Det självspelande pianot är en pedagogisk grundkurs i svensk bostadspolitik och bör läsas av alla som bor.

Sedan de statliga bostadssubventionerna avskaffades i början av 1990-talet har bostadsbristen i Sverige ökat dramatiskt. Det byggs inte tillräckligt många bostäder för att möta behoven och de bostäder som byggs är alldeles för dyra. Trots det lovar både politiker och bostadsbyggare att marknaden kommer lösa bostadsbristen.

I Det självspelande pianot berättar Stig Westerdahl, professor i företagsekonomi vid Malmö universitet, vilka bostadsmarknadens aktörer är och hur deras tillvägagångssätt, praktiker, ser ut. Berättelsen utgår från begreppet värde och vi får följa med på en resa genom tid och rum, fram till dagens Sverige, där Allbolagen styr kommunernas bostadsbolag och redovisningsregler styr bostadspolitiken. Aktörernas kalkylmetoder gynnar produktion av dyra bostäder men gör mer överkomliga bostäder näst intill omöjliga att bygga. Riskkapitalbolag kan med en kombination av renoveringar och redovisningsregler snabbt höja värdet på miljonprogramsområden de köper. Detta resulterar i stora aktievinster som möjliggör köp av ytterligare områden. Det är det självspelande pianots mekanik.

Författaren analyserar mekanismerna bakom bostadsmarknadens utveckling – enkla företagsekonomiska kalkyler som används på komplexa och socialt betydelsefulla investeringar i samhällsplaneringen. En utveckling som under senare år i grunden förändrat förutsättningarna för svensk bostadsförsörjning och bostadspolitik.

This article discusses the role of accounting in the changes that the public housing sector in Sweden has undergone. Public housing has been the cornerstone of the welfare state, which perceived housing as a right for all. These housing policies have been challenged from the 1990s onwards, and new legislation introduced in 2011 forced the sector to further economise operations. Because observance of the new legislation supposedly relied on accounting practices, calculative practices became important. The yield metric, which originates in financial economics, became prominent due to its capacity to condense contradictory conditions and time into a single figure, thereby making assets comparable.

A study comprising 44 interviews (46 interviewees) undertaken in 9 council-run public housing companies reveals the social impact of the introduced accounting practices. Results indicate that different understandings of the future can either (1) justify bringing residential holdings into a non-calculable sphere to secure political control or (2) result in counter calculations based on assumed future value increases on commercial investments. This vagueness of the notion of time influences the connection between accounting and governmentality and, ultimately, economisation processes since it opens up for political resistance and counter calculations

Bussar och tåg ska gå i tid, vara snabba och trygga att resa med, och relativt billiga för att ses som attraktiva färdmedel. Idag säkerställs mycket av detta genom marknadsrelationer och via kontrakt mellan olika offentliga och privata aktörer. Ett vanligt antagande är att ett stort utbud av aktörer är viktigt för en välfungerande marknad. Ökad konkurrens antas leda till utveckling och innovation till lägre kostnad. På kollektivtrafikmarknaderna är utbudet av aktörer begränsat, upphandlingsprocesserna riskerar att överprövas och de olika upphandlande myndigheterna ställer olika krav när de upphandlar trafik.  

Forskningsprojektet Kollektivtrafikmarknader bortom kontrakt syftade till att utröna hur kollektivtrafikens marknader fungerar avseende hur standarder organiserar marknader, hur konkurrensen organiseras, samt hur överprövningar formar marknaderna. Utgångspunkten för forskningsprojektet har varit att marknader, i bred mening, består av mer än enbart kontraktsrelationer. I lika hög grad som kontraktsliga relationer ligger bakom utbytena mellan köpare och säljare, mellan beställare och leverantörer, finns även idéer och värderingar - ibland motstridiga sådana – om hur en marknad ska fungera, hur avtal ska utformas, hur anbud ska utvärderas och vilka följder olika val får för verksamheten.  

I detta forskningsprojekt har vi intresserat oss för hur marknaden är organiserad bortom kontraktsrelationerna på marknaden. Detta har inneburit att vi inte direkt intresserat oss för huruvida särskilda typer av avtalsformer leder till avsedda effekter, eller huruvida marknadslösningar är effektiva eller ej. Istället har vi byggt vidare på den rika forskning som genererats kring dessa frågeställningar, men rört oss bortom dem i så motto att vi intresserat oss för de utom-kontraktsliga relationer som bidrar till att organisera kollektivtrafikens marknader.

Våra resultat pekar på behovet av att förstå hur modellavtalen, som är tänkta att användas vid upphandling av trafik, standardiserar utbytena på marknaden. Dessutom pekar våra resultat på hur inträddesbarriärer på marknaden produceras i interaktionen mellan de etablerade trafikföretagen och de upphandlande myndigheterna. Likså visar våra resultat att överprövningar av upphandlingsbeslut tar sikte på transparensprincipen i utvärderingsmodellerna samt likabehandlingsprincipen i det förhandlade förfarandet.

Det finns ett fortsatt behov av att forska om kollektivtrafikens marknader. Av särskild vikt är då frågan om hur upphandlingsprocesserna kan anpassas efter de nya behov som kommer att uppkomma i och med utvecklandet av ny digital teknologi och nya tjänstelösningar. Såväl upphandlande myndigheter som trafikföretag har intresse av att marknaden kan inkorporera ny teknologi och därigenom erbjuda resenärerna en bättre upplevelse och bättre service på sikt. För att detta ska kunna uppnås krävs dock ny kunskap, både om hur ny teknologi påverkar marknaderna och hur avtalen kan anpassas för att gynna innovation och utveckling.   

The current housing crisis in Sweden challenges its common perception as a welfare state, where the provision of housing for the entire population is taken for granted. The shortage of affordable rental housing for low-income groups is especially problematic. More affluent groups can instead benefit from the lack of housing, when they sell their apartments and villas and prices have increased (Christophers, 2013). To provide some background to this new experience and how it contrasts with the welfare tradition, this chapter discusses current problems with affordable housing in Sweden, while the Trianon case in Malmö illustrates how opportunities emerge for other actors when historically strong institutions fail to meet the demands of disadvantaged groups.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse informal collaboration in the public transport sector. Two Swedish case studies, Living lab Uddevalla and Guidelines for Regional BRT are analysed and compared concerning what kind of learning occurred and what lessons regarding informal collaboration to draw from the two cases. For both cases the analysis indicates that individual, single loop learning is the most striking type of learning among the participants. The voluntary approach of the two cases has advantages and drawbacks. Advantages include that participants were truly interested in the issues of collaboration, which created energy and contributed to building trust. The main drawback identified was that in both cases the voluntary enthusiasm of the participants collided with the formal requirements of planning and decision making. This has stifled the possibility of the informal collaboration processes to induce change in prevailing practices.

Housing- as well as accounting researchers have highlighted how finance and accounting aspects are linked to homes and individuals. To purchase a dwelling is one of the biggest investment in a person’s life and probably the financial decision that affects the private economy most of all. This transaction has still not attracted that much attention. The theoretical point of departure for this study is how in order for the purchaser to compare dwellings, the potential objects must be made comparable. Theories on Calculative Practices encircle how such a calculation is practiced and can hereby widen the understanding of home purchases from an accounting perspective. The task for the techniques is to create comparability whereby calculation is not only seen as numerical but also involves judgements. To put it simple: calculation is understood as both quantitative and qualitative.  

This paper takes a fresh look at an economic calculation device vital to actions and investments in various markets, the price index. Despite its importance, the price index has been surprisingly overlooked in previous studies in the sociology of market devices and financial instruments. In economics and in the history of economic thought, however, there is substantial amount of intellectual work concerning the construction of index numbers, desirable characteristics of index numbers and the relationship between index numbers and economic theory. To overcome this gap, this paper zooms in on the construction of a basket of price indexes on the one hand, and on the application of this basket in the processes of standardizing calculations in the market for procured public transport in Sweden, on the other. As such, the paper contributes with new knowledge to the sociology of market devices by providing conceptualizations of the price index as a device to standardize calculations and thereby levelling out the market conditions, which are, as it were, understood as necessary for constructing procurability.

Public transport increasingly requires efforts from a number of actors, each with its own budget and areas of responsibility. Extensive institutional changes are driving factors behind this, where public transport operators along with public organizations are involved in different forms of marketization. This Swedish case studies collaboration between a small town and the region where the question raised is what impact changing institutional conditions and especially public tendering has on their relation. The case points to the provisional character of events and the need for improvisations. Conclusions highlight this experimental character and how looking at the collaboration as a laboratory can prove fruitful. This is suggested to be of value both for the actors to understand their role and for research to identify methods for studying how markets are created in current public transport.

Real estate is an investment object following the logics of diversifying a portfolio. The housing bubbles and financial crash in 2008 have not refrained the actors. In contrast to this attention, studies have pointed to the problems of real estate as a tradable object. The physical status and location, plus a variety of other factors make every object special. This reasoning applies also to investments in housing, but with some added implications. Housing holds a specific position between “a right” and “a commodity” which has resulted in institutional solutions such as social and public housing. Accounting practices are required to facilitate trade with such property objects. With the yield-metric real estate objects are possible to relate and housing becomes comparable to assets such as options, futures and bonds. This paper illustrates how yield has become applied in Swedish Public Housing, at the background of changes in the sector over the last twenty years. Rule following and regulation in accounting are discussed and findings point to how accounting practices determine the character of housing oscillating between commodity and right.

I tretton kapitel utmanas rådande problemformuleringar om vad som utgör hindren för att skapa en mer tillgänglig bostadsmarknad och rimligare boendesituation åt alla. Är ökad marknadsekonomi lösningen på bostadsbristen? Måste vi sänka kvalitetskraven för att alla ska få tak över huvudet? Hur hänger bostadsfrågan och frågan om integration och segregation ihop? Är gentrifiering en naturlig förändring av staden? Rådande "sanningar" om fler avregleringar, lägre skatter och ökad marknadsfrihet har kommit att stå i vägen för nytänkande. Det behövs fler röster i debatten. 13 myter om bostadsfrågan ger alternativa tolkningar som kan föra in nya perspektiv på bostadskrisen. Boken ges ut av Förlag Dokument Press, med illustrationer av Sara Granér.

Skapandet av en effektiv kollektivtrafik kräver i ökande grad samverkan mellan formellt självständiga organisationer. I denna kunskapsöversikt diskuteras samverkan mellan offentliga och privata organisationer samt resenärer. Syftet är att öka den begreppsmässiga förståelsen av samverkan på kollektivtrafikområdet. Den gör det genom att definiera samverkan, och diskutera vilka kvaliteter som möjliggör väl fungerande samverkan. Kunskapsöversikten börjar med att beskriva tidigare kollektivtrafikforskning om samverkan. Därefter beskrivs vilka slutsatser som finns om samverkan i andra för kollektivtrafiken analytiskt intressanta forskningsfält. En slutsats är att samverkan kan definieras som försök att överkomma problem med kollektivt handlade, och försök att förändra en situation där ömsesidigt beroende aktörer agerar självständigt, till en situation där de agerar samfällt för att uppnå gemensamma mål. Samverkan ska enligt denna definition förstås som en mer sofistikerad form av kollektivt handlande än vad som menas med begrepp som samordning eller koordination. Väl fungerande samverkan kan beskrivas som en form av ”samhandling”. Motsatsen kan beskrivas vara ”förhandling”. I samhandling utforskar formellt självständiga organisationer gemensamma nyttor, och uppnår mer än om de hade agerat självständigt. Samhandling kan ses som ett stegvist tillitsbygge som förutsätter kvaliteter som ett ömsesidigt förtroende, förståelse av andra organisationers drivkrafter, gemensam problemformulering. Den måste även vara tydligt handlingsinriktad.

Abstract: The creation of an efficient public transport system requires collaborations between formal independent organizations. This paper examines collaborations between public and private organizations and passengers, with the aim of contributing to the conceptual understanding of collaborations on public transport. The study begins by describing previous research on collaboration in the public transport area and in other research fields analytically relevant for public transport. Accordingly, collaboration is defined as an attempt to overcome problems with collective action and to transform a situation in which the various organizations operate independently into a situation where they act in concert to achieve shared objectives. The collaboration process involves the establishment of joint rules and structures that govern the relationship and behavior of the organizations. According to this definition, collaboration is a more sophisticated form of collective action than is indicated by terms such as “co-operation” or “coordination”. Fully-functioning collaboration can be described as a form of “co-action”, as opposed to “individual action”. In co-action, formal independent organizations together reap the benefits of working together and achieve more than if they had acted alone. Co-action can be regarded as a gradual trust-building process that requires qualities such as mutual confidence, an understanding of other organizations’ motivations, and joint problem formulation.

Den svenska regeringen sålde 2008 sitt fastighetsinnehav i Vasakronan. Forskarna Peter Öhman vid Mittuniversitetet, Bo Söderberg vid Uppsala Universitet och Stig Westerdahl vid Malmö högskola har redovisat en studie av utförsäljningen i en internationellt publicerad artikel: ”Property investor behaviour: Qualitative analysis of a very large transaction” (Öhman, Söderberg och Westerdahl, 2013). Här sammanfattar de sina rön, som bland annat pekar på två typfall av beteenden vid fastighetsinvesteringar.

Fastigheter upplevs inte som den hetaste av branscher. Trots det ibland svala intresset är fastighetsbranschen ändå en viktig faktor i samhället: vi ska alla ha någonstans att bo och stora värden finns placerade i tomter och byggnader. Det är också ett internationellt etablerat forskningsfält. Det finns alltså all anledning att branschen får den uppmärksamhet den förtjänar. Det är utgångspunkten för denna antologi skriven av forskare vid Enheten för fastighetsvetenskap vid Urbana studier. Fastighetsvetenskap är ett tvärvetenskapligt ämne: ekonomi, juridik, teknik, liksom beteende- och samhällsvetenskap finns representerade. I denna antologi vill vi lyfta fram ämnets bredd utifrån fyra teman. En marknad i förändring speglar såväl politiska som ekonomiska drivkrafter, medan Ökat fokus på miljö visar hur miljöaspekter blir alltmer centrala för fastighetsmarknadens utveckling. Temat Företagen fokuserar på företagen utifrån strategiska perspektiv såväl som genusperspektiv. Internationell utblick får avsluta som en påminnelse om att mycket av det som sker på den svenska marknaden är en del av en global ekonomi.

To insert the expression “social” for indicating something new and alternative has been one of many trends in rural development over the last 20 years. “Social Capital” is perhaps the first example. In Europe “Social Economy” became known as an alternative economic sphere. “Social Entrepreneurship” followed suit by linking grass-root movements to the field of Entrepreneurship and more lately “Social Innovation” has come in vogue. They share some common characteristics where one is the lack of a common or agreed-upon definition. Another is how these concepts, as well as the phenomena illustrating them, are introduced as something “new”. This is emphasised by another common trait: how social is connected to value-laden and established terms: capital, economy, entrepreneurship and innovation. These terms are emblematic for a capitalist society. Hence, it is hardly a coincidence that they are selected and widely used in discussions on rural development. The question raised in this paper is whether these “social”-terms and the phenomena they try to capture are “new”, or expressions of what sometimes is called neophilism - the assumption that something is more valuable because it is perceived as new. My historical approach serves two purposes: to better understand the phenomena in themselves in a longer historical perspective and further to see how the shorter history of social entrepreneurship and social economy have affected our perception of rural development.

Swedish public housing controls about one fifth of the national housing stock. The position of the sector has been weakened over the last centuries and the role is under constant debate. There are on the one hand demands for a clearer market-orientation. A new legislation in 2011 stated the housing companies are required to work along ”business-like principles” On the other hand, the companies owned by the municipalities are expected to retain their traditional role as guardians of social values. This paper sketches the current Swedish housing situation and discusses the role of accounting in housing. A particular emphasis is on previous research in the cross-disciplinary field and how different approaches to studies on accounting and housing can provide insights for the empirical studies. The aim is hereby to look into the role of accounting in Housing Studies and what light these previous studies can shed on the Swedish situation.

Purpose – This explorative case study focuses on property investment decision making from a behavioural perspective at the very microlevel. The study contributes to an understanding of how property investors manage the decision-making process, including organizational aspects, property valuation, and financial management. Design/methodology/approach – Applying a qualitative approach, the authors analyse a very large transaction that occurred in the Swedish property market in 2008. In an open bid transaction, properties of Vasakronan Corporation were sold for SEK41.1 billion (€4.3 billion). Managers in both the purchasing company and the consortium making the second highest bid were interviewed. The authors were encouraged to speak freely, but also used an interview guide with a number of themes as well as specific questions. Findings – The findings reveal the characteristics of two types of property investment decision-making behaviour with respect to how actors organize the work, use external consultants, value the properties, and secure the financing necessary for a final bid. Practical implications – Creditors, analysts, and appraisers may benefit from the insight that property investment decision makers can use different approaches in determining their final bids. Originality/value – The authors use a qualitative empirical approach in analysing an extraordinarily large property transaction from a buyer's point of view and presents detailed information about this transaction as well as general insights into actual behaviour rarely examined in the property investment literature.

This volume contains the examined and selected papers of the 8th International Workshop on "Social Capital and Development Trends in Japan's and Sweden's Countryside".

In April 2008 a new Art Hall opened its doors in Östersund. Contemporary art was introduced to the visitors on the premises of one of the former regiments – art never previously exhibited in the region. The origin can be traced in the recent history of the town, and the possibilities created by these events in combination with EU-funding. At the background is a long lasting demand for a larger public art-gallery in the town that has never been filled, a vibrant art-environment with many small local private galleries and regional artists working to sustain their living. The project is here discussed at the background of theories on Experience industry and Creative Economy in relation to the tension between rural and urban contexts. The attention attached to the Experience industry is commonly linked to urban areas – here urban expressions of art are located to a rural area. Can it have implications for both our view of cultural industry and the differences between the urban and rural?

This explorative case study focuses on property investment decision-making from a behavioural perspective on the very micro level. The study aims at contributing to the understanding of how property investors manage the decision-making process, including issues like organising, valuing and financing. By applying a qualitative approach, we analyse an extraordinary large transaction that took place in the Swedish property market 2008. In an open bid transaction properties of the corporation Vasakronan was sold for SEK 41.1 billion (equal to € 4.3 billion). Managers in both the purchasing company and the consortium with the second highest bid were interviewed. They were encouraged to speak freely, but we also supplied an interview guide with a number of themes as well as specific questions. The findings reveal two types of characters in property investment decision-making behaviour with respect to how actors can organise the work and use external consultants, value the properties, and secure the financing necessary for a final bid. We use a qualitative empirical approach to analyse an extraordinary large property transaction from a buyer’s point of view, and we present detailed information about this transaction as well as general insights about actual behaviour rarely revealed in previous research or textbooks.

Background and purpose Attempts to solve important societal issues, for example long-term sick leave and unemployment, nowadays often involve several and varying type of actors. The European Union supports for example cooperation in projects aiming for new solutions and models to fight the problems. Temporary organizations are formed for this purpose at international, national, regional and local levels, with actors from public sector on different levels, representatives from private companies and non-profit organizations. At times, also the target group affected by the problem is involved. Formations of this kind can apply for funding for a certain period. The constellation lasts for this project only, and a possible continuation depends on the result of the project, or rather whether new funding is received. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a specific type of temporary cooperation between actors from different organizational fields within a temporary organization, what is called Development Partnerships. In our case, the members of the partnership comprises of other organizations, but we especially want to stress the issue concerning actors without organizational belonging, and their participation with actors from well established organizations belonging to institutionalised fields.