This report documents and evaluates an EU-sponsored project, designed to test and develop the empowerment model in building networks among entrepreneurs - primarily female - to strengthen their businesses and their business skills. Specific skills to be developed were language skills and information technology skills. The participants formed a local network, but they were also connected to sister projects in Germany, Italy, Belgium and Holland. The Swedish network consisted of 40 participants, divided into two groups (one in 1998 and one in 1999) who met regularly in their large group as well as in subgroups during the year. They also took part in business related courses, and undertook a study visit to their sister projects in the fall. Most of the participants were newly started entrepreneurs, and the majority of the firms were sole proprietorships in the service sector. Four coordinators, themselves part of the target group, initiated and managed the project. Representatives from the local sponsors formed a managing group.

The report documents the project from inception to end, based on observations, interviews, document reviews, questionnaires and logbooks. Results as far as business growth and participants’ assessments of the project were positive. The majority of the companies increased their turnover during the project year, and no business closed. Three of four participants were satisfied, and three of four had their expectations, most frequently of networking with other entrepreneurs and of learning new skills, fully or partly met. Networking in a small group of peers where everyone gives and takes on an equal basis was the main factor producing the positive results. The groups provided colleagues, a sounding board, and a way to build entrepreneurial identity by mirroring each other’s experiences.

Based on the experiences in Empag, and on previous research on empowerment, we found that empowerment may be understood in two, radically different ways. We have labeled the first radical empowerment. It is built on consensus decision making in a group of equals. Strategic decisions are made collectively, while routine decisions may be assigned to members. It is a protest against hierarchical structures and it recognizes no formal leader. The “power” in empowerment emanates from the inner strength of the involved actors. We have called the other model mainstream empowerment. This is a management tool for making the actors stronger and more motivated, and thus increases efficiency. It is practiced within hierarchical structures with formal leadership. There are boundaries for what the group may decide and what management sets. The latter typically makes the strategic decisions. The “power” in empowerment is interpreted as redistribution of power and resources from higher to lower levels of the echelon.

The difficulties experienced in Empag centered on organizational issues, such as information and clarification of boundaries for decisionmaking. In the terminology of the empowerment models outlined above, the difficulties emanated from mixing the two models. Given the organizational constraints of Empag, only mainstream empowerment could be practiced. The spirit of empowerment in a more radical sense was, however, communicated and aspired for. Our recommendations for future projects concentrate on how to make mainstream empowerment practice more productive. The first and foremost suggestion is to communicate the nature of the model and its organizational constraints clearly. Also important is to consider leadership and group composition. Groups that are homogeneous as to goals, values and ambitions facilitate empowerment. Businesses of similar age, type, and size, and entrepreneurs of similar interests, age and gender make for a situation where the participants can give and take on equal terms. However, we do not recommend avoiding heterogeneity altogether. Learning to deal with ambiguity and the fact that different individuals may have completely different versions of reality is part of adjusting to the life of an entrepreneur.

This paper is a pilot study on the rationales for pricing decisions among a group of female entrepreneurs. For the purpose of avoiding pre-determined categories and allowing novel ideas and concerns to emerge, a focus group methodology was employed. Unlike the dominating literature on the subject which sees pricing as a rational decision based on costs, customer value and competition, this study suggests that both contextual factors and psychological factors are important. Important contextual factors were culture, regional characteristics and gender. Important psychological factors were sense of fairness, morals, identity, self-image, need for confirmation and self-confidence.

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. 

The issue of mergers and acquisitions is of growing concern in many industries dominated by family ownership. Nevertheless there are few empirical studies of mergers and acquisitions involving family firms. While the few studies performed deal with how family owned companies respond to takeovers, this study will focus on family businesses as the acquiring firm. The empirical findings demonstrate that the family ownership logic of a family firm has concrete consequences for the acquisition process. Compared to traditional literature on mergers and acquisition, which has a focus on control by exchanging management in the acquired organization, the acquirers in this study worked in an alternative way when acquiring family owned businesses. The basis for their approach was trust in the acquired managers´ ability to manage the company for the long run.

Sharma (2004) made a call for further efforts to explore the linkages between family business studies and other disciplines in order to propel the family business field toward establishing a niche and identity within the research community. The aim of this study is to enhance knowledge on mergers and acquisitions in family firms, at the same time as we are using the M&A literature to reflect on the specifics of the family firm. The purpose of this study is to explore management of acquired family businesses, with special attention to family ownership logic. Suggestions for further research both regarding mergers and acquisitions within the family business field and the theoretical construct family ownership logic will be discussed.

Literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is yet vague concerning who is being held responsible; for what, by whom. Corporations are commonly treated as the focal actors of interest. We explore the notion of micro accountability to shed light on how an individual’s multiple roles and memberships (e.g. as private person; business owner and/or manager, community inhabitant, or business network member) translate to regional corporate responsibility. Stakeholder theory and interpretive accounting literature constitute the basis of our discussion. Illustrations derived from fieldwork on Swedish SMEs support our conclusions. We conclude that the accountability of owner-managers to a range of local stakeholders influences the company’s CSR activities. The paper adds to current research by emphasizing and exemplifying the importance of people and their social embeddedness for CSR activities and outcomes.

In this article we show how specific family business logic shapes managerial practices. Based on empirical material from 20 case studies of family ownership governance, our study identifies seven core characteristics of family ownership logic. These include active, visible and persistent ownership with few owners, relatively stable strategic development encompassing multiple ownership goals, autonomy towards capital markets, and a strong identification and emotional bonding with the business. By considering the family business context, we find managerial practices that are prevalent in the majority of businesses around the world and that have implications for ownership research. It is concluded that by taking the logic of ownership into consideration when studying family businesses, researchers in this field can contribute to the growing literature on sociocultural and behavioural factors in corporate governance relations.

This paper sets out to identify the core characteristics of family ownership logic. Based on 20 in-depth conversations with family business owners representing different generations, life-cycles, sizes, and industries, listed or privately held, we suggest a family ownership logic indicating seven core characteristics. This logic is characterized by a stable and persistent ownership with few owners and a relative stable strategic development for which tradition and emotional ties are important. This paper concludes that in order to better understand family ownership logic we need to turn to alternative views on corporate governance and theories on psychological ownership. The implications of the family ownership logic are manifold. Related to agency theory and stewardship theory our empirical material raises several questions of relevance for the debate on governance in family-controlled firms.

This thesis discusses accounting and control practices in terms of accountability, i.e. how organizational actors work out who is accountable to whom over what. The study investigates how different forms of accountability can emerge and develop in organizations represented as family- controlled. This focus is grounded in the arguments of the interpretive accounting research which describes different modes, styles, and versions of control and accountability as intertwined with organizational identity construction. The empirical part of the study discusses accounting and control practices in two family businesses. The study showed that control practices and notions of sound organizing, which in the two cases included different approaches to the family business label, was intertwined. In keeping with the interpretive literature, the two case studies demonstrated differences in accountability when two organizational contexts were compared. As a possible contribution to the interpretive studies discussed in this thesis, the study also showed different styles of accountability to be interacting as well as repelling within an organizational context.

In short, this study showed both control practices and notions of family control to have consequences in terms of organizational accountability. In other words, also when advanced control practices are implemented, there could be fundamental differences in terms of accountability between different family business contexts as well as within an organizational context.

This paper describes and analyses an instance to use popular culture in management education. The background is a concern that management textbooks typically describe business as dominated by rational decision-making. In the textbooks, people are either subsumed under abstract categories or left out altogether. If educators rely exclusively on these books, management education might provide students with a biased view on what management is all about.

When designing a master course titled “Family Business Development”, we therefore decided to use a film, “The Inheritance” directed by Per Fly in 2003, during the course introduction. “The Inheritance” is a film about a young Danish man who takes over the management of the family business, which is in danger of bankruptcy. We chose this film because it is one of few commercial films that includes many scenes laid in a business context. Furthermore, the director expresses an ambition to depict the situation as the leading character would understand it. With this film, we argued, we will start out the course by making clear that business development is about human interaction. Furthermore, the film is clearly related to succession problems, which often are considered a main challenge in family owned or managed businesses. As suggested by previous research, popular culture provides a means for research (Czarniawska, 2004; Kjellander, Nordqvist and Welter, 2007) as well as for education (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2004; Mallinger and Rossy, 2003; Scherer and Baker, 1999) through which practices could be understood. This film would give students and lecturers a chance to follow processes and relations which real life actors might be hesitant or unable to describe and discuss, we reasoned.

After the film, the class discussed the challenges that the main character faced in his role as a newly appointed managing director. We also had a short discussion about the dramaturgical methods when describing the business.

The objective of this paper is to address some problems of using popular movies in general, and this film in particular, in management education and thereby contribute to the discussion about films and education (e.g., Huczynski and Buchanan, 2004; Mallinger and Rossy, 2003; Scherer and Baker, 1999). Was this course introduction a good way to address the problems mentioned above? Or did we just provide the students with another possibly misleading image of a business? Drawing on three focus group interviews with students and practicioners with experience from family business settings, we will relate our pedagogical purpose of using the film to the conclusions that students and the family business actors draw from watching the film.

Introduction and purpose

This essay deals with two seemingly different, but nevertheless related, social phenomena: the representation of family businesses in commercial movies and the representations of family businesses constructed by owners’ and managers’ themselves, e.g. in their official company information material.

To study family businesses through popular cultural products offers family business scholars an alternative perspective to increase the understanding of key issues in family businesses. As pointed out by Denzin (1991) and Beard (1994) what occurs on film is almost by definition culturally significant as it reaches a large audience through theatres, television, videos and DVDs. Furthermore, even those who chose not to view a particular film often hear bits and pieces of its message as films are discussed and reviewed on television, in radio, in magazines and in morning papers. An interesting aspect of the message or messages that a film might be understood as communicating is that popular movies can be seen as both reflecting and generating cultural values and representations. The main argument for why we pay attention to how family businesses are represented in popular culture is threby not that it necessarily represents what people in general think about family businesses. Certainly, to make sense to the audience, film makers need to construct their storyline with some kind of understanding of existing general values and beliefs about the topic of the film. At the same time, to be interesting and entertaining, the film also need to present something new, unknown and/or unexpected. To us this is interesting since also to the extent that a film represents what its producers not necessarily hold to be true about family businesses it might still affect the audiences’ belief about family business contexts and actors. As for example Beard (1994, p 303) argues it has been well-documented “that life imitates television”. She mentions that popular television series for example have altered the expectations that American clients have of the lawyers representing them (Beard, 1994; Margolick, 1990). This parallel generation and reflection of cultural values regarding for example family business settings should be interesting to students, researchers and practitioners working in or with family businesses since many of these organizations today are described and/or present themselves as family founded, family owned and/or family controlled.

A further argument for turning the focus to how family businesses are represented in popular culture is that it also provides a methodological mean through which practices could be understood (Czarniawska, 2004; Kjellander, Nordqvist and Welter, 2007) that is complementary to the more conventional methods of empirical fieldwork. It offers a possibility for researchers to take a narrative approach and follow processes and relations that might be more difficult to detect and understand through for instance regular interviews or observations. Movies are examples of narrative fiction that can serve as a basis for the development of scholarly knowledge (e.g. Phillips, 1995; DeCock and Land, 2005). Similar to what has been argued for novels (Waldo, 1968; Phillips, 1995; Czarniawska, 2007) we suggest that important subjective, emotional, sensual and value-based elements of organizational life are visible and interpretable through movies. They can offer “a more abstract understanding of social, economic and political processes, but also a repertoire of pragmatically useful devices” (Czarniawska-Joerges and Guillet de Monthoux, 1994:7).

Based on the above, the purpose of this research is to investigate how family businesses and family business actors are represented in popular films. In this paper we will focus on the film “The Inheritance” directed by Per Fly in 2003. This image will be compared to the representations of family control provided by family business managers and owners themselves and to dominant approaches to family business management and ownership in family business research.

Analysis and tentative conclusions

A tentative conclusion regarding this film is that it depicts the family business partly in line with the ideas of the traditional dual system approach to family and business. The little amount of time devoted to anchoring and making sense of different situations is in sharp contrast to studies of family business settings in ethnographic research (Brundin, 2002; Florin Samuelsson, 2002; Hall, 2002; Nordqvist, 2005) What Kärreman and Alvesson (2001) refers to as conversational rationality is not present in this setting.

It is interesting to note that while the representation of the family business in movies, TV-series and novels typically are notably negative – we have looked in detail at one example in this essay – the movie “The Inheritance, the descriptions that owners and managers from business families themselves give are very positive. Notwithstanding this difference, in both types of representation we can see that the ‘family’ takes up an important role as what we can refer to as an organizing principle. Whether positive or negative, the family becomes a dominant principle, or resource, that different kinds of organizing activities, such as marketing, control, strategic development or governance, relate to. We encourage future research to further investigate the role of the family as an organizing principle. It would, for instance, be interesting to see to what extent the references to the family is taken for granted or institutionalized in different context. Moreover, what does it actually mean for practice that the representations of the family business (and the family as organizing principle) are so different between popular culture and the family business owners and managers themselves? What meaning does this difference for instance have for potential employees in family business, or for investors willing to invest in family businesses?

From a more theoretical point of view, we can see both the movie and the presentations and descriptions generated by family businesses themselves as ‘fictionalizing acts’ (c.f. Iser, 1993; Czarniawska, 2007). Fictionalizing occurs when realities are transferred into a text, but also when what is merely imagined is put into existence by textual or visual means (Iser, 1993). In other words, it is not just the film director who narrates and creates fiction about the family business, but indeed also the owners and managers describing their family businesses. From this perspective, it is not possible with certainty to decide which of the texts is the most ‘real’ or even the most ‘realistic’. What stands out as relatively clear, however, is that both the director and the family business owners and managers themselves are likely to have a thesis or a dominant view on how they think family business are and how the family as an organizing principle have meanings for people working in and with family businesses. This also underlines a strong ideological foundation in many narrations and representations of family businesses. It is, indeed, a mistake to take either a movie representing family businesses or descriptions made by family businesses themselves as lacking underlying theoretical assumptions, even if implicit.

For future research we also suggest to study the interpretations made by different groups of audiences after watching a film like this and how it corresponds to their beliefs and attitudes towards family firms. It would also be interesting to try to sketch what Czarniawska (2004) refers to as “strong plots, i.e. established and repeated patterns of emplotment” in different lines of popular culture or any cultural form regarding families and businesses.

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.

Based on the case of Swedish municipal housing corporation, this study explores how ambidextrous sustainability relates to the organisational performance of these hybrid organisations and how this relationship is contingent on the organisational structure of these organisations. The study is based on the multiple data sources comprising a case on Swedish municipal housing corporations. The data sources consist of the survey sent to all top management team members of Swedish municipal housing corporations, archival data containing financial and non-financial data on these corporations as well as explorative interviews and observations of the top management team and board of directors members of one Swedish municipal housing corporation. The findings suggest that ambidextrous sustainability, i.e. balance between explorative and exploitative sustainability orientation has a positive relationship with the organisational performance of Swedish municipal housing corporations. The paper further indicates that structural element of centralisation has a positive direct relationship with the performance of these organisations and serves a positive re-enforcing role in the relationship between ambidextrous sustainability and organisational performance. Finally, the study shows that a high degree of a structural element of connectedness weakens the relationship between ambidextrous sustainability and organisational performance of the organisation under study, while a lower degree of connectedness reinforces and strengthen this relationship.

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. 

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.

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.

Society is increasingly becoming multicultural, with more pressure to improve the quality of intercultural interactions. Higher education institutions are experiencing internationalization through increased mobility of students and faculty, which creates the need to manage diversity with the imperative of smoothing communication, reducing stress and making studying and working in a multicultural environment more efficient. Employers also dictate a need to educate culturally competent professionals, who are capable of succeeding in a globalized environment characterized by increased workforce mobility and international assignments. Intercultural competences discourse has a long track with researchers and practitioners, without any agreement on its definition or measurement, but with a clear message that cultural diversity will not result in increased intercultural competences. In this paper, intercultural competences are viewed as a transversal learning outcome, considering the increasing internationalization of higher education institutions. The research is qualitative in nature, based on the analysis of course evaluations and an open-ended survey. This study used a purposeful sample of current and former students who have been exposed to a diverse intercultural environment while studying at an international business school in Sweden. Based on the findings, a course design is suggested where exposure to cultural diversity is guided and facilitated by bringing students to collaborate in an assignment-driven context, with a culturally diverse group composition. Lecture-based components of the course are balanced with the addition of a component of self-reflection assignment, providing both culturally specific and general knowledge, thus contributing to the ability to extrapolate the experience on future intercultural encounters.

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.