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Managing public value conflicts – Institutional strategies and the greening of public pension funds
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Sociology Department. (Environmental sociology)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8695-4504
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Political Science Department.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3602-1837
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. Vol. 39, no 4, article id 101301
Keywords [en]
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: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-108383DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2023.101301ISI: 001082006200001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-108383DiVA, id: diva2:1798823
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2018 00912Available from: 2023-09-20 Created: 2023-09-20 Last updated: 2023-10-31

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Berg, MonikaOlsson, Jan

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