The relevance of the paper to the panel topic 

The management and governance of hybrid organizations involve a range of challenges and critical issues. One such issue concerns the people that embody the hybrid and their capabilities to represent and handle the complex missions and potential value conflicts at stake in a hybrid organization. Looking closer at processes of recruitment and nomination of key actors such as CFOs, managers and board members is relevant as it sheds light on high held ideals for hybrid management and governance and the human resources seen fit to handle complex hybrid missions.

The significance of the research (why it is distinctive and its contribution to the field)

Our case gives a micro illustration of the governance challenges involved in attempts to design the nomination process to reflect a wider range of goals and values. We also wish to briefly discuss how this shift in appointment logics – from “political discretion” (PA), over “professionalism as in efficiency and economization” (NPM) to “political correctness” (NPG) may affect the boards and management of the SOEs.

The research question(s) and method

The Swedish state has an outspoken aim to be an “active and professional” owner by generating economic value in its 49 state-owned enterprises. At the same time, there is a political ambition for these firms to be seen as national and international “role models”, in the forefront of gender equality and sustainability. In addition, for about 25 SOEs, there are specifically Government commissioned social “public policy assignments” to be taken into consideration. The aim of this paper is to analyse the logics (political vs. professional) in the Swedish Government offices concerning the mechanisms of appointment of board members of Swedish State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) with Government commissioned social public policy assignments.

Findings are based on qualitative analyses of documents, observations and interviews with key actors. Focusing foremost on the daily work of civil servants responsible for board nomination in the Ministry of Commerce and Innovation the study also acknowledges the role of external head hunters and executive search firms, politically appointed civil servants, politicians and board chairs and members in the nomination process.

The theoretical/conceptual foundations for the research

The backdrop to our case story is the historical transition from traditional Public Administration (PA), over new public management (NPM) regimes to the emerging post-NPM era of “New Public Governance” (Osborne, 2010; Almqvist et al., 2003; Ivarsson Westernberg, 2017), their dominant institutional logics and the effects on the appointment of public representatives, such as board members of SOEs.

The results to be reported

Our claim is that in the emerging NPG era, the previously dominating professional (and typically economical) logic of NPM-inspired governance of State-owned enterprises is challenged. Public appointment officials now face increasing external pressure to demonstrate that the multiple social values at stake for the hybrid organizations are reflected in the nomination of their board members, without compromising business efficiency, public accountability and the public income derived from SOEs.

At the same time as the number of students in Swedish higher education has dramatically increased during the last 25 years the economic inequalities in society at large has widened, thereby increasingly reaching into the life of the average student. Yet there is little knowledge on the economic lives of Swedish students: where in the educational landscape is the situation particularly dire and for which students are the financial means scarce – or abundant.

The Swedish student aid system is perceived to be generous: all students have access to it. As a consequence there is a widespread assumption in the public and scientific discourse that there are no real financial barriers surrounding higher education. However, the public financial arrangement includes substantial private co-funding. Apart from a minor grant the public means comes in the form of loans.

In this paper the distribution of different modes of study financing (study loans, wage labour, own and inherited wealth, etc.) is analysed and related to the distribution of the formal prerequisites for entering higher education (grades and/or results from aptitude tests). Thereby the paper sheds light onto the material preconditions for acquiring meritocratic goods in a social democratic welfare regime.

Pierre Bourdieu’s theories serve at the theoretical point of departure. What is the importance of economic capital – the dominant form of capital in capitalist societies – for the accumulation of educational (and cultural) capital? Datasets from Statistics Sweden, covering all students in Swedish higher education, are utilized to answer the research questions.

This paper presents a case study of the digital news channel VGRfokus. The news channel was started in November 2017 by the Region Västra Götaland (VGR) – the county council at the west coast of Sweden – with the articulated goal to provide journalists, employees as well as citizens in the region with news updates. VGRfokus was launched with an editorial written by the communication chief of VGR, Erik Lagersten. In the editorial, Lagersten entitles the channel as a “news site” with an “independent editorial office of civil servants” (VGRfokus 2017). VGRfokus illustrates one of the most novel types of news production in the landscape of hyperlocal media operations, HLMO, and we discuss its role from two perspectives. First, we use the concept of HLMO (e.g. Metzgar et al. 2011; Nygren et al. 2017; van Kerkhoven & Bakker 2014) to analyze the new form of news production as illustrated by VGRfokus. Second, we discuss implications of the distinctive features of VGRfokus for the media ecosystems– in terms of changing genres, roles, relationships and identities – as well as more broadly for society and democracy. We base our analysis on empirical data from the very first months of VGRfokus’ existence. Interviews with employees at the editorial office at VGRfokus.se are combined with a content analysis and linguistic analyses of three types of media texts: (a) content published at the VGRfokus.se, (b) news articles that make references to VGRfokus, and (c) opinion articles about VGRfokus.se.