Kapitlet går sedan vidare med att beskriva en viktig aspekt av många offentliga organisationer – dess professioner. Tillitsdelegationens texter präglas av en stor tillit till just professionerna, den bilden nyanseras här. Avslutningsvis beskrivs två möjliga vägar framåt. Den ena bygger på en mer relationsorienterad professionalism och den andra bygger på ett utvecklat medarbetarskap. Gemensamt för dem är att de fokuserar på vad som kan skapa goda förutsättningar för tillit i offentliga verksamheter, där tonvikten ligger på samarbetsorienterade relationer snarare än stort handlingsutrymme och självstyre.

Purpose: Healthcare organisations are often described as less innovative than other organisations, since organisational culture works against innovations. In this paper, the authors ask whether it has to be that way or whether is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse nurturing an innovative culture within a healthcare organisation and how culture can support innovations in such a healthcare organisation.

Design/methodology/approach: Based on a qualitative case study of a healthcare unit that changed, within a few years, from having no innovations to repeatedly generating innovations, the authors describe important aspects of how innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive analysis steps.

Findings: The study shows that it is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. Relationships and competences beyond healthcare, empowering structures and signalling the importance of innovation work with resources all proved to be important. All are aspects that a manager can influence. In this case, the manager's role in nurturing innovative culture was very important.

Practical implications: This study highlights that an innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare organisations and that managers can play a key role in such a process.

Originality/value: The paper describes and analyses an innovative culture in a healthcare unit and identifies important conditions and strategies for nurturing innovative culture in healthcare organisations. 

Resource orchestration (RO) is a strategic management framework that details various processes by which how firms structure, bundle, and leverage resources. This study reviews how RO has been considered in environmental management research.The review highlights some limitations on how RO has been used in studies on environmental management, and it also illustrates a lack of knowledge accumulation in the field. To realize the full potential of RO, the concept of green RO is developed. Green RO (GRO) is defined as a firm's capability to coordinate and manage the structuring of resources and the bundling and leveraging of capabilities to create economicvalue for the company while simultaneously creating environmental benefits. Three main research areas for GRO are described: GRO as an organizational or managerial meta-capability, management of specific GRO processes, and the synchronization ofseveral GRO processes.

The purpose of this chapter is to understand social innovation in small family firms in Sweden. The study draws on three Swedish small family firms, exemplifying different types of innovation in these firms. Examples range from incremental innovations to social innovations, illustrating the diversity of innovation in small family firms. These innovations are conceptualized as a continuum of innovations, which is depending on the degree of involvement of owner-managers on the one hand and the degree of involvement of employees on the other hand.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand how family firms manage a crisis by applying a processual perspective addressing the different phases of a crisis, including its origin, context and consequences. Drawing on a study of six family firms, we find that the leadership of the owning family signifies crisis management in family firms. Also, family firms rely on multiple crisis management practices and make use of their relationships and networks, which support crisis management at different stages. Socioemotional wealth can be both a trigger and a consequence of crisis management procedures. This study contributes to the literature by providing a more nuanced and developed crisis management model that accounts for the peculiarities of family firms. We argue that it is of the greatest importance to consider the consequences of a crisis whose origin stems from the owning family. In particular, such crises will trigger the owning family, as their socioemotional endowment would be at risk, which can free family resources for crisis management practices.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the family firm identity is affected when it is no longer publicly communicated. Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was used to follow a third-generation family business, a large Swedish home electronics firm that acquired a competitor and, initially, continued using its family firm identity after the acquisition. This study longitudinally tracks the company and its owning family using archival data combined with interviews. Findings: The case company decided to stop communicating their identity as a family business. Such a move initially appears counterintuitive, since it potentially threatens the family firm identity and leads the firm to forgo other advantages, e.g. in branding. However, the decision was based on arguments that were rational from a business perspective, leading to a decoupling of family and firm identity. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by showing a decoupling of internally experienced and externally communicated identities. It further contributes to the understanding of the family firm identity concept.

Purpose: This article investigates how strategic flexibility (SF) is achieved in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), exploring whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Design/methodology/approach: To offer a more nuanced view of SF in SMEs, a qualitative approach is applied. Researchers conducted and analyzed 91 interviews with owners and chief executive officers (CEOs) of SMEs exhibiting high growth and explored whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Findings: The results show a connection between SF and firm growth and confirm the importance of strategic orientation for SF in SMEs. Contrary to the existing literature, this study found a neutral impact of external networks and a positive impact of slack resources on SF. The lack of competent employees emerged as a considerable barrier to SF in SMEs.

Research limitations/implications: More research focusing on the relationship between SF and firm growth is suggested, as well as further research about the relevance of slack resources and external networks as enablers of SF in SMEs.

Practical implications: Motivating and developing valuable employee competence are the key managerial implications. Additionally, business consultants and business developers in the public sector must find ways to increase business consultants and business developers' relevance to SMEs.

Originality/value: This article explores SF in SMEs, a context of disagreement in previous literature, and finds that SF contributes to SME growth. A qualitative approach is used, enrichening a field dominated by quantitative methodological choices. 

Because of concerns that ongoing climate change could lead to a possible collapse of human civilization, the topic of societal (civilization) collapse has emerged as especially relevant, not least for the futures-oriented studies. While this has led to extensive research on societal collapse, there is a lack of consolidation and synthesis of the research. The purpose of this article is thus to systematize the extant research on societal collapse and suggest future research directions. This article offers a systematic multidisciplinary review of the existing literature (361 articles and 73 books) and identifies five scholarly conversations: past collapses, general explanations of collapse, alternatives to collapse, fictional collapses, and future climate change and societal collapse. The review builds the foundation for a critical discussion of each line of inquiry by focusing on theoretical tensions and themes within each scholarly conversation, ending with a discussion of how these conversations inform futures research.

Research Question: What are the requirements and expectations of each class of external stakeholders? Is there any convergence between the identified expectations? Motivation: There is a large variety of stakeholder expectations that universities are confronted with in their permanent search for social legitimacy, acknowledgement and survival. In the case of accounting study programs, their strong relationships with practitioners and professional associations, as emphasized in previous research in accounting education in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, add to the expectations that need to be met. Idea: This paper explores external stakeholder expectations of accounting study programs provided by Romanian universities, in order to identify the elements to which these expectations converge.Data: Data was collected only from public documents (laws and regulations, reports, studies, press releases, websites of relevant bodies etc.). Tools: A review of relevant public documents has been performed. Findings: As expected, all stakeholders require quality. Still, they ascribe different meanings to quality, evaluate quality in different manners, and hence exert various pressures. More, we observed that all types of isomorphism: coercive, mimetic, normative, as well as competitive are involved in assuring quality and meeting expectations.Contribution: The study contributes to literature with a complex approach, employingstakeholder and institutional theory, in the context of the extensive environment of higher education. In terms of practice, by taking stock of stakeholder requirements and expectations,the study calls the attention of decision makers to stakeholder pressures and the need to adjust accounting study programs accordingly.

Most of the entrepreneurship education (EE) efforts have been directed to business creation as the preferredoption for entrepreneurial activity. Considering the ever-increasing number of businesses to be transferredand thus the need for people who are willing and interested in seeing a business transfer as a careeroption, this one-sided view is unsatisfactory. Inspired by the "attention-interest-desire-action"" model frommarketing, this paper brings together the existing literature and the authors'own research and teachingexperience to propose research directions that can lay the theoretical foundation to incorporate businesstransfers more clearly in EE. This underlines that value creation through entrepreneurship can take differentforms and adds a missing but relevant part to EE and its development

Even though there is a plethora of research on the role of environmental turbulence in organizational performance in general, little attention has been paid to the effect of environmental turbulence on cyber security risk management and further - organizational resilience. Drawing on the resource-based view and contingency theory, this study investigates how technological and market turbulence influence organizational cyber security risk management (CSRM) and then organizational resilience. Using a data set from 150 European companies, the study findings show how the two types of turbulence have different effects on CSRM in the companies studied. Technological turbulence directly impacts the firms’ cyber security risk maturity while market turbulence has a direct positive affect on firms’ cyber security risk perception. The study also determines the interplay between risk perception and risk maturity and subsequent resilience.

It is increasingly argued that public management should build on a service logic instead of the prevailing manufacturing logic of New Public Management (NPM). Drawing from three cases in Swedish public healthcare, key features of a service logic such as value creation, co-production, and collaboration are prominent in formal documents and everyday talk. However, the 67 interviews in this study reveal that the service logic ideal is practically unreachable in a context impregnated by NPM. Instead, we suggest that street-level bureaucrats often need to address service logic expectations (public values, relationship-building, etc.) using an NPM logic (measurements, control, etc.). 

Syftet med detta kapitel är att utifrån ett chefsperspektiv beskriva och analysera tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning i kommunal verksamhet och hur den fungerar i praktiken. Det nya styr- och ledningssystemet ska ersätta New Public Management, NPM. I kapitlet beskrivs vad tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning, TSL, är och vilken kritik det fått. Ett dilemma är att det nya styr- och ledningssystemet ibland visat sig svårförståeligt för de chefer som ska implementera systemet i praktiken; de upplever att det är svårt att veta hur de på bästa sätt ska implementera det av politiker beslutade systemet. Genom att låta chefer från två kommuner diskutera dilemmat i fokusgrupper, illustrerar kapitlet hur TSL fungerar i praktiken. Resultatet visar på svårigheter att få ett tillitsbaserat system att fungera praktiskt. Slutsatsen är att TSL snarare är ett samspel mellan chef och medarbetare i ett socialt system som bygger på delaktighet, dialog och ömsesidighet, vilket inte kan sägas vara ett styr- och ledningssystem i sig. Däremot framkommer att delar av det gamla systemet finns kvar i kommunerna, varför paradoxen blir att implementering av tillitsbaserad styrning- och ledning måste vila på något gammalt.

Purpose – Considering the increasing interest devoted to knowledge hiding in the workplace and academicresearch, the aim of this study is to analyze the existing literature on knowledge hiding to understand andtrace how it has evolved over time and to uncover emerging areas for future research.

Design/methodology/approach – The study used performance analysis and science mapping toanalyze a sample of 243 studies published between 2005 and 2022. The study focused on analyzing thescientific productivity of articles, themes and authors.

Findings – The results of performance and science mapping analysis indicate that the concept ofknowledge hiding behavior evolved recently and a majority of the studies have been conducted in the pastdecade. The study found that knowledge hiding is still in its infancy and has been studied in relation to otherthemes such as knowledge sharing, knowledge management, knowledge withholding and knowledgetransfer. The study identified emerging themes, productive authors and countries, affiliations, collaborationnetwork of authors, countries and institutions and co-occurrence of keywords.

Originality/value – Compared to the recent developments in the knowledge hiding behavior, the presentstudy is more comprehensive in terms of the methods and databases used. The results of the study contributeto the existing literature on knowledge hiding and knowledge withholding.

The public sector is becoming increasingly complex. As complexity leadership theory has been formulated in order to understand leadership in such a context, it thus seems appropriate that it should inform public leadership research. However, the applicability of complexity leadership theory and the concomitant adaptive leadership practices have thus far been underexplored empirically in a public sector context. To address this omission, this article uses a qualitative case study to exemplify how adaptive leadership practices may manifest themselves in a public sector context. The article’s findings indicate that adaptive leadership practices that reduce, rather than induce, tension within the dynamics of actors’ interactions may be a more viable route to handle challenges within a public sector context. Future research could beneficially pay greater attention to the public sector context when studying how adaptive leadership practices might manifest themselves in public sector organizations, as well as when assessing the merits of complexity leadership theory in informing public leadership.

In light of current debates on ‘protective’ and ‘connective’ professionalism, this article explores a new type of occupational position that is emerging within the Swedish public sector: the cross-sector strategist. The growing presence of this intermediary occupational position is seen as attempts to formalize and institutionalize the imprecise roles and governance of ‘wicked’ policy problems, and the job of these strategists is focused on supporting other jurisdictions to meet and act. By pursuing connective strategies in the form of triggering, selling, bridging, brokering, and forming accountabilities, cross-sector strategists seek to establish embedded workspaces where strategic action and decisions can be produced jointly and across jurisdictional boundaries. The study illustrates how calls for changes in professional action towards connectivity are now part of the formal organizational structure of public sector organizations, confirming the incapability of professional actors to connect in the absence of intermediary support functions. In the concluding discussion, we consider the relevance of ‘connective professionalism’ as a descriptive theoretical device applied to work settings understood as increasingly complex and interdependent, with calls for inter-professional collaboration and intensifying engagement in preventing problems rather than simply treating them.

Purpose: This study explores how the family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant businesses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on inductive multiple-case studies using 34 in-depth interviews. This paper relies on three cases of immigrant entrepreneurs originating from Mexico and Colombia that established firms in Sweden. Findings: The results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in the presence of family roles (i.e. inspirers, backers and partners), resulting in the immigrant family business configurations of family-role-influenced proactiveness, risk-taking and innovation. Originality/value: The immigrant family configurations drive three EO-enabling scenarios: (1) home-country framing, (2) family backing and (3) transnational translating. Immigrant family dynamics facilitate the development of EO over time through reciprocal interaction processes across contexts. This study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO develops as mutually interactive processes between the immigrant entrepreneur's family in the home and host countries. 

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the managerial cognitive capabilities within the real estate industry are manifested and used to develop strategies to encounter economic decline. Based on the framework of dynamic capabilities (DC) and the related concept of managerial cognitive capabilities, the present study offers deeper insights in the strategic management of the real estate industry. Since the case study method allows a deeper understanding of investigated phenomena, new empirical conditions can be revealed and theory developed. Based on ten case studies, we identify the managerial micro-foundations at the individual level. Thereby, we explain how managers’ managerial cognitive capabilities affect and create the real estate company’s strategy. The results will be compiled in tables and analyzed by first-order categories, second-order themes, and aggregated theoretical dimensions, which enables us to present a strategy-based configuration of the real estate managerial cognitive capabilities.

New Public Management (NPM) and Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) are two fundamental concepts within welfare professions. Both NPM and EBP are central to many debates within welfare, and often criticised as posing simplified or positivist approaches to management and knowledge utilization. Epistemologically, both are manifestations of modernity, with its emphases on standardization, control, simple causality and measurability. These epistemological similarities have not been explored as potential doorways for making modifications to NPM and EBP. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to new ways of thinking and doing management and EBP of complex welfare issues by increasing the epistemological understanding of these concepts. NPM and EBP are taken here as subjects for joint conceptual analysis. The paper is guided by the following question: What is an appropriate epistemology for professionals involved in EBP and managing? Literature on NPM and EBP are analyzed together with theoretical insights from scholarship on formalization and heterogeneity of expertise, and analyzed in light of empirical examples taken from a case of a subregional social sustainability/public health initiative. Drawing on the development of post-NPM and more complex versions of EBP, the paper ends by introducing the notion post-EBP, and concludes by outlining some implications of this concept for the working professions. 

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of communities of practice (CoP) as knowledge-sharing tools in family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this context, CoPs that jointly involve family and non-family members are expected to act as knowledge-sharing tools. Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs a multiple case study methodology, analysing the cases of six small companies in different sectors and countries over a period of 8 years. Both primary and secondary data are used. Findings: The results show the role CoPs play in involving family and non-family members in empowering knowledge-sharing initiatives. A CoP's role in knowledge sharing depends on the presence (or lack) of a family leader, the leadership approach, the degree of cohesion around shared approaches and values within the CoP, and the presence of multiple generations at work. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in family businesses, by exploring for the first time the role of the CoP as a knowledge-sharing tool, depending on families' involvement in the CoP. 

Mobile usage and internet consumption have marked tremendous growth in the last decade. The adoption of mobile technology has gained the attention of researchers, and few studies have been carried out to understand the factors of mobile technology adoption. This study aims to understand the factors affecting mobile wallet app adoption among Indian consumers. The study explores the factors that impact wallet app adoption and the mediating role of satisfaction between wallet app adoption and its continuous usage. A conceptual model was developed based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) framework and tested on 424 responses collected from India’s Delhi NCR capital region. The original UTAUT framework has been extended by adding factors: enjoyment, aesthetics, incentives, and trust. The hypothesized relationships were analysed by using the structural equation modelling (SEM) method. Geographical limitations, the younger population as a prominent respondent in the study, and longitudinal study were reported as a few of the limitations of the study. The findings of the study would help the mobile wallet app developers and providers by providing valuable insights which in turn can be implemented by them to frame their strategies for increased adoption of the wallet apps. 

Collegiality is considered a hallmark of professionalism and involves specialization, equality, and leadership based on profession. Traditionally, within a profession, collegiality is treated as given and dealt with intra-professionally. This article, in contrast, studies collegiality as institutional work within the organizational context. We analyse how professionals and managers in a highly professionalized and institutionalized organization perform collegiality as institutional work. Interview and observational data shed light on collegiality in the practices of pastors in the Church of Norway. The findings highlight collegiality as a cultural ideal and a process of work beyond a mere governance structure. Collegial meetings constitute structural work that signals the intersection of conceptual work (theology) and operational work (daily challenges), facilitated by relational work. This article shows how collegiality constitutes institutional work that not only maintains the pastor profession as an institution but also gradually adapts it in response to external demands and strengthened management.

This article uses a global multilevel sample to advance our understanding of the gender gap in youth entrepreneurship by investigating the joint moderating influence of in-group support and national embeddedness values on young women’s entrepreneurial activity relative to that of young men. Based on a mixed embeddedness theoretical lens, our moderation analysis demonstrates the importance of in-group support in narrowing the gender gap in youth entrepreneurship. Moreover, in-group support enhances young women’s entrepreneurship vis-à-vis that of young men primarily in countries with strong embeddedness values. Our findings contribute to the entrepreneurial gender gap literature as well as to the comparative entrepreneurship literature, by providing evidence of the joint role of micro-level and macro-level cultural layers in reducing the entrepreneurial gender gap. Implications for theory, practice and policy are provided.