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Green innovation can promote both environmental sustainability and economic growth. However, its development and implementation can be complex due to the need to align innovation activities within and across companies. In this study, the authors examined how this complexity can be managed by analyzing how individual companies combine different innovation activities to develop green innovation, and how companies along the value chain align to implement these innovations.

The dataset comprises both interviews and a survey of senior executives from the Swedish wood construction industry. These data were first analyzed by using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify innovation activity configurations at the level of the individual company. The interviews were then analyzed to identify alignment mechanisms enabling the implementation of green innovation along the value chain.

At the company level, the authors found three innovation activity configurations with varying levels of complexity: (1) systemic innovation by proactive companies, (2) process innovation by reactive companies and (3) inaction by technology-independent companies. On the value chain level, the authors found three alignment mechanisms that facilitate the implementation of green innovation along the value chain. These mechanisms promote cooperation by increasing efficiency, opening up new market opportunities and increasing the level of servitization.

This paper analyzes the complexity of green innovation and provides novel insights into how complexity is managed at the level of both the individual company and the value chain.

What is contractual governance in a scenario of performance management? When approached from a static viewpoint, contracting is largely connected with the securing of resources, thus acquiring a capacity focus. In this article, we focus on contractual governance as a part of performance management for a stakeholder network in a specific, government‐controlled context: Public Transport. In order to contribute to more dynamic and sustainable public service, a more process‐oriented approach to contractual governance is necessary. Public Transportation in Sweden has undergone an initial wave of development, the production paradigm, and is now undergoing what is more a second wave of service, the service paradigm. A third wave of development is approaching: sustainability. We argue that contractual governance creates a more dynamic contractual relationship as a key element of performance management leading to more sustainable public service. We also argue that a proactive approach during the mission will positively affect all the stakeholders involved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of transcendence as business logic and to advance value co-creation and value network thinking. The authors are looking for business logic to have wider understanding of sustainable business. Understanding how value is “networked” and “co-created” by what the authors will call “transcendent business logic” in specific contextual settings is deemed essential in securing sustainable business, which social and environmental perspectives and governance issues are embedded. The authors lay the foundation for enriching the transcendence for business logics for a sustainable business based on sustainability, stakeholder-unifying perspective and value creation network theories.

The study adopts a qualitative approach, using multiple case studies to undertake an analysis of the role of transcendence for business logics. Four case studies of private companies and parallel case studies of retail, health care and public organizations (regional public transport networks) are applied. The paper further asses a methodological approach goes beyond the positivistic paradigm in service research to understand the texts and analyze the research materials. This section presents the methodological approach based on transcendence beyond objectivism and relativism and the transformation process of transcendence business logic.

The paper demonstrates that “different business logics” contributes to securing sustainable business embedded on social and environmental perspectives on governance issues. The authors have shown this based on the idea of transcendence, which can be used from a methodological point of view based on a deeper understanding beyond objectivism and relativism. The authors argued in this paper for a methodological path beyond functionalism. The authors are providing a deeper understanding of the business logic; co-creating value for people and developing sustainability for society. The study has also shown that values form the network, and co-creation is the basis for transcending the business logics.

The paper makes original contribution to the exploring transcendence for business logics to be in lieu of guiding open source business models based on the need for understanding of the new logic in the new complex landscape. In service research, the main theoretical challenges of understand and integrating value co-creation and value networks to secure sustainable businesses are founded on the principles of steering and navigation. In this study the authors addressed the need for advancement of value co-creation network thinking and perusal for the business logic to have a wider understanding of sustainable business.

“User” is the lingua franca term used across IT design, often critiqued for giving a reductionist portrayal of the human relationship with technologies. The purpose of this paper is to argue that equating “user” with flesh and blood “people out there” is naïve. Not only that, it closes important options in conducting human-centered design.

The authors conceptually elaborate a relational understanding of the user and integrate research findings on user representations found at the intersection of human-centered design and social studies of technology.

The user is best understood as a relational term that bridges between people out there and renditions of them relevant for design. A distinction between “user representations” and “engaged use” is a key distinction to clarify this further. Research to date demonstrates that R & D organizations have a wide range of user representations and positioning human-centered design to these would advance its likely yield.

The strategic positioning of user studies and other human-centered design within R & D organizations is a growing research area that merits further research.

Descriptions of users would benefit from being more strategic in order to become viable amidst other design concerns. This can be aided by, for instance, visualizing the “users” that different fractions in the company rely on and compare these to the users indicated by human-centered design.

The paper makes an original reconceptualization of the user and integrates literature on user representations to open new options for conducting human-centered design.

The aim of the present paper is to study what effect CSR has had on the practice of organizations.

Since the effects of CSR on practice are an understudied topic the paper adopts a single case study design and studies Swedbank. Theoretically the paper approaches the problematic from the perspective of neo institutional theory and stakeholder theory.

If CSR approaches colonize organisational practice, a fundamental shift from a shareholder strategy, to a social harmony strategy may be experienced, i.e. that the current focus on shareholder needs in contemporary organizations is balanced with the needs of other stakeholders. CSR adoption is surprisingly high at Swedbank and the paper thus argues that CSR might change the practice of organizations toward social harmony.

The case study design does not make possible empirical generalizations. Therefore, further research should focus on generalizing the findings. Further research might also conduct case studies by using the adoption framework in other empirical settings.

The paper offers new insight on of the adoption of CSR in organizations and connects this issue to stakeholder theory. Additionally, framing the adoption of CSR from an institutional perspective is also novel.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what options the adult learner has for continued learning and what role universities are playing in providing net-based education. Current options for lifelong learning and improvement opportunities in the educational process are described based on an assessment inspired by principles of lean management.

Sweden is chosen as an example. The current level of net-based university education and the demand for it is assessed using official Swedish data. Lean management principles are used as a starting point to define parameters for interest for the adult learner. These parameters are then converted into a five-level scale for assessing current performance with focus on university courses. The authors also study how Swedish County Councils manage their employee education and carry out a check of courses offered by massive open online course providers.

Lean management principles in combination with customer focus seem to present relevant parameters for assessing distance education. Preliminary results indicate that lean lifelong learning has a considerable improvement potential. The main reasons for this potential seem to be more of a bureaucratic and political nature, whereas technology and resources appear to be less of an issue.

The results have implications for both universities and organisations. The pressure on universities to become more customer-focussed, while at the same time, cost-effectiveness is likely to increase.

Using the customer perspective for educational services and applying lean principles to education.

Sustainability can be assessed in the dimensions Profit, Planet and People. A problem with the approach is that these dimensions cannot be added. Another problem is that performance seldom is related to global system boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to study the “what” of sustainability by linking this to global boundaries and proposing “how” the authors could manage change toward sustainability.

Sustainability definitions are reviewed to identify main stakeholders. People value defined as utility is compared to Planet harm as carbon emissions and People harm as prices of products. This approach is examined in business studying the global processes of housing, transporting, providing food and cement manufacturing.

The relative indicators with focus on People utility compare to Planet and People harm seem to be relevant for measuring the level of sustainability. The Crippled Bottom Line of People value/Planet harm and People value/Planet harm is proposed as the “what” to measure and the change process of “understanding-defining-measuring-communicating-leading change” is proposed as the “how” to change.

The research is based on identifying the main stakeholders based on sustainability definitions and from that point mostly on deductive reasoning.

The practical implications are that organizations could define sustainability indicators with objectives that are linked to global limits.

Advocating the use of price as a social indicator could have social implications.

The paper contributes to the discussion of how to link global limits to organizational measurements and targets.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on business excellence by comparing the business excellence models of Malcolm Baldrige, European Foundation for Quality Management and Swedish Institute for Quality. By assessing these in relation to today’s new business landscape, the authors suggest that emphasising issues such as stakeholder co-creation of value, stakeholder dialogue, service innovation, service logic, business ethics and different views on resource integration can alter the view of quality improvement from economic, social and environmental perspectives, in turn, leading to Business Excellence 2.0.

This study examines three business excellence models and compares their adoption of the concepts of today’s new business landscape. The study focuses on whether the models’ fundamental principles and concepts are aligned with the views on sustainability, stakeholder co-creation and service innovation.

The examined business excellence models do not fully respond to the requirements of today’s business landscape. To gain relevance in the private sector, the fundamental ideas of the models in terms of concepts, criteria and evaluation processes must be rethought. Such an opportunity enables the quality movement and service logic research to come together to develop new business excellence models that incorporate the challenges of today’s business landscape.

This paper illustrates the need to develop business excellence models to address the perspectives of today’s new business landscape.

By incorporating strategies in sustainability, stakeholder co-creation and service innovation in business excellence models, organisations can deliver sustainable business growth.

The paper sheds new light on how business excellence models can incorporate aspects of the new business landscape. It also shows how the quality movement and the ongoing service logic research can come together to develop a new business excellence model that addresses the challenges in the new business landscape.

The aim of this paper is to explore the links between contractual governance and performance measurement in a value network for public service business, in the context of public transport, by positing service‐dominant logic (S‐D logic) as an alternative paradigm to the conventional goods‐dominant logic (G‐D logic). The paper addresses the following research questions: how does S‐D logic influence contractual governance and performance measurement? How do these influences of S‐D logic on contractual governance and performance measurement affect the governance of public service businesses in a value network?

The study adopts a qualitative approach, using case studies to undertake an analysis of the role of contractual governance and performance management in the Swedish public transport system.

The paper demonstrates that the current model of contractual governance and performance measurement is focused on operand resources, and driven by G‐D logic, rather than focused on operant resources, with S‐D logic. The effect of this dichotomy is an effective negation of the professed desire for a customer‐oriented public service system. The paper also develops and proposes a viable model of how a redefined arrangement, based on S‐D logic, could be achieved. The challenge is to govern a loosely coupled value network based on values rather than rules. Another challenge is how to create more sustainable public service based on value‐in‐use for all stakeholders in the value network. When developing a service business based on S‐D logic, it is important to invest resources in accordance with a balanced set of social, environmental and economic perspectives. The current study also contributes to the ongoing discussion of S‐D logic as an open source.

In service research, little attention has been devoted to the links between contractual governance and performance measurement. The paper proposes and develops a novel model of contractual governance and performance measurement based on S‐D logic.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of organisational capabilities (dynamic and operational) in the formation of value networks in the context of public transport services.

The theoretical argument is substantiated with qualitative data from four narratives on value network formations in the Swiss public transport system. These four narratives cover two types of new value networks: incremental improvements in established value networks; and radical leaps in emerging value networks.

These two types of new value networks entail the co‐evolution of different dynamic and operational capabilities.

The study is limited by the qualitative research approach.

Public transport operators can utilise the findings on organisational capabilities to guide incremental improvements in their existing value network and/or radical leaps into an emerging value network.

Governments should not only seek to increase transport capacity, but also aim to develop value networks to enhance public transport service experiences.

The paper applies value‐network thinking to public transport services. It offers a comprehensive framework to help organisations manage the formation of value networks. The results provide testable propositions that can be used to guide future research.