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Berg, M. & Olsson, J. (2023). Managing public value conflicts – Institutional strategies and the greening of public pension funds. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 39(4), Article ID 101301.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Managing public value conflicts – Institutional strategies and the greening of public pension funds
2023 (English)In: Scandinavian Journal of Management, ISSN 0956-5221, E-ISSN 1873-3387, Vol. 39, no 4, article id 101301Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Greening public organizations demands the acknowledgment and reconciliation of tensions and conflicts between core values. This is a challenge that public pension funds have come to face as the call for sustainability has reached the finance sector. Building on the value pluralism debate and institutional theory this article provides a theoretical elaboration of strategies for managing value conflict in public organizations, discussing how value conflict management may promote or inhibit institutional change. The empirical analysis explores how sustainability-related value conflicts are managed within Swedish public pension funds. Political goals and ideals of sustainable finance are pushing funds to promote sustainability through their investments, thus, to consider and promote further values than financial return. Previous research has mainly focused on the financial profitability of sustainability concerns. This study shows that economic value calculation remains the dominant approach within funds, downplaying any conflict between environmental and financial goals. However, to maintain institutional legitimacy under increasing external pressure, the funds have implemented complementary strategies, such as organizational separation of value-related tasks, and different principles for prioritizing value-based actions. The funds thereby avoid ethical reasoning which they fear would lead to subjectivity. In conclusion, the implications for organizational change are discussed.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2023
Keywords
Public management, Value conflict management, Value pluralism, Rational economic calculation, Sustainability goals, Ethical reasoning
National Category
Political Science Sociology
Research subject
Political Science; Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-108383 (URN)10.1016/j.scaman.2023.101301 (DOI)001082006200001 ()2-s2.0-85171467774 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2018 00912
Available from: 2023-09-20 Created: 2023-09-20 Last updated: 2024-02-27Bibliographically approved
Åström, J., Olsson, J. & Hysing, E. (2022). Does Policy Influence Hollow Out Public Managers’ Political Neutrality?. Administration & Society, 54(6), 1019-1044
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Does Policy Influence Hollow Out Public Managers’ Political Neutrality?
2022 (English)In: Administration & Society, ISSN 0095-3997, E-ISSN 1552-3039, Vol. 54, no 6, p. 1019-1044Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Consequences of public officials’ policy influence have been at the center of debates on political–administrative relations. Based on a survey of public managers in Swedish local government (N = 1,430), this study examines whether policy politics hollows out political neutrality. The analysis shows that although managers are highly involved in policy politics, attitudinal support for the neutrality principle is strong. The enquiry into behavioral intentions shows more variation. In relation to a set of dilemmas, most managers would defend neutral competence, but significant minorities would also act for more partisan reasons. However, we find no empirical evidence that policy influence undermines political neutrality.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2022
Keywords
political-administrative relations, political neutrality, policy politics, public managers, Swedish local government
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-95248 (URN)10.1177/00953997211050305 (DOI)000711568200001 ()2-s2.0-85118199897 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2021-10-27 Created: 2021-10-27 Last updated: 2022-11-28Bibliographically approved
Boudin, J. & Olsson, J. (2021). Sustainability in Public Pension Funds? A Longitudinal Study of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish AP Funds. Sustainability, 13(1), Article ID 429.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Sustainability in Public Pension Funds? A Longitudinal Study of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish AP Funds
2021 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 13, no 1, article id 429Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Are public pension funds taking sustainability values into serious consideration? This question is addressed by analyzing annual reports of The Council on Ethics in the Swedish public pension system, which has a clear mission from The Swedish Government to consider sustainability values. The council was established in 2007 and supports four funds with advice. This article studies empirically how the council’s expression of words connected to different values has changed over time as well as how it practically reasons in situations of value conflicts. The quantitative data shows that words indicative of “sustainability values” have considerably increased. As a contrast, the critical discourse analysis shows that the council often reasons in a general, loose way about preferable solutions, while more practical claims for action are largely lacking or are vague in relation to sustainable development. The underlying rationale is very much in line with the discourse of economic rationalism. Thus, the quantitative findings suggest an emerging sustainability discourse, while the qualitative analysis clearly indicates that an economic rationale continues to underpin the council’s practical reasoning. However, it is concluded that this is not a simple case of green washing documents but rather a slow train moving towards green institutional change.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2021
Keywords
sustainability, public pension funds, Council on Ethics, critical discourse analysis, economic rationalism
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-88472 (URN)10.3390/su13010429 (DOI)000606361400001 ()2-s2.0-85099772760 (Scopus ID)
Projects
Green Public Ethics
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2018-00912
Available from: 2021-01-12 Created: 2021-01-12 Last updated: 2023-12-08Bibliographically approved
Olsson, J. (2020). Bildning och hållbar utveckling ur ett statsvetenskapligt perspektiv. In: Magnus Boström, Christian Lundahl och Johan Öhman (Ed.), Humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga perspektiv på bildning och hållbar utveckling: (pp. 71-81). Örebro: Örebro universitet
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Bildning och hållbar utveckling ur ett statsvetenskapligt perspektiv
2020 (Swedish)In: Humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga perspektiv på bildning och hållbar utveckling / [ed] Magnus Boström, Christian Lundahl och Johan Öhman, Örebro: Örebro universitet , 2020, p. 71-81Chapter in book (Other academic)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Örebro: Örebro universitet, 2020
Series
Rapporter i pedagogik, ISSN 1650-0652 ; 23
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-87287 (URN)
Available from: 2020-11-10 Created: 2020-11-10 Last updated: 2020-11-10Bibliographically approved
Olsson, J. (2020). Institutionalism and Public Administration. In: Guy Peters (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Politics: (pp. 1-23). Oxford: Oxford University Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Institutionalism and Public Administration
2020 (English)In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Politics / [ed] Guy Peters, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, p. 1-23Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Institutions have always been of great concern to public administration, in both a practical and an analytical sense. The new institutionalism, developing in different versions from the early 1980s, has contributed new and varied insights on how institutional factors shape the life of public administrations. Instead of mainly focusing on formal rules and organizations, as in traditional (“old”) institutionalism, new institutionalism perceives of institutions in a broader sense, as patterned behavior also following from informal rules, norms, and habits. Different institutional perspectives continue to develop with some mutual borrowing of ideas, but they also specialize, which help us understand how public administrations are shaped by the historical legacies of institutions, institutional rules and norms that socialize organization members; institutions as incentive structures designed to increase trust and compliance; organizational adaption to major institutional trends, and institutions as cultures of communication. These perspectives are specific lenses that bring valuable, complementary insights, particularly when it comes to their varied conceptualizations of agency: strategic calculation, social adaption and imitation as well as social construction in communicative settings. However, it is argued that institutionalism has largely neglected political aspects in the interaction between institution and agency, which needs to be explored and elaborated on in future empirical research and theoretical development. The political character of public administrations is very complex and varies from individual preference falsification in order to adapt to institutions, to subversive actions for trying to undermine or to secure existing institutions when important values are at stake in public administrations.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020
Keywords
institutionalism, public administration and policy, institutions, agency, institutional change and stability, institutional complexity, preference falsification, subversion
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-87288 (URN)10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1458 (DOI)
Available from: 2020-11-10 Created: 2020-11-10 Last updated: 2020-11-10Bibliographically approved
Olsson, J. & Hysing, E. (2019). Aktivism bland offentliga tjänstemän. Fronesis (62-63), 123-132
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Aktivism bland offentliga tjänstemän
2019 (Swedish)In: Fronesis, ISSN 1404-2614, no 62-63, p. 123-132Article in journal (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Tidskriftsföreningen Fronesis, 2019
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-80205 (URN)
Available from: 2020-02-26 Created: 2020-02-26 Last updated: 2020-02-26Bibliographically approved
Olsson, J. & Hysing, E. (2019). Inside activism: political agency and institutional change. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics: . Oxford: Oxford University Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Inside activism: political agency and institutional change
2019 (English)In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The theoretical concept of inside activism brings fresh light on institutional change by upgrading the importance of political agency within public organizations. Inside activism captures a specific empirical phenomenon, namely, public officials being committed to the agendas of civil society networks and organizations, and acting from inside public organizations to induce policy and institutional change. Inside activism upgrades political aspects of public organizations, recognizing the importance of authority, power, and combative action. Public organizations are institutionally shaped by continuous processes of consolidation and fragmentation. This means opportunities for inside activists to act politically, preferably in secret and subversive ways, and to further strengthen the fragmented nature of public organizations. Strategically, inside activists can work for institutional change by expanding their agency through the development of collective power and networking, using combative subversive strategy, working for cumulative effects and combinative solutions as well as to bend and break constraints on their actions (the 5C model). To induce change, they further exploit institutional ambiguities like “weak spots” of institutions and discrepancies between institutional rules and practices on the ground. The neglect of inside activism within institutional theory likely means that the possibility of institutional change has been underestimated and there is thus a need for a comprehensive research agenda on inside activism, political agency, and institutional change, which in this article is termed “new political institutionalism.”

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019
Keywords
inside activism, political agency, institutions, institutional change, expanding political agency, exploiting institutional ambiguities, new political institutionalism, public administration and policy
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-77794 (URN)10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.747 (DOI)
Available from: 2019-11-07 Created: 2019-11-07 Last updated: 2019-11-07Bibliographically approved
De Majo, V. & Olsson, J. (2019). Institutional foundations of disaster risk reduction policy: Exploring and elaborating on two different cases: Argentina and Sweden. Disaster Prevention and Management, 28(2), 245-257
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Institutional foundations of disaster risk reduction policy: Exploring and elaborating on two different cases: Argentina and Sweden
2019 (English)In: Disaster Prevention and Management, ISSN 0965-3562, E-ISSN 1758-6100, Vol. 28, no 2, p. 245-257Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and elaborate on how institutional conditions work to the advantage and disadvantage of disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies on different levels in two countries.

Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case study design is used to study empirically two countries with very different traditions when it comes to political-administrative institutions: Argentina and Sweden.

Findings: As expected, the institutional foundations of DRR policy in Sweden are shown to be more consistent and stable than in Argentina. However, this difference is of less importance when considering the crucial role of local practices. National institutional foundations can function as support–but is not a necessary condition–for building disaster preparedness on the ground. The authors argue that national governments cannot do without institutionalized praxis-based preparedness, which is vital for both effective emergency management and learning.

Originality/value: This paper contributes to the disaster research debate by elaborating on institutional arrangements that can facilitate or hinder DRR strategies in a multi-level context. The main argument is that institutional practices on the ground are important to compensate for insufficient national institutions, either because they are weak or too distant from practical DRR. The authors also elaborate on how institutional practices can function as a source for learning and for building legitimate practical authority from the bottom up.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2019
Keywords
Institutional theory, Sweden, Argentina, Public policy, Disaster preparedness, Multi-level governance, Practical authority
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-71313 (URN)10.1108/DPM-08-2018-0260 (DOI)000461592300007 ()2-s2.0-85059819429 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2019-01-09 Created: 2019-01-09 Last updated: 2019-06-18Bibliographically approved
Olsson, J., Berg, M., Hysing, E., Kristianssen, A.-C. & Petersén, A. (2019). Policy i teori och praktik. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Policy i teori och praktik
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2019 (Swedish)Book (Other academic)
Abstract [sv]

Policy, offentliga organisationers handlingsinriktning - uttalad eller outtalad - som vägleder beslut och handlingar och som medför viktiga värdeprioriteringar, utgör själva innehållet i politiken. Den här boken ger en introduktion till hur policyprocessen fungerar i praktiken och hur policyforskare förstår och analyserar den. 

I boken första del beskrivs och problematiseras policyprocessens olika faser, från att en fråga hamnar på den politiska agendan till att en politisk reform utvärderas. I bokens andra del introduceras centrala teoritraditioner och perspektiv inom policyforskningen. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2019. p. 369
Keywords
policy, offentlig förvaltning, policyprocess, policyanalys, policyproblem, agendasättning, policyformulering, politiska beslut, policyinstrument, styrmedel, governance, implementering, utvärdering, uppföljning, policyforskning, policyförändring, policyspridning
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-77793 (URN)9789144128092 (ISBN)
Available from: 2019-11-07 Created: 2019-11-07 Last updated: 2024-01-16Bibliographically approved
Boström, M., Andersson, E., Berg, M., Gustafsson, K. M., Gustavsson, E., Hysing, E., . . . Öhman, J. (2018). Conditions for Transformative Learning for Sustainable Development: A Theoretical Review and Approach. Sustainability, 10(12), Article ID 4479.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Conditions for Transformative Learning for Sustainable Development: A Theoretical Review and Approach
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2018 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 10, no 12, article id 4479Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break with unsustainable norms, habits, practices, and structures, there is a need for learning for transformation, not only adaption. Based on a critical literature review within the field of learning for sustainable development, our approach is a development of the concept of transformative learning, by integrating three additional dimensions—Institutional Structures, Social Practices, and Conflict Perspectives. This approach acknowledges conflicts on macro, meso, and micro levels, as well as structural and cultural constraints. It contends that transformative learning is processual, interactional, long-term, and cumbersome. It takes place within existing institutions and social practices, while also transcending them. The article adopts an interdisciplinary social science perspective that acknowledges the importance of transformative learning in order for communities, organizations, and individuals to be able to deal with global sustainability problems, acknowledging the societal and personal conflicts involved in such transformation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2018
Keywords
conflict, institutional, learning, social change, social practice, structure, transformative
National Category
Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-70403 (URN)10.3390/su10124479 (DOI)000455338100145 ()2-s2.0-85057440663 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2018-12-03 Created: 2018-12-03 Last updated: 2022-02-10Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-3602-1837

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