Under de 10 år som gått sedan Organisation & Samhälle grundades har nästan 200 artiklar publicerats i 20 tryckta nummer. Tidskriften har bjudit in bidrag till femton temanummer och även välkomnat artiklar som handlat om andra ämnen. Utöver det har intervjuer, krönikor, debattartiklar och ett stort antal bokrecensioner publicerats. I den här texten reflekterar vi över några framträdande och mindre framträdande diskussioner som har präglat tidskriftens första årtionde. 

Coping with accountability challenges is an essential part of how actors in hybrid organisations make sense of their responsibility to distinctive groups of stakeholders. Drawing on institutional theory and a logics perspective, we explore how the strategic apex in a Swedish municipal housing corporation constructs accountability in relation to the tensions that arise therein. Our case study highlights that the strategic apex deals with the challenges associated with multiple accountability logics via the process of evoking the principals. Given the invisibility of the legal owner, the strategic apex evokes the principal(s) through the additional processes of negotiating resource allocation, compromising and interest alignment, and creating team structures. Our findings contribute to the emergent literature on how hybrid organisations construct accountability and manage related challenges. Furthermore, our analysis of how individual actors and teams deal with the tension between individual and collective actions in the accountability domain advances current knowledge of the processes through which these actors cope with accountability challenges in hybrid organisations.

The Background: The globalization of the business world and the ongoing internationalization of many organizations have profound consequences for societies and economies. National economies, the Austrian and Swedish being the examples in this study, are globally intertwined and export dependent. When businesses search for opportunities outside national borders, employees will engage with diverse groups of stakeholders while conducting daily business and pursuing organizational goals. Additionally, due to migrations, the available workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. Business schools have an obligation to educate graduates who are "ready for life." To stay relevant, business programs, specifically in marketing and sales, need to deliver not just subject-specific knowledge but also give students the chance to increase their intercultural competence.

Purpose: This study contributes to the discussion on business schools' role in improving students' intercultural competences and the necessity to align learning outcomes with future market needs.

Study design/methodology/approach: The content analysis of 240 qualified recruitment advertisements was conducted to investigate, in line with signalling theory, how employers' express their requirements and expectations in recruitment advertising.

Findings/conclusions: The empirical study shows that ads frequently describe work environments as culturally diverse. Most reviewed advertisements contain references to interactions with partners and customers across national borders. However, there is a weak connection between the work situation described in the ads and the skills required to tackle diversity. While foreign language and communication skills are frequently listed as requirements in those ads, intercultural competence is seldom a requirement. Even if not vocalized, evidence suggests that future graduates will increasingly need intercultural competence.

Limitations/future research: The study was conducted based on a limited number of recruitment advertisements. Future research could include a wider coverage of recruitment advertisements. The qualitative research would complement findings on the need for interculturally competent graduates.

This chapter reports the results of a survey among Swedish authorised auditors, exploring the effect of the use of computer-assisted audit techniques (CAAT) on the exercise of professional scepticism of the auditor. The auditing industry is deeply affected by digitalisation and there is an ongoing debate regarding what effect increasing the use of digital tools in auditing will have on audit quality. The results are consistent with the view that the use of CAAT has a positive influence on audit quality by providing the auditor with more room for exercising professional scepticism that can increase the quality of the audit, but that this effect will primarily occur if the auditor is sufficiently sceptical as an individual. The study challenges the widely held theoretical notion that audit structure impairs the exercise of professional judgement in a professionally sceptic manner. From a practical standpoint, the study shows that CAAT can be a valuable tool in audits that, if put in the right hands, may increase audit quality.

Purpose: Drawing on paradox theory, this study explores how ambidextrous sustainability relates to organisational performance in hybrid organisations represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations, and how this relationship is contingent on the organisational structure of these organisations.

Design/methodology/approach: The study relies on the data collected from Swedish municipal housing corporations. These data sources consist of a survey sent to the management team members in Swedish municipal housing corporations, financial and non-financial archival data on these corporations, interviews with the management team and board members, and observations of meetings involving the management team and board of directors at a Swedish municipal housing corporation. Quantitative data of the study were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and linear multiple regression analysis. Qualitative data were analysed employing deductive thematic analysis and were used to illustrate and discuss the results of the quantitative analysis.

Findings: The quantitative findings show that ambidextrous sustainability, i.e. the alignment between an explorative orientation and an exploitative orientation towards sustainability, has a weakly positive relationship with financial performance and a positive relationship with social performance in hybrid organisations represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations. The study further shows that a high level of the structural element “connectedness” weakened the relationship between the ambidextrous sustainability and financial performance of the organisation in the study. In contrast, a lower level of connectedness reinforced and strengthened this relationship. Our qualitative material illustrates how the quantitative findings could be explained by the interaction between the board of directors and the management team of these hybrid organisations.

Originality/value: The study shows how ambidextrous sustainability, employed for conceptualisation of the sustainability strategy in hybrid organisations, represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations, can impact on facets of performance (i.e. financial, social and environmental) differently. The study further highlights the importance of organisational structures in these relationships in a hybrid context. 

There is an agreement among scholars that we need to prepare students to be ready-for-life, as well as the agreement that the future might be characterized by, broadly defined, diversity. Although the benefits of diversity are numerous and praised, there is also an understanding that diversity on its own does not necessarily mean that these benefits will be realized. Working (and living) in a culturally diverse environment poses a challenge and requires skills and mindset to overcome obstacles and reap the benefits. It is no surprise that the global contemporary business world induces discussion on globally competent employees. But employees of tomorrow are today’s students, and therefore, to prepare them for culturally diverse workspaces, the question of intercultural competence and its development during studies becomes relevant. Future employees are to work with a diverse group of stakeholders outside the organization (customers, clients, intermediaries, partners) and to work in a diverse team of colleagues inside their organizations. The internationalization of HEI created an environment that offers opportunities to engage in cross-cultural contacts and advance cross-cultural competence. 

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate about advancing and measuring intercultural competence by presenting findings from a pilot study. We conducted 45 interviews on internationalization and diversity in a HEI from the multistakeholder perspective (management, teachers, staff, students) across four schools belonging to a university in southern Sweden. Parallelly, we assessed the intercultural competence of different student groups using Ang’s Cultural Intelligence Scale collecting 177 responses in the process. We will present our experience from the project, initial findings and share a suggestion for a practice that can serve as an alternative to measuring intercultural competence.