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The purpose of this paper is to explore and elaborate on how institutional conditions work to the advantage and disadvantage of disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies on different levels in two countries.

A qualitative case study design is used to study empirically two countries with very different traditions when it comes to political-administrative institutions: Argentina and Sweden.

As expected, the institutional foundations of DRR policy in Sweden are shown to be more consistent and stable than in Argentina. However, this difference is of less importance when considering the crucial role of local practices. National institutional foundations can function as support – but is not a necessary condition – for building disaster preparedness on the ground. The authors argue that national governments cannot do without institutionalized praxis-based preparedness, which is vital for both effective emergency management and learning.

This paper contributes to the disaster research debate by elaborating on institutional arrangements that can facilitate or hinder DRR strategies in a multi-level context. The main argument is that institutional practices on the ground are important to compensate for insufficient national institutions, either because they are weak or too distant from practical DRR. The authors also elaborate on how institutional practices can function as a source for learning and for building legitimate practical authority from the bottom up.

The paper proposes customer involvement can be considered an organization-level construct of knowledge creation in the new process development. Specifically, the paper evaluates three distinct organizational practices as knowledge antecedents – competitor orientation, social network and internal coordination – that can facilitate the adoption of customer involvement in the process innovation development.

The paper empirically tests this theory for 2,000 firms that are stratification sampled from a population of 33,844 Taiwanese firms, and a data set of 170 valid questionnaires is collected. The questionnaire was mainly modified from a Kim and Kim (2010) measure which was designed based on the 3rd edition of the Oslo Manual OECD/Eurostat 2005. The concept of customer involvement in new service development proposed by Alam (2002) was also applied to the questionnaire.

(1) The antecedents of customer involvement, which include competitor orientation, external social networks and internal coordination, function as a determinant to nourish customer involvement. (2) Customer involvement significantly positively mediates the relationship between knowledge antecedents and new process performance. (3) Customer involvement is a crucial knowledge creation for improving the new process innovation performance in manufacturing firms.

Two basic tenets of theory building serve as the foundation of the model in this paper. First, research on customer involvement is augmented by showing that customer involvement can emerge as a shared perception among organizational members that is distinct from individual-level involvement. Moreover, customer involvement in process innovation can help firms manage their knowledge and further enhance firm performance. Second, the knowledge management model provides a key lens through which researchers can take a process-oriented view that focuses on customer involvement as a unique capability that firms can develop in process innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to several of the ideas of Jan‐Erik Gröjer by reviewing and critiquing the field of Human Competence Accounting (HCA) since his Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal review article in 1998.Three research questions he posed in that article are now addressed in the current paper: What could be done, as envisaged in the commentary of Gröjer and Johanson; What has been published in HCA research in the ten year period (1999‐2008); What more could/should be done in HCA as a research agenda.

A literature based analysis and critique of HCA accounting articles published in the selected journals from 1999 to 2008 is employed. A purpose built coding and classification scheme is built around several categories for the purpose of analysing the HCA literature.

The paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of Gröjer and Johanson's review and indicates that questions they raised and possible research directions have been acted upon by a number of authors. The findings of the analysis indicate that, a decade on from the original review, HCA is a legitimate area for accounting research and is multi‐disciplinary and multi‐focused in nature.

The paper only considers selected HCA articles within the ten journals used over the period 1999‐2008.American mainstream positivist research has not been reviewed. Also the categories chosen to represent HCA have several limitations which are addressed in the paper.

HCA research has a strong tradition and the Gröjer and Johanson review is an important beacon that provided insights to accounting researchers. The current analysis extends Jan‐Erik's work by providing several insights into what has happened and also provides several ideas for future research and policy work in accounting for HCA.

This study aims to investigate the effect of organizational ambidexterity (OA) and organizational green culture (OGC) on corporate sustainability (CS) while incorporating the mediating role of green innovation (GI) to provide a detailed insight into CS. The study also presents a research framework based on the Organizational Ambidexterity theory and Natural Resource-based view to explain the factors contributing to CS.

Using stratified sampling, the study collected data through survey-based empirical research from 307 textile companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) or the All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA). The collected data were analysed using path analysis, mediation analysis and moderation analysis through smart PLS-SEM version 4.0 to assess the composition and causal association of factors.

The study found a significant relationship between OA and OGC with CS. Furthermore, the study revealed that green innovation partially mediates the relationship between OGC and CS. The proposed research framework can be valuable for promoting and recommending actions to enhance CS.

The study on CS in the textile sector of Pakistan has limitations such as a narrow focus, cross-sectional design and reliance on self-reported data. Future research should explore additional factors, conduct longitudinal research, investigate contextual factors, scrutinize specific green innovation practices and broaden the scope of the study to include SMEs and other textile organizations.

The research framework can help senior executives to foster CS by promoting OGC, OA and GI. Practitioners and academicians can also utilize or further investigate the proposed framework for validation and to foster CS.

This study fills gaps in the existing literature by investigating the mediating effect of GI between OGC and CS. The proposed research framework provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to CS based on the Organizational Ambidexterity theory and Natural Resource-based view.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of effective communication and the use of customer-friendly periodic report as tools for managing cordial relationship between facilities management (FM) operatives and their customers. FM functions require effective management of the relationships between the customers, workplace interface and support facilities, to facilitate the achievement of the objectives of the organisation. This suggests that FM operatives should continuously marry their performance priorities with the customers’ priorities and perception; otherwise, the FM operatives may be toiling without objective recognition of service or achieve improved customer satisfaction.

The case study method of qualitative research was adopted. The data were collected using the combination of in-depth interviews and evaluation of FM’s periodic reports from two universities in South Africa.

The FM units in both universities have a suitable operational system and use a modern computer-aided FM tool. However, the units have not been able to manage relationships with customers, largely because they have not been able to “deliver on promise” and have not learnt to use the soft skills of effective communication. The quality of the periodic reports from the units does not provide sufficient educative information for the end-users; the structure is not stakeholders-friendly.

The paper identifies that though FM units spend considerable time in the development, maintenance and effective running of support facilities, they pay little attention to documentation, reporting and use of the soft skills of effective communication, which are necessary ingredients for improved customer relationships.

Traditional process‐oriented system development methods often result in fragmentary user interfaces with information presented in various windows without considerations of requirements for simultaneous viewing. Opening, closing, moving and resizing these windows attracts the users’ attention away from the actual work. User interface design according to the workspace metaphor could provide skilled professional users with an efficient, customised user interface to administrative information systems. This can improve work performance and facilitate efficient navigation between workspaces. A case study in co‐operation with the Swedish National Tax Board (RSV) describes practical use of the workspace metaphor.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss measurement of project success in an ownership perspective.

The research is based on a case study of owner structures in 11 projects. For each case, an analysis was made of which stakeholder that held six different roles related to project ownership. Multiple sources of information are used, including archives, interviews and observations.

Results from the study indicate that owner responsibilities are not always concentrated to one individual stakeholder in a project. While a traditional owner can be identified for some projects, it is a more complex picture for many other projects.

This paper has primarily analysed project ownership on a macro level, between organisations. Challenges related to identifying owners can to a certain extent also be found on a micro level, within the most involved organisations, but this has not been the aim of the research.

Measurement of project success in a project owner perspective needs to be adjusted to fit the projects in question. While the question “Who owns a project” is easy to answer in some cases, it requires a more differentiated answer in other cases.

Most literature on project ownership focuses on one owner who has all the characteristics of the owner. It is based on one stakeholder who takes the risk related to the cost and future value of the project. The study shows that owner responsibilities are not necessarily concentrated to one individual stakeholder in a project.

There are several ways to implement and work with the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The company Ericsson Data AB was one of the pioneers in employing the BSC in Sweden. As early adopters, they were interested in obtaining an evaluation performed by external researchers. We were fortunate to have that opportunity. During the autumn of 1998, Majvor Karlsson and Ellen Sharma had full access to the developmental department dealing with the implementation of BSC at the company. The present article is based on interviews with managers and developers with the aim to determine how the BSC was implemented and how it functions in the day‐to‐day life of the company. The BSC model introduced in Ericsson was given the name Cockpit. As one might expect, implementing BSC requires a great deal of time and energy. We found that it resembles the process in other organisational changes as well. In our research, we found that there were many aspects of the implementation of BSC with which we could interpret and explain our observations with the help of theories of organisational change. Our findings led us to formulate a theory concerning the implementation process of the BSC. It was a relief to discover that we could use a method that allowed us to listen and learn from the persons involved in the implementation process at Ericsson Data.

Owners of multi‐tenant office buildings pursue various strategies for providing bundles of services to building users. In order to study what determines patterns of bundling, 12 Swedish owners were interviewed in 2002. Strategies were found to depend on the size of their property holdings, where those who held less than 100,000m² differed from large property owners. There is also a difference between owners that have a tradition of providing construction and property‐related services and owners with their main activities in the financial sector. These patterns can be explained by considering transaction costs arising from services coordination and by referring to the dynamics of learning and competence in owner organizations. It is suggested that service‐offering owners should increase their competence for monitoring service delivery. Some property owners may benefit more from developing the competence needed for a sole provider coordinated strategy.

The purpose of this study is to explore the benefits and barriers for learning in industrial PhD education through the perspectives of industrial PhD students. A work-integrated learning (WIL) approach is applied to highlight key issues that university and industry need to consider promoting mutual learning.

The empirical context is a Swedish university profiling WIL offering PhD programs in three disciplines for industrial PhD students from both the private and public sectors. Data was gathered using qualitative methods; 19 semistructured interviews with industrial PhD students.

Findings show that industrial PhD students are developing practical and transferable skills, hence, contributing to research of interest for academia and work–life. Identified benefits for learning include proximity and access to data, project and networks and contextual understanding and tacit knowledge. Barriers for learning are the perceived limited understanding of employers, the dilemma of balancing and switching between different roles, lack of belonging and identity, deficient collaboration agreements and ethical dilemmas.

Contributes insights into an industrial PhD education transforming along with societal needs promoting a future workforce of researchers with skills, new work practices and learning capabilities applicable in the work–life of contemporary society.

This study contributes to the emerging field of studies of alternative doctoral educations by identifying benefits and barriers for learning and providing recommendations for how university and industry may promote learning in a resilient industrial PhD education collaboration.