Between Growth and Sustainability : Exploring the Construction of Sustainable Mobility in Swedish Transport Policy

Transport policies in Western Europe are increasingly framed in terms of sustainable mobility. This is a response to an urgent need to tackle adverse consequences of the transport system and implies changes in discourses related to transport. Exploring sustainable mobility is a fruitful way of studying discursive development in a policy field historically connected to priorities radically different from sustainability. More precisely, what reasons are provided in favour of sustainable mobility in contemporary transport policies? What underlying norms and assumptions does the notion of sustainable mobility rely upon? And what subjects are emphasised in the discourse?The thesis argues that these questions can be answered by studying the social construction of sustainable mobility in the transport policy field. The thesis contributes to the emerging field of critical transport studies by empiricallyinvestigating a concrete sustainable mobility discourse. This is done through an in-depth case study of a Swedish national sustainable transport policy, the Urban Environment Agreement. The case allows for a study of how power andconflicts permeate planning and policy for sustainability.The thesis advances a discourse-analytical perspective that is hitherto lacking in transport research and develops a novel framework building on critical discourse analysis and critical realism. This framework is subsequently deployed toempirically map discursive patterns of statements related to sustainable mobility, to determine how these patterns interrelate, and to interpret the broader implications of the findings.The central claim of the thesis is that sustainable mobility needs to be understood as a product of naturalised representations of growth. Arguably, societal norms and assumptions about forms of growth govern how sustainablemobility is conceived and acted upon through policies. This constructs the continuous increase of mobility as a naturally occurring phenomenon and excludes alternatives to high-mobility society.Two dominant constructions of sustainable mobility are identified in the discourse: ‘sustainable mobility as a necessity’, building on ideas of managing growth, and ‘sustainable mobility as progress’, connected to ideas ofpromoting growth. The author proposes that a third way of constructing sustainable mobility, ‘as restriction’, in the sense of limiting growth, is silenced in the discourse. Although there are differences among these constructions, the discourse contains several naturalised representations that characterise the discourse overall. While growth is constructed as inevitable, sustainability is constructed as an imperative. As a result, a transition to sustainable mobility is constructed as a salvation, justified by several logics of sustainable mobility. These logics discursively link contradictory notions of growth and sustainability. The thesis develops a wheel of growth metaphor to capture such key elements and linkages of the discourse.Finally, the discourse in focus is contrasted against central features of the more ‘traditional’ transport policy discourse. This shows that the sustainable mobility discourse of the Urban Environment Agreement policy partly challenges thetraditional focus on automobility. At the same time, the present discourse reproduces assumptions of ‘predict and provide’, travel time minimisation, and the emphasis on economic growth.The conclusions of the thesis contribute to the ongoing discussion among policy makers, academics, and social movements about how to respond to the societal challenge of a transition towards a more sustainable and just transportsystem

Service logic business model canvas

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to develop a service logic oriented framework for business model development. “Service logic” covers the basic principles of the three contemporary customer value focused business logics: service-dominant logic, service logic, and customer-dominant logic..

Three Performativities of Innovation in Public Transport Planning

The article scrutinizes planners’ stories of innovation in contemporary public transport planning in three Scandinavian contexts (Denmark, Sweden and Norway). This analysis is accomplished by adapting Judith Butler’s post-structural feminist critical theory on performativity to the planning context. This theoretical framework is used to illuminate how planning is dynamically renewed, revised and consolidated over time by the individual routine actions of planners. From this perspective, the research identifies a set of repetitive acts–as recognizing specific windows of opportunity, anticipate and respond to political signals and create arguments and means of communication and persuasion–that constitute the contemporary transformation of professional practice in relation to planning politics. This analytics of performativity reveals how professional planning practices engage with transformative capacities of reshaping, re-enacting and re-experiencing guidance for the future within a set of meanings and forms of legitimation. These findings are intended to contribute to present and future planning practice and education in Scandinavian countries and elsewhere

Swedish healthcare management practices and quality improvement work: development trends

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine developmental trends in healthcare organisation management practice and improvement work. Design/methodology/approach – Primary healthcare centre (n ¼ 1; 031) and clinical hospital department (n ¼ 1; 542) managers were surveyed in spring 2007 (response rate 46 per cent). This article compares results from this survey with a study in 2003. A theoretical framework based on organisational inner context, organisational outer context, external environment and outcomes form the analytical base. Comparisons were made using independent two-sample t-tests. Findings – A general aspect, identified empirically, is the tendency toward increased external pressure on leaders in their improvement work. Higher management decisions, patient pressure and decisions made by policymakers increasingly influence and shape the choices made by healthcare managers about where to focus improvement efforts. Three different trends are empirically identified and elaborated: take-control logic; practice-based improvement; and patient-centeredness. Research limitations/implications – Healthcare leaders should carefully design new management control systems that support healthcare micro systems. Findings support the general assumption that staff increasingly tend to focus organisational changes on management control. Originality/value – This study extends management research with a unique survey. Through two measurements made in 2003 and 2007, several important trends about how healthcare organisations are managed and developed are identified

Laying Claim to Social Media by Activists: A Cyber-Material Détournement

This article examines current appropriations of social media by activists of the radical left in Greece and Sweden. Previous research has shown that the discourse concerning social media’s empowering potential is embedded in commercial values that contradict the value systems of many activists who engage in struggles against the current economic system. We employ the notion of détournement, which describes how social movements turn something aside from its normal course or purpose. Based on interviews and online ethnographic observations, we seek to understand how and with what consequences social media facilitate and limit collective action. The article enhances our understanding of activists’ social media use by turning our attention to the sociotechnical impact of social media on collective action initiated by leftist groups as well as the relationship between ideological loyalties and the political economy of corporate social media

Digital entrepreneurship and field conditions for institutional change - Investigating the enabling role of cities

Digital entrepreneurship may result in institutional turbulence and new initiatives are frequently blocked by vested interest groups who posit superior financial and relational resources. In this paper, we explore the role of cities in facilitating digital entrepreneurship and overcoming institutional resistance to innovation. Drawing upon two historical case studies of digital entrepreneurship in the city of Stockholm along with an extensive material on the sharing economy in Sweden, our results suggest that cities offer an environment that is critical for digital entrepreneurship. The economic and technological diversity of a city may provide the field conditions required for institutional change to take place and to avoid regulatory capture