The paper investigates whether and how regional public transport plans in Sweden address issues of social justice. Drawing upon a theoretical and analytical framework based on Young’s concept of domination and using a critical discourse analysis conducted on regional transport plans in three Swedish regions (Skåne, Stockholm and Västra Götaland), we identify discourses potentially resulting from and reproducing domination dynamics. The analysis highlights the centrality of economic growth goals and the framing of public transport users as customers not involved in the decision-making processes, which contradicts the declared justice and sustainability aims of the plans. 

Despite discourses of contemporary high-mobility, a life characterised by high mobility is in sharp contrast to many people's experiences and personal preferences. Previous research has shown that mobility and transport opportunities are unevenly distributed in society. The paper explores how young unemployed people and low-skilled care workers in two Swedish urban municipalities prefer to travel less and stay local rather than undergoing time-consuming and expensive public transport trips. The results show that various temporal and spatial restrictions are significant regarding the extent to which public transport can cater for mobility needs, and that transport opportunities are part of an individual's opportunity to be socially included. The results indicate that other policy areas, such as the labour market policy and the public health policy, are equally important for social inclusion.

This paper is about collaboration in public transport governance. Drawing upon the emerging literature that views collaboration through the lens of networks, we explore why and how regional public transport authorities collaborate with both municipalities and public transport operators in the planning of public transport. We also explore the advantages and disadvantages of such collaborations. Based on interviews with civil servants (government officers) in the Swedish metropolitan regions of Stockholm, Vastra Gotaland and Scania, we conclude that collaboration is, firstly, a way for the regional public transport authorities (RPTA) to engage with the local municipalities and develop joint agreements on public transport priorities. It is also a way to build a common identity with the public transport operators, who operate services under tendered contracts. Secondly, we find that collaboration takes place during official meetings, as well as in informal conversations and face-to-face dialogues. Thirdly, the potential advantages and disadvantages of collaboration hinge on the ability of coordinating actors to put in place processes where the feasibility of plans can be established, and where a sense of common identity can be constructed.

Public transport is a collective good, organized and procured by public authorities and delivered by private transport companies. In the overall shift towards sustainable transport, public transportation is a key contributor, however, people working in the public transport system, are exposed to violence and abuse during their working days by travellers. In this report, we have interviewed bus drivers and train conductors about their experiences of threats and violence. We have also interviewed first line managers on how the organizations are strategically working to improve the work environment and safety for bus drivers and train conductors. The situation has improved by e.g. removing the possibility to buy tickets cash on board. The problem still remains and when a situation occurs the individual bus driver or train conductor are left alone to deal with it. Training courses are offered to the employees, but are not compulsory, and according to the interviews with both first line managers and bus drivers and train conductors, the strategic work on how to deal with threats and violence needs to improve.

This paper analyzes how public transport planning is managed in institutional contexts where governance is spread across local and regional scales. The paper sheds light on two facets of the relationship between local and regional government: first, the decision-making process regarding where to provide public transport services and at what level, and second, integration of public transport with land use planning. An analytical matrix is used to cross-reference the roles of formal institutions (governance established in law) and informal institutions (governance not established in law) against local and regional responsibilities for public transport and land use. Analysis of the interplay between these three axes (formal/informal, local/regional, public transport/land use) reveals how informal institutions help regional and local authorities to negotiate the constraints of formal, statutory institutions and help to oil the wheels of delivering measures and policies that make public transport work as a well-functioning system. However, informal institutions clearly have their limits, in the paper exemplified by the remaining challenges to integrate regional public transport and local land use planning. An identified challenge is that, by their very nature, informal institutions are difficult to influence or modify, therefore relying on them to fill gaps in formal institutional responsibilities may be a risky strategy when unpopular decisions are made.

Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to reveal gendered leadership constructs that hinder a competency-based view of leadership in Swedish-based global companies and the implications for leadership recruitment and development to top management positions. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews, which have been analyzed using a gender analytic framework to identify how senior management, Human resource management and leadership trainees are discussing leadership and career development. Findings – Three themes were identified as clouding the issue of gender-equal leadership practices thereby creating an opaque gendered lens of who is defined as eligible for leadership positions. The three themes were: symbols as gendered images, counting heads – preserving the existing system and illusive gender inclusion. Research limitations/implications – Recruitment practices were identified as contributors to homosocial practices that perpetuate male-dominated leadership representation. However, specific recruitment practices were not fully explored. Practical implications – The potential use of gender equality as a sustainable management practice for competitive organizations to recruit and develop talented people. Social implications – To create resilient and gender-equal recruitment and leadership development practices. Originality/value – This research offers an original perspective on gender representation at the senior management level in global companies by revealing gendered leadership constructs in the leadership recruitment and development process as antecedents to unequal gender representation in senior management positions.

Denna rapport sammanfattar forskningsprojektet Implementering av metod för jämställdhetskonsekvensbedömning (JKB) i svensk transportinfrastrukturplanering som inleddes år 2013. Syftet med projektet har varit att vidareutveckla och testa modellen för Jämställdhetskonsekvensbedömning (JKB) som föreslås i rapporten Kön i Trafiken. 1 Särskilt lades fokus på de jämställdhetspolitiska målen om ekonomisk jämställdhet samt jämn fördelning av det obetalda hem- och omsorgsarbetet. Vidare syftade projektet till att kartlägga kunskapsbehov (om jämställdhet) och att utforma en fortbildningskurs på högskolenivå i JKB för yrkesverksamma inom transportplaneringen. Projektet utgick från de transportpolitiska målen om jämställdhet och de nationella jämställdhetsmålen. Särskilt lades fokus på de jämställdhetspolitiska målen om ekonomisk jämställdhet samt jämn fördelning av det obetalda hem- och omsorgsarbetet eftersom dessa mål visat sig extra svåra att verksamhetsanpassa i transportplaneringen. Tidigare forskning visar att målen om ekonomisk jämställdhet och jämn fördelning av det obetalda hem- och omsorgsarbetet, kan hanteras bäst i tidiga skeden av planeringen och att dessa mål har stor betydelse på en övergripande nivå när platser för sysselsättning, utbildning och försörjning knyts ihop med platser för boende och andra aktiviteter i människors vardagsliv.2 Det innebär till exempel satsningar på regionala pendlingsstråk, att transportlösningar integreras i regionala utvecklingsmål och arbetet med att förstärka medborgarnas tillgång till nya arbetsmarknadsregioner (regionförstoring). Tidigare forskning visar också att ökad pendling gynnar mäns karriärutveckling i högre utsträckning och att kvinnor som grupp, har svårare att dra nytta av regionförstoringens fördelar.3 Vart fjärde–femte år utformas en länstransportplan för var och en av de 20 regionerna i Sverige. Dessa planer ligger till grund för satsningar inom transportområdet för 10–15 år framåt i tiden. Planerna används vid prioriteringar av större satsningar på såväl nationell, regional och lokal nivå. Det är således ett viktigt övergripande arbete som utförs av regionerna.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss and problematise how leadership and employees, or “employeeship”, are constructed within IKEA, a global firm often associated with national identity, and connected to distinct values and a leadership ideal. From a critical management perspective, the authors' intent was to study whether there were hierarchies and polarisations in constructions of leadership and, if so, how they were manifested. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical material consists of 17 interviews with Swedish and non-Swedish managers at the senior management level and internal documents. Findings – The analysis of the empirical material supports the finding that employees are constructed in superior vs subordinate positions based on beliefs about nationality (ethnicity), wherein the construction of Swedishness is ranked above other nationalities. Based on these constructions, two different dimensions of a leader emerge. The first dimension is one of leading and supporting, which involves personal development and is regarded as something positive. The second dimension involves being a manager, which is perceived as conservative, dreary and unappealing. Originality/value – The study illustrates how leaders in a global firm construct hierarchies and polarisation in the daily work.

The article describes how time-geography can be used to analyse every day working situation in order to identify potentials for work-based innovation. The study was carried out in an old-people's caring home, where the caring personnel seldom uses concepts such as innovations.

Artikeln baseras på en flervetenskaplig fallstudie inom Ikea, ett företag där ”svenskhet” är en del av värdegrunden och där situationsanpassat ledarskap används som modell. Företaget är en globalt snabbväxande aktör vilket innebär ett ständigt ”översättande” av verksamheten till nya kontexter. Genom en analys av seniora chefers beskrivningar av ledarskap och medarbetarskap avser vi att ifrågasätta antaganden inom det interkulturella perspektivet, som har varit dominerande inom ledarskapsforskningen.

This article discusses conditions of how to work with applied gender research as a mean to produce sustainable gender equality in strong innovation environments and innovation systems. During a three-year period, the research team of two gender researchers and two consultants in organisational development worked with an innovation environment focusing on the food innovation system in Skåne, southern Sweden. In this article we describe the process and development of how to address gender issues in a segment which is quite traditional when it comes to gender. We analyse the success factors as well as the weaknesses of the project layout and its consequences.

This report conclude the project Gender mainstreaming in the Skåne Food innovation Network.

This report describes and analyses a number of factors that are important for small-scale entrepreneurs in the food sector. The aim is to identify what small business owners perceive, as structural conditions seem prohibitive for their business development. The study is based on a survey of support structures and two in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs. It turns out that women’s entrepreneurship is rhetorically on the agenda, but in terms of gender equality and grassroots organizations such as Resource Centres’ for women are not perceived as important interlocutor for regional growth and development. For the entrepreneurs, they develop their businesses through their own network’s, with persistence and belief and creativity to combine new concepts. The enhancement the support structures might offer, the interviewed entrepreneurs finds administratively burdensome and based on short-term schedule. Regional growth and development programs focusing entrepreneurship and businesses needs to be organized by initiated people who are aware of the conditions to run businesses and have experiences of their own.

This paper is based on qualitative research on commuting and women's everyday lives. In the project ‘Re-reading time-geography from a feminist perspective’, labour force mobility is an important way of analysing women's time-space use and identifying the constraints experienced when organising everyday life. We claim that time-geography provides a useful set of analytical tools that successfully collaborate with social science theory such as gender studies. Time-geography has been questioned by feminists as well as others. However, we argue that time-geography could provide gender studies with a close, empathic and micro-levelled interventional approach that makes obstacles and constraints due to spatio-temporal conditions visible and thereby changeable. In this paper we use results from previous research to prove that time-geography is an approach with several sets of useful concepts that describe and analyse women's everyday struggles and possibilities in an era in which mobility and transport have become undisputed factors of everyday life. In order to do this, time-geography needs to be read from a gendered standpoint. Although we are still in the formative stages of this re-reading of original texts and the formation of additional sets of concepts, the indications are that this work is worth pursuing and expanding.