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Multilevel environment analysis is important for companies operating on the global market. Previous studies have in general focused on one level at a time, but the need to perform multilevel environment analysis has also been stressed. Multilevel analysis can partly explain the benchmarking gap between companies, as changing conditions in the upper environment levels affect lower levels. In today's information‐rich era, it is difficult to conduct multilevel analysis without suitable computational tools. This paper illustrates how the self‐organizing map can be used for the simultaneous comparison of industry‐level changes and financial performance of pulp and paper companies. The study shows the importance of simultaneous analysis, as some simultaneous changes were found at both industry and corporate levels. Also found were some industry‐specific explanatory factors for good (Scandinavian companies) and poor (Japanese companies) financial performance. The results indicate that the self‐organizing map could be a suitable tool when the purpose is to visualize large masses of multilevel data from high‐dimensional databases.

The paper aims to investigate the relationship between firms’ motivation for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the moderating role of internationalisation.

The authors developed and tested a conceptual model based on a survey of 65 respondents from the Møre and Romsdal (M&R) maritime cluster. The M&R maritime cluster despite being national has strong interconnections to the global maritime industry and as such, presents a suitable context for testing our research model.

The findings show that firms’ intrinsic motivation drives CSR more than extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is understood as a firm engaging in CSR because it is the right thing to do and done out of one’s free will without compulsion or coercion. Extrinsic motivation relates to an action that is performed to achieve a separate outcome. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are found to be related and not mutually exclusive. The impact of intrinsic motivation on CSR was found to be contingent on the extent of the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The key contribution of the study is the modelling of firms’ motivation for CSR activities and the contingent effect of internationalisation. In as much as companies perceive CSR activities as the right thing to do, the motive to do so also depends on the business case/profit motive. The study shows that SMEs’ intrinsic motivation is the driving force in CSR implementation and suggests that the urge by firms to give back to society is strengthened under conditions of high economic incentives and the firms’ degree of internationalisation.

Since 2006, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden, should according to the Higher Education Act, promote sustainable development (SD). In 2016, the Swedish Government asked the Swedish higher education authority to evaluate how this study is proceeding. The authority chose to focus on education. This paper aims to produce a report on this evaluation.

All 47 HEIs in Sweden were asked to write a self-evaluation report based on certain evaluation criteria. A panel was appointed consisting of academics and representatives for students and working life. The panel wrote an evaluation of each HEI, a report on general findings and recommendations, and gave an overall judgement of each HEI in two classes as follows: the HEI has well-developed processes for integration of SD in education or the HEI needs to develop their processes.

Overall, a mixed picture developed. Most HEIs could give examples of programmes or courses where SD was integrated. However, less than half of the HEIs had overarching goals for integration of SD in education or had a systematic follow-up of these goals. Even fewer worked specifically with pedagogy and didactics, teaching and learning methods and environments, sustainability competences or other characters of education for SD. Overall, only 12 out of 47 got a higher judgement.

This is a unique study in which all HEIs in a country are evaluated. This provides unique possibilities for identifying success factors and barriers. The importance of the leadership of the HEIs became clear.

Historically, professionals did not consider that people with learning disabilities could make use of psychoanalytic psychotherapy because of limitations of intelligence (Symington, 1981; Symington, 1993; Sternlicht, 1965). Additionally, many believed that people with learning disabilities enjoyed immunity from emotional stress and psychiatric disturbances (Fletcher, 1993). Maladaptive behaviours were perceived as a manifestation of the condition of learning disability and not as a possible sign of psychiatric disorder or emotional problems. However, over the last decade there has been a growing realisation that people with learning disabilities have emotional problems in the same way as others, but are in some ways more vulnerable to developing psychiatric and psychological disturbances. Psychoanalytic practitioners wishing to undertake outcome research have experienced difficulties in finding a measuring device that understands the subtleties of change in the internal psychological structure over time. PORT and DMT (the Percept‐genetic Object Relation Test and the Defence Mechanism Test) are two projective tests that have been extensively validated in Sweden. This paper explores the use of the PORT and DMT outcome measures in the context of Anglo‐Swedish psychotherapy research.

In the discourse on modern management, the concept of flexibility is often mentioned as a desirable characteristic of firms and employees. Flexible organizations exhibit an ability to change in response to market changes. It should be clear, however, that a range of possibilities exist between “rigid” organizations and truly flexible ones. This range is discussed. Further, a firm’s ability to demonstrate flexibility depends to a large degree on the flexibility exhibited by its employees. Firms exhibiting different degrees of flexibility have different demands on the flexibility of their coworkers, which means that a matching between supply and demand exists. Employee flexibility has several dimensions, which are also discussed as well as some conditions for a flexible work‐ cum lifestyle. The starting point for the discussion is the assumption that neither the firms themselves nor the surrounding society are especially adapted to a lifestyle of flexible work. Some measures to alleviate these conditions are proposed.

A concept of “prescripts” has been developed for those firms that apparently have shown an ability to extract, codify, and package knowledge in a manner that can be used both by themselves and others. This paper considers the prescript concept in terms of project management activity. Because projects and project management are important and apparently becoming more so, the activities of a firm such as Boeing are of interest. Their success turns not only on the ability to manage projects themselves, but also on instituting that discipline on their associates — the implication of an active prescript. This ability is discussed in terms of the company's present competitive position.

One recurring theme in the discourse on global competition is the major shift in thinking about what constitute resources in the economy. It is assumed that the economists' traditional categorization into land, labor and capital has been superseded by knowledge as the prime resource. As a consequence, this belief has led to an increased interest in human resource management, human capital, and the problem of attracting and keeping good knowledge workers. It is maintained in this paper that attracting and keeping good knowledge workers will be essential for survival in the knowledge economy, but that it will not necessarily lead to a competitive advantage. Instead, the competitive advantage resides in the competence of the firm to depersonalize knowledge and codify it into software “prescripts” that can be used to duplicate markets or marketed worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse recruitment to sheltered employment for the disabled, with particular attention to cream skimming, i.e. whether the most able candidates are picked by programme organisers.

In this paper recruitment practices and incentive structures at the state‐owned Samhall company, Sweden's main provider of sheltered employment, are discussed. An econometric analysis is performed on a random sample of 10,000 unemployed individuals, exploring the quality of the data on disability and the determinants of recruitment to the company. The findings regarding recruitment are related to Samhall's objectives.

The findings in this paper regarding cream skimming is mixed; the prioritised groups, i.e. individuals with intellectual or psychic disabilities, are more likely to be hired than some, but not all, disability groups. Individuals without disabilities tend to be recruited by the company, which suggests creaming and is contrary to the guidelines.

The paper sees that the fact that disability tends to be difficult to define should be taken into account when recruitment practices to employment programmes for the disabled are analysed.

The paper found that objectives and screening procedures in employment programmes for the disabled should be assessed carefully in order to avoid excessive cream skimming.

The paper shows that most studies on cream skimming do not consider programmes for the disabled, although the potential for harmful cream skimming may be larger than in mainstream programmes. Unlike previous studies the role of disability characteristics for recruitment is explicitly taken into account and these are related to programme objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, even in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, can be an integral part of human flourishing.

The authors' claim is based on a modern reading of Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. It should be emphasized that the authors do not argue that computer gaming and other similar online activities are central to all people under all circumstances; but only seek to show that the claim holds true for some people under some circumstances and the authors try to spell out the relevant circumstances in detail.

The authors provide a list of situations in which playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, is an integral part of human flourishing.

The paper puts some novel pressure on the widely‐held belief that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important. The paper claims that playing some computer games and partaking in some forms of online activities could be highly conducive to what it actually means in practice to take care of oneself and, to paraphrase Aristotle, to be eager for fine actions.

In this article, the area of interest is an emerging type of organisation called human resource intermediaries (HRIs), which focus on delivering human resource (HR) services to public sector organisations and private companies. The purpose of this article is, thus, to explore HRIs as deliverers of HR services. More specifically, the article will seek to analyse and discuss how employees in HRIs understand their role as providers of HR services to their clients and what characterises the HRIs' work and the nature of their assignments.

The empirical foundation of this article comprises a longitudinal case study of three Swedish HRI organisations. The data consist of interviews with 19 managers and consultants from the three HRIs.

The results indicate that HRIs want to take on a broad, strategic and proactive role in relation to their customers. However, due to external and internal constraints, such as the HRIs' internal work processes, the nature of their assignments and the client's HR competence level, the roles that HRIs play in practice tend to be more specific, operational and reactive.

An important challenge for HRIs is to avoid being overwhelmed by short‐term and reactive assignments that deliver value to their clients through the use of standard solutions. Long‐term relationships, the structures of ownership and membership, and the availability of unique networks can also prove to be valuable for clients.

This study explores HRIs as an emerging type of organisation within the area of human resources. Compared with HR consultants who specialise in handling specific HR‐related problems, HRIs target the entire flow of human resources in, within, and out of client organisations.