Search results

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.

Our purpose is to critically discuss the quality of governability and scrutiny of, as well as insight in, enterprises owned by local government. Our analysis is empirically grounded in an in-depth case study of one of Sweden’s 10 largest municipalities. The ambition is to highlight troublesome areas and danger zones when it comes to public owning of corporations. We have consulted diverse types of material: conducted document studies, as well as semi-structured in-depth interviews. In addition, we have conducted a survey directed to 156 individuals (which is the total population of councillors and members of municipal corporation boards in the municipality we have studied).

From an in-depth study of Sweden, we show that corporatising parts of local governments’ operations have serious implications for accountability. Our study therefore adds to the knowledge about hybrid organisations and the challenges dual logics of the private and public sector imposes on political governance as well as management. The result of this study is based on one single case study in one specific hybrid context. No empirical generalisation is aspired to. Instead the aim has been to – by way of an explorative approach – make an analytical contribution to our knowledge about hybrid organisations. Further studies are thus necessary in order to deepen our understanding of the hybrid context and the situations under which hybrid organisations operate and develop.

This study increases our knowledge regarding the challenges of governing hybrid organisations in general and enterprises owned by local government in particular. Therefore, the findings of this study are considered to be of support to politicians as well as civil servants involved in and responsible for the governance of hybrid organisations. We argue that it is important to carefully supervise this development in local government. As corporations owned and operated by local governments have increased in numbers, they are responsible for large values and services that are crucial for the modern society (water, waste management, energy, IT). Consequently, they are becoming ever more important players in their respective local economies. At the same time, concerns have been raised regarding how to govern hybrid organisations in order to secure accountability and to protect public sector values.

The focus is set on the development and evaluation of a numerical mgodel describing the impregnation stage of a method to manufacture fibre reinforced polymer composites, namely the vacuum infusion process. Examples of items made with this process are hulls to sailing yachts and containers for the transportation industry. The impregnation is characterised by a full 3D flow in a porous medium having an anisotropic, spatial‐ and time‐dependent permeability. The numerical model has been implemented in a general and commercial computational fluid dynamic software through custom written subroutines that: couple the flow equations to the equations describing the stiffness of the fibre reinforcement; modify the momentum equations to account for the porous medium flow; remesh the computational domain in each time step to account for the deformation by pressure change. The verification of the code showed excellent agreement with analytical solutions and very good agreement with experiments. The numerical model can easily be extended to more complex geometry and to other constitutive equations for the permeability and the compressibility of the reinforcement.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how and why the question of outsourcing or insourcing within a specific empirical context, telecommunications services, has been handled differently over time.

A longitudinal study on procurement of telecommunications for the Swedish public sector's organizations during the last 40 years. The empirical data were collected from three case studies and one research project.

The paper identifies four phases: from a simple buying situations, via insourcing of equipment in order to produce some services in‐house, to outsourcing of telecommunications in a first step and to outsourcing of combined data and telecommunications in a second step. Three major contextual determinants are identified for the public procurement of telecommunications services: de‐monopolization, rapid technical development and pressure on public agencies from politicians, citizens and others. In addition to low cost, core competence, control and flexibility, the paper identifies business development as a new logic for outsourcing and insourcing.

This study is limited to Sweden and public procurement of telecommunications services. Therefore, it would be of value to test if the development of public procurement of telecommunications in other countries passed through the same phases and with the same determinants.

Many of the findings are valid for public procurement in other countries, especially in the European Union due to the common legislative base for public procurement.

The paper fulfills an identified need to carry out a longitudinal study of changes in public procurement of telecommunications through the different phases of in/outsourcing.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the business model of product-oriented house-building companies and, hence, bridging the gap of knowledge on this topic. Product-orientation implies an alternative approach to house-building, requiring new knowledge about business models and its characteristics. The balance and fit between the main business model dimensions is specifically focused on to emphasise the importance of a holistic approach.

This study is based on a case study with two leading Swedish, product-oriented house-building companies. Semi-structured interviews with company executives, document studies, site and factory visits, along with seminars at the companies are the main data sources. Theories on business models and product orientation form the theoretical foundation for the study.

The case studies describe two successful companies that used end-customer knowledge to identify a target segment, develop an offering and sequentially increase control over the production and supply chain, with limited investments. This indicates that a market-based outside-in perspective is a successful approach to establish viable house-building concepts with a balance between the business model’s dimensions.

The knowledge brought forward in this study is beneficial for practitioners that can learn about product-oriented house-building and how this must be reflected in the company’s business model to be successfully applied.

The study brings forward knowledge about house-building business models that can contribute to increased house-building targeted on certain customer segments. This can be beneficial in terms of decreased costs and increased volumes of new-built, high-quality homes for a variety of customers on the market.

Business models for product-oriented house-building companies are a scarcely covered topic in previous research, and hence, this study provides knowledge of interest for both researchers and practitioners. The case studies reveal unique information of how two companies developed their successful concepts.