"Författarna tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som troligen är den mest välkända definitionen av hållbar utveckling: ”Hållbar utveckling är en utveckling som tillfredsställer dagens behov utan att äventyra kommande generationers möjligheter att tillfredsställa sina behov.” Med denna som grund konstaterar de att hållbar utveckling innebär ett paradigmskifte som inbegriper radikala förändringar i hur vi ser på vår egen roll i världen." Läs hela Cecilia Enbergs recension av boken Att undervisa för hållbar utveckling.

The objective of this study is to explore whether the green recovery packages issued by the Swedish government are aligned with the work of the construction and building industry to become climate-neutral by 2045. We have interviewed heads of sustainability of some of the largest companies in the industry and surveyed companies that have signed the Roadmap for a fossil-free construction and building industry1. Our results show that market-related challenges constitute the most important challenges to the environmental and climate work of the companies in our study. To better respond to these challenges, they require policies that reward frontrunners, primarily green public procurement, and tougher standards and norms. They also requested investments and policies that support the transition to a circular economy. We conclude that while green public procurement is not among the policies and investments included in the recovery packages, other parts are well aligned with the challenges encountered, requested investments and policies, and on-going work. This is particularly true for the above-mentioned investments related to the transition to a circular economy. Further, the study enables us to conclude that it is important to consider the long-term effects of green recovery packages and their potential for return-on-investment in terms of reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per SEK. Such packages will also have a better effect if they support on-going environmental and climate work, initiate new actions, and are designed with a systems perspective that facilitates joint action between different companies along the entire supply chain.

From Jim March we learned that organizational intelligence demands adaptation to the needs of a distant future as well as the efficient use of resources in the present. Commitment to new ideas that deviate from norm is necessary for long-term adaptation, but comes with great uncertainty as to if when or how success will come. This article uses a historical study of military aircraft manufacturer Saab to explore the transition from experimenting with physical models and dangerous test flights in the development of rather simple aircraft systems, to the development of complex integrated aircraft systems using virtual models that can be tested in a simulated world, thereby postponing choice and the need for commitment of resources in the physical world. We show how modeling techniques and tools were developed over five generations of aircraft to help developers represent and evaluate alternative ideas, in an increasingly realistic virtual reality, thereby reducing material and fatal consequences in aircraft development. We distinguish hybrid forms of evaluation and a transition that seems to be moving in the direction of "virtual online evaluation," where empirically informed simulation models, based on real flight data reduces the fidelity gap between reality and representation. Drawing upon a selection of Jim Marchs writings, we speculate what this transition implies for learning from experience and the possibility of foolishness without consequence.

In the current thematic collection of Högre Utbildning, we present eight contributions on how to change higher education in ways which will enable students to contribute to a sustainable future, including three invited papers on the systematic transformation of higher education necessary to addressour existential societal challenges.

This study explores the role of relational power and discursive positioning in the knowledge integration process of an interdisciplinary project developing a steam turbine. As boundaries are an important focus of study for knowledge integration studies, more engagement is needed to not only map boundary work in the knowledge integration process, but also to acknowledge the role of power in this context. With help of governmentality and positioning theory, we show how power struggles are manifested as boundary work that both reinforces and undermines temporal and domain-specific boundaries. The study concludes that these reinforcements and underminings are central for our understanding of how knowledge integration develops. In addition, the study shed lights on the significance of the co-existence of domination and freedom in the project work. By acknowledging power relations and studying them as they are played out in discursive talk, the study contributes to an increased understanding of the nuances and intricacies of knowledge integration processes.

 Denna rapport beskriver en studie vars syfte har varit att undersöka vilka utmaningar och möjligheter som finns med att på ett systematiskt sätt arbeta för att främja ett lärande för hållbar utveckling vid LiU. Vår utgångspunkt har varit universitetskanslerämbetets tematiska utvärdering från 2017 av lärosätenas arbete med att främja en hållbar utveckling genom sina utbildningar. Vi har genomfört en studie med programansvariga vid utbildningar som ges vid institutionen för ekonomisk och industriell utveckling, IEI varav en del på filosofisk och andra på teknisk fakultet. Dels har vi gått igenom utbildningsplanerna för programmen, dels har vi genomfört en enkätundersökning och en uppsättning fokusgruppsdiskussioner med programansvariga.

Ett mindre antal av programmen och specifikt civilingenjörsutbildningen i Energi, Miljö & Management (EMM) har i utbildningsplaner referenser till specifika mål för en hållbar utveckling som man avser förbereda sina studenter att kunna bidra till. De flesta programs primära fokus ligger dock på anställningsbarhet för sina studenter. Från enkäten och fokusgruppsdiskussioner har vi förstått att det för många programansvariga har varit det första tillfället de fått att fundera över hur deras utbildningar eventuellt bidrar till att förbereda studenter för att hantera utmaningar kopplade till en hållbar utveckling. I våra resultat märks också en tydlig ambivalens och tveksamhet inför både vad man gör just nu, vad man vill göra och vilken sorts drivkrafter och styrning man önskar i det arbetet. Flera programansvariga hävdar å ena sidan att begreppet är svårdefinierat, men att man å andra sidan är säker på att man arbetar i en riktning som gör att utbildningarna bidrar till att främja en hållbar utveckling. Man hävdar att en del lärare vid de egna programmen kan sakna kompetens att hantera problem med flera dimensioner, men anser samtidigt att de egna lärarna har den kompetens som behövs för utbildnings-programmen. Man ser positivt på studenters och externa finansiärers önskemål om förändringar av utbildningarna, men är samtidigt tveksam till många av de sätt som LiU skulle kunna använda för att stödja arbetet med för-ändringar.

Baserat på vår analys av programansvarigas respons och universitetskanslersämbetets rekommendationer ger vi avslutningsvis rekommendationer för fortsatt arbete med frågan om lärande för hållbar utveckling på LiU.

This chapter addresses individual project competence as a key element in the process of knowledge integration in research and development projects. It argues for an individual and contextual turn in knowledge integration research based on two observations: that individuals play an increasingly important role in knowledge integration processes, and that knowledge integration processes change with new kinds of project contexts. Hence, it argues for a more fine-grained analysis of different kinds of project contexts. More particularly, requirements on individual project competence (for knowledge integration in traditional and agile projects respectively) are elicited. It is suggested that in a traditional project context, liminality competence, planning competence and a focus on swift socialization are needed, along with T-shaped skills. In an agile project context, on the other hand, flexibility competence, managerial competence and a focus on building long-term relations, together with M-shaped skills, are required.

Produktutveckling är en central aktivitet för många företags konkurrenskraft och lönsamhet. Traditionella utvecklingsprojekt karakteriseras av integration av specialiserad kunskap under en begränsad period genom att olika individers kunskap utnyttjas och kombineras. Efter avslutat projekt upplöses teamen och individerna sprids ut i nya projekt. Så kallade agila arbetssätt framhävs ofta som framgångsrecept för produktutveckling och har på senare år vunnit mark i svenska industriföretag. Genom att etablera permanenta, tvärfunktionella team kan produktutvecklingsprocessen effektiviseras. I sådana team betonas vikten av att individer lär av varandra och breddar sin tekniska kompetens för att lösa uppgifter som ligger utanför den egna kunskapsdisciplinen. Utifrån ingående fallstudier av ett antal produktutvecklingsprojekt analyserar vi i kapitlet konsekvenserna av agil projektorganisering för kunskapsintegration. Vi visar att sådana arbetsformer ur ett dynamiskt perspektiv kan vara såväl kompetensförstärkande som kompetensförstörande. Tvärfunktionella och interdisciplinära arbetssätt kan effektivt lösa komplexa problem, men i ett längre perspektiv krävs också utrymme för individuell specialisering i urskiljbara kunskapsområden.

A prerequisite for effective knowledge integration is access to differentiated and specialized knowledge bases. Knowledge integration often takes place in interdisciplinary project teams, where members spend most of their time working closely with members of opposing disciplinary domains in problem-solving processes. The disciplinary knowledge of individual team members is therefore key to the quality and outcome of the knowledge integration in organizations relying on interdisciplinary project work. This paper returns to a challenge well-described in previous research into project-based organizing, namely how to sustain and develop disciplinary expertise in the long run in an organization that promotes dispersal of disciplinary peers and an increased cross-learning across disciplines. So far, only a few studies have contributed to developing insights into how these challenges can be met, and how different organizational solutions might counteract the risks of losing disciplinary depth. Based on a comparative study of three cases, this study sets out to identify and analyze solutions that emerge in project-based organizations as a response to the challenge of sustaining and developing disciplinary expertise. The paper centers on structural solutions, and identifies two main types of expert structures that in different ways support disciplinary expertise: Expert structures for disciplinary leadership or for disciplinary community. These two types are further analyzed in relation to how they support disciplinary expertise.

What different types of solutions for organizing disciplinary expertise have developed in project-based firms that rely extensively on interdisciplinary and co-located project teams?

In Sustaining and Developing Disciplinary Expertise in Project-Based Organizations: Balanced and Integrated Solutions, authors Cecilia Enberg and Karin Bredin explore the implications of this question by:

• drawing on multiple works by experts in the field, as well as their own previous research;
• undertaking case studies of three project-based tech companies with different organizational setups;
• conducting interviews with both management and employees with diverse areas of expertise (including designers, programmers, and testing specialists);
• recommending the most effective corporate approaches to developing and maintaining expertise among specialists in both cross-functional and single-discipline teams; and
• offering their insight into areas where further research might be done.

Enberg and Bredin’s research bridges organizational management and human resource management using a framework to analyze both structural and activity-based solutions for the maintenance and development of disciplinary expertise. Managers, researchers, and disciplinary specialists alike will benefit from the case studies described and analyzed within these pages.

Företag får allt svårare att behärska alla de teknologiområden som behövs för utvecklingen av sofistikerade produkter för den internationella marknaden. Därför ökar betydelsen av samarbete med olika typer av partners vars kunskaper kompletterar dem som finns internt. Detta har lett till ett ökat intresse för det som kallas öppen innovation. Det innebär att företag öppnar sina innovationsprocesser och involverar kunder, leverantörer, konsulter, akademier och ibland även konkurrenter för att underlätta in- och utflöde av kunskaper och teknologier. Företag kan vara öppna i olika faser av produktframtagningsprocessen, från idégenerering till kommersialisering, och samarbetet kan kretsa kring olika typer av kunskapsinnehåll (teknologi, produkter, processer). Tidigare forskning har framför allt betonat fördelarna med ökad öppenhet. Utifrån vår forskning om öppen innovation, som innefattar både intervjubaserade fallstudier av innovationsprojekt och en enkät till 415 företag om öppen innovation, vill vi lyfta fram tre utmaningar i detta sammanhang: den egna spetskompetensen, kostnader för integration av extern kunskap och risken för kunskapsläckage. Resultaten visar att företag behöver utforma sina innovationsprocesser så att de kan vara öppna och slutna på samma gång.

This paper addresses the issue of how knowledgeintegration can be managed in coopetitiveR&D projects. The findings from this study imply that knowledgeintegration in a coopetitiveR&D project is not built on shared knowledge or a shared understanding of the content of project work but that knowledgeintegration is enabled by a shared understanding of the process of project work. Such understanding can be established by the use of mechanisms such as planning and process specification and presentation genres. These mechanisms support the process of knowledgeintegration while simultaneously putting constraints on what knowledge is exchanged and they can structure discussions when face-to-face communication takes place. The findings further suggest that, to avoid unintended knowledge leakages, individual and collective settings of project work should be clearly separated such that problem solving stays an individual activity while decision making still rests with the project team as a collective activity.

Styrning är viktigt. Styrning är intressant. Styrning är svårt. Styrning behövs, och det behövs nya tankar och idéer för att stimulera utveckling och förbättringsarbete inom detta område.

I boken bidrar ett tiotal forskare med nya perspektiv på styrning. Framför allt diskuteras förhållandet mellan strategi och   styrning, styrning i marknadsdrivande organisationer, styrning och organisatorisk kunskap och styrning i projektbaserade organisationer.

Boken försöker bidra till ökad förståelse för styrning ur ett kunskaps­baserat perspektiv där de organisatoriska förmågorna står i centrum, och där styrning bidrar med att bygga och vidmakthålla förmågor och därmed stärka företagets konkurrenskraft.I boken diskuteras betydelsen av kunskap och projekt - och framför allt styrningen av relationen dem emellan.

Idén är också att utveckla tankar kring hur komplementariteter och ambidexteritet i styrningssammanhang kan förstås och hanteras.Styrning är ett ständigt aktuellt fenomen och nu, när projekt och kunskap står i fokus, ändras styrningens innehåll och möjligheter.

Hur styrningen av våra verksamheter sker och förändras bör vara allas angelägenhet. Personligen kommer jag framöver låta mina tankar om styrning vägledas av denna boks många insikter och illustrationer.

Technology-based firms continue to compete primarily on innovation, and are continuously required to present new solutions to an exacting market. As technological complexity and specialization intensifies, firms increasingly need to integrate and co-ordinate knowledge by means of project groups, diversified organizations, inter-organizational partnerships, and strategic alliances. Innovation processes have progressively become interdisciplinary, collaborative, inter-organizational, and international, and a firm's ability to synthesize knowledge across disciplines, organizations, and geographical locations has a major influence on its viability and success.

This paper takes an empirical point of departure in the development of a new steam turbine. Project work here relied on a process of iteration between a small core group of team members with extensive experience and team members with less of that currency. In this project, the core group had a major integrative role, whereas other team members were mainly responsible for the specific tasks assigned to them. Quite a few of the latter category felt uneasy about their role and felt decoupled from the project. In our analysis we use the Teamwork Quality (TWQ) construct proposed by Hoegl and Gemuenden (2001). In conclusion, our findings suggest that in highly complex projects of this type, team-based knowledge integration need not presuppose equality of participation and we introduce the notion of a Segregated Team to account for these findings.

This dissertation is concerned with knowledge integration in product development projects. Knowledge integration is conceived of as processes of goal-oriented interrelating with the purpose of benefiting from knowledge complementarities existing between individuals with differentiated knowledge bases. Knowledge integration is a subject of importance to many firms as the degree of integration of specialised and distributed knowledge helps explain differences in firms’ product development performance. However, knowledge integration is poorly understood as detailed, empirical, studies are lacking. Hence, the purpose of this dissertation is to explore what mechanisms of knowledge integration are suitable in different project settings.

The dissertation is based on two empirical studies, both of which are longitudinal, real-time studies of product development projects. A detailed account of the project work in each of the two projects, the Stacker project and the Turbine project, is presented together with an analysis of each case. Thereafter, a comparative analysis is conducted, in which both similarities and differences between the two projects and their settings are discussed. As a result of the studies, an iterative model of knowledge integration is proposed. The iterative model has a number of features which would benefit the analysis of knowledge integration in empirical settings. It recognises the importance of considering to what extent the “knowledge problematic” of a specific product development project needs to involve acting and interacting and how these are made complementary in an iterative process. Second, it indicates the significance of using various artefacts and how these may be involved in acting as well as interacting. Third, it recognises that acting and interacting may be associated with different costs of knowledge integration.

This article investigates knowledge integration in product development projects. While much previous literature draws attention to the need for clearly specified goals, extensive knowledge sharing and close face-to-face interaction for activity and knowledge integration, alternative explanations are offered. The findings highlight the integrative capacity of individuals' experience and tacit foreknowledge of the stacker artefact, as well as the complementary role of meetings and ad hoc problem solving. The article proposes an iterative model of the individual/collective dynamics involved and calls attention to its economizing potential. More generally, it provides an example of how the issue of knowledge integration may be reformulated into a dynamic perspective, recognizing the intergenerational learning benefits that accrue. The conclusions extend the argument of Zollo and Winter by showing how different task-related learning mechanisms may be combined and obtain their integrative capacity within an iterative process. Copyright © 2006 Sage Publications.

Skillful planning and the reliance on frequent face-to-face interaction is often emphasized as preconditions for successful project work in literature on project management and product development. Our case study observations of a project involving the development of a new stacker, however, contrast with such a view. Here, most project work was carried out individually and as a matter of routine, complemented by interactive instances, such as project meetings and ad hoc problem solving interaction. Moreover, instead of a shared project goal or a shared knowledge base, the material stacker stood out as an artifact of great significance in achieving activity and knowledge coordination. Inspired by literature on sense-making, we propose a simplified model of the individual-collective dynamic in such contexts, and differentiate between processes of interacting and interrelating. Finally we discuss its coordination properties as a matter of cognitive feasibility and economizing on cost.

An increasing number of articles in management journals has recognised knowledge as being the organisation's prime resource, and particular interest has been given to the ways in which knowledge is managed by organisations in order to stay competitive. Management of knowledge incorporates aspects related to the question of how to co-ordinate knowledge held by highly specialised individuals and projects are often considered to be a solution to this problem of coordinating different knowledge bases. Therefore, this study, exploring the processes involved in the establishment and maintenance of collective competence, is undertaken in the context of an interdisciplinary development project. Learning processes in highly constrained projects are also explored.

The findings suggest that collective competence is reached from the basis of two different logics, an interacting logic and an interrelating logic, each associated with a number of different processes. These processes make possible the creation of a representation of the context that forms the basis of each individual's contribution to project work.