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The importance of mentorship in academia is discussed, and in particular the work of Timothy L. Wilson who has been instrumental for the author in this respect is described. Drawing on historical practices from academia and the arts, the purpose of this paper is to communicate why and how mentorship could be applied.

As a conceptual paper this draws knowledge from the author's experience.

The general message concerns the importance of mentorship in order to create a vibrant (and sustainable) academic community.

The value of this paper is twofold: primarily it celebrates Timothy L. Wilson as a model to mentorship in academia, second it communicates the importance of mentorship per se.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of what a good grabber is and how to construct one. This is done by drawing on the insights provided by Professor Timothy L. Wilson, for whom this paper is written as an “honorary piece.”

The paper is based on a small sample of papers from the 48 journals that have received contributions from Professor Wilson throughout the years. A total of 12 papers have been selected, using a mix of convenience and haphazard sampling. The grabber of each paper has then been analyzed based on its nature and style.

Based on the review and analysis, five different types of grabbers were identified; the quote, the anecdote, the provocative question, the surprise, and the metaphor, each type representing a unique way (and strategy) of creating initial interest.

As this paper was intentionally based on a convenience sample, further investigation is needed to establish whether the presented categories have clear validity and/or whether there are additional categories/strategies for how to create good grabbers.

Creation of interest is an increasingly important part of everyday academic practice. As the grabber is a rarely addressed phenomenon in academic literature, the presented categories should be of both interest and practical use to academics in most fields.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a useful mentorship experience from the perspective of the current author. It is a one case study at the same time as it opens up for reflections on mentorship in a variety of contexts with implications for academia.

Storytelling and reflections for the sake of reviving the notions of mentorship in academia by paying tribute to a trusted mentor.

The story is about how the mentorship evolved as part of a friendship relation, but the story has also implications for how mentoring can be developed as a personal strategy.

Mentoring can either be planned as a deliberate process or it can just happen, growing out of experiences from working with another person.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how sustainable development has been initiated in a country (Sweden) in which sustainable development has priority and has produced observable results – essentially, the definition and reshaping of contents (p. 107) referred to in the Zhang and London (ZL) paper, therefore adding some validity to the model.

The research is both exploratory and qualitative in nature and uses an in-depth case study approach to the Swedish international economy as might be reflected by ZL’s modified Porter model. Information drawn from current secondary sources is complemented by personal contemporaneous observations of individuals in the country of interest.

The task of implementing Sweden’s strategy for sustainable development is holistic, and the State has played a major role in its development. That is, sustainability is the responsibility of the Government Offices as a whole, which produces proactive programs in each of the interactions analyzed in the ZL modified model. As an aside, the country has sustained a high level of competitiveness while producing a pleasant environment in which to live.

Limitations in the study follow the same criticisms made of Porter’ seminal treatment – (still) lack of a formal model construction (although ZL make a meaningful contribution), (still) lack of clear definitions (although ZL make a meaningful contribution), problematic research methodology (although an attempt has been made at improvement) and lack of empirical testing among others (and it is thought that this paper is a step in the right direction).

Insofar as Sweden might be a model for other countries interested in extending their efforts in sustainable development, observations here provide some insights into possible approaches and results.

The approach basically followed Siggelkow’s (2007) definition of the use of cases as illustrations, which is useful when the underlying development depends upon constructs. It follows that the association of real-world observations with theory well serves the underlying foundation and cannot help but build credibility of those concepts and theory.

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.

The premise of this paper is that tension exists among participants and parties engaged in projects. The uniqueness of development virtually assures this. The purpose of this paper is to propose that tension is a product of the precursors of complexity, uncertainty and equivocality, and an attempt is made to characterize tension as it arises in projects – its genesis and its nature.

An in-depth case study was conducted in a manner in which the contextually sensitive empirical researches for which Nordic studies are known. Within discussions on the strategy, decision making, intra- and inter-project interdependencies and managing across development sites associated with a flagship project, 77 statements concerning tension were identified for analysis. Through a literature review, 12 tension-driving factors were identified. These factors were used as base for analysis.

These statements were analyzed for content to produce a model associating tension with its precursors and the literature on tension. It is found that due to innovation turbulence, tension-driving factors are cascaded in and around organization(s). Tension is manifested in various ways for different stakeholders and tension management is performed through cognitive and emotional responses. The texture of tension is characterized by fluidity, multiplicity and parallelism.

Case studies can of course not be generalized; they are valuable, however, in indicating important observations for further studies.

A contribution is made to management theory where knowledge about project context is seen as essential in order to understand best practices for project execution and effectiveness.

Although common, even virtually assured in projects, tension tends to be neglected in successful management. This study associates the genesis of tension through the underlying contributions of complexity, uncertainty and equivocality. It is believed to be the first study of its type.

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.

This work is initiated under the premise that reliable evaluation methods are necessary to ensure investments in energy conservation, and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to that literature. It describes some pilot changes and their impact in an actual field study oriented toward upgrading municipal public housing (MPH) units.

The research for this paper was connected to an MPH refurbishment project situated in northern Sweden. The overall energy efficiency goal within the project was a 40-50 percent reduction in the supplied energy for central electricity, domestic hot water and space heating. In order to evaluate if these goals were feasible, a measurement system was installed in a pilot building and in a neighboring building used as a reference. The evaluation was conducted by comparing the post-retrofit performance of the pilot building with the performance of the reference building when it was kept in its initial state (a comparison possible because both buildings had initial similarities).

Impacts could be quantified insofar as a reference (control) building in the same environment was sustained for comparison purposes. A 43 percent improvement was observed in energy utilization in the pilot building compared to its reference companion (99.8 vs 174.5 kWh/m² per year). When the approach described herein was applied to new construction, the present goal of 65 kWh/m² was approached as measured by Swedish standards.

Results should be of interest to academics in the housing field, professionals involved in refurbishment and residents themselves, renting MPH flats.

This study is unique in the following ways: first, it really was a field experiment with a control, thus it did not have any exogenous interference in interpreting results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind. The second interesting characteristic was that results were subsequently used in the refurbishment of other buildings in the complex and in the construction of others. The major value of the paper may be associated with its timing. It comes at a time when the Kyoto agreement has raised concerns about sustainability, but also at a time when many buildings are facing a need for refurbishment.

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.

The present paper aims to extend an ongoing study of Swedish trade journal's, Privata Affärer, recognition of the “bank of the year.”

The information used in this paper came from Privata Affärer, which annually recognizes a “best” bank in Sweden. Each issue containing the annual recognition provides the rationale for selecting the specific bank as well as interviews with their CEOs. The data base is robust – every bank in Sweden is surveyed, so results come not from a sample, but a census of banks and banking practice; 17 year's selections are now available.

Results are interpreted in terms of Porter's five forces model and Stabell‐Fjeldstaad value model. For eight of the last 11 years, new entrants have dominated the award; in fact, in the last five years one winner was a virtual bank and another was a subsidiary of a retail grocery chain.

It is tempting to extend results to the USA and elsewhere in the industrialized world, but of course results relate only to Sweden. Nevertheless, it is suggested that competitors who enter with significantly new services can, and do, become popular leaders in this industry.

Sweden tends to be a leader in service theory and development. Consequently, a model exists for developing a competitive edge in other countries.

This paper provides an independent confirmation of service models of competition, which generally are lacking in the literature.