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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the food storage temperature in Swedish household refrigerators, to determine whether students use the best-before-date label to determine food edibility, and to examine if the study increased the students’ interest and knowledge regarding these issues.

In total, 1,812 students, enrolled at 72 Swedish schools, analysed the temperature on different shelves in their family refrigerator using thermometers (Moller-Therm (+0.5/−0.1 °C) and instructions provided by their teachers. A questionnaire dealing with the issues of date labelling, food safety, refrigerator storage and food wastage was completed by the teachers.

The temperature at the back of middle shelves was coldest (average 4.8 °C; SD 3.1). A relatively high proportion of food items were stored at higher temperatures than recommended. The use-by date had been exceeded for 30 per cent of products, but the students did not rate these as inedible. According to the teachers, the investigation increased interest and knowledge among their students of date labelling, food hygiene, refrigerator storage and food waste.

Thermometers were used to measure air temperature on different shelves in the family refrigerator. Data collection was not controllable, as the students measured without supervision.

The teachers reported that the study increased interest and knowledge among their students regarding cold food storage.

This way of teaching food safety would meet the aim of generally increasing food safety knowledge in society, which might have a positive impact on public health.

The use of school-children as data collectors to determine refrigerator temperatures in private homes is a novel approach, which was an efficient way of teaching relevant facts as well as collecting large amounts of data.

The purpose of this paper is to use competence theory to explore the fit between actual competencies of quality management (QM) practitioner and the perception of QM competence needs in organisations.

This paper is based on a cross-case quantitative study design featuring a survey of QM practitioners (n =249) within eight large Swedish organisations. The research instrument was a questionnaire covering seven themes within QM. The analysis is based on descriptive statistics.

The results show that while the perception of formal QM competence may seem sufficient, the evolving nature of QM requires knowledge, skills and attitudes that are also apt for more external and explorative perspectives. There is a bias towards competence for exploitative QM rather than explorative QM. Organisational logics preserving and possibly reinforcing a perceived “competence lag” in organisations are identified and described.

Few empirical studies within QM explore the competencies required for QM practices. This paper contributes to QM research in providing arguments for adopting the competence theory as a foundation for organising current and future QM work.

First, the purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the role of the components in the creation of a partnering way of working; second, to illustrate how the achievement of such collaborative state is dependent on a hierarchy of constructs.

The paper builds on a large case study of a successful Swedish partnering project. The case, studied through extensive interviews and observations, was process-oriented and analyzed using a theoretically driven thematic analysis.

It is shown that components exist on different levels and constitute different types of building blocks in striving toward a “true” collaborative climate. It is also shown that as the project progressed, even the non-partnering sub-projects were infused with a collaborative way of working. To this end it is suggested that there might be a certain stickiness related to this way of working. As trust, openness, and mutual understanding are constructs on an interpersonal level, it is on the interpersonal level partnering endeavors are won or lost.

The paper provides a new conceptualization of the partnering components and also an understanding of how the components contribute to the creation of a collaborative climate. Because the research was built on a case study, one has the limitations common with that approach.

The importance of understanding that individual expectations are the basis for the action and learning that interact in a constant feedback loop, as the partnering pyramid is climbed.

This understanding should be of interest for both practitioners and academics working with partnering.

This paper focuses on the extent to which Swedish municipalities identified and communicated risks due to the COVID-19 outbreak early on. The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent the situational factors of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the likelihood of municipalities disclosing COVID-19 information as a subsequent event in the annual reports of 2019.

Logistic regression models were used to estimate COVID-19 disclosure as a subsequent event. Data were handpicked from annual reports, audit reports and meeting minutes, or were retrieved from publicly available sources.

Regression results indicate that municipalities issuing their annual report in a later stage of the pandemic, in regions with a higher number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, were more likely to disclose COVID-19 information as a subsequent event. However, the municipal factors used to capture the risk of a severe impact of the COVID-19 outbreak were not of major importance. In line with previous research, this study shows that political and institutional factors have explanatory power in predicting and explaining accounting disclosure choices.

This paper contributes to research on accounting disclosures in urgent crises and on the specific topic of subsequent events in the public sector. Few studies address subsequent events in a corporate setting and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, none do so in the context of the public sector. This paper also offers insight into how explanatory factors, previously tested under normal conditions and circumstances, influence disclosure choices in an early stage of a health crisis characterized by uncertainty regarding both occurrence and consequences.

Halving food waste has been included within the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Food wasted out-of-home is the second source of food waste. However, the majority of the studies have focused on home generated food waste, and still little is known about out-of-home food waste and how it is managed by food service companies. The purpose of this paper is to adopt a double perspective in analyzing food waste generated at a food service level, by focusing on both the client and business perspective.

First, from the client perspective, the authors aim at analyzing consumer out-of-home habits, self-reported waste quantification, and doggy bag usage by reporting the results of an exploratory survey which involved 411 individuals living in central Italy. Second, from a business perspective, the authors analyzed an award-winning practice that manages out-of-home food waste in Italy by combining food surplus management and digital solutions with a profitable business model innovation.

Results obtained from the two perspectives of analysis support the need of business investments in innovations and digital solutions, in order to meet client needs and behavior, thus contributing to better manage and reduce food surplus and waste.

This study will raise practitioners’ knowledge on the advantages of digital solution in food surplus management, along with a better comprehension on food waste behavior from the client perspective.

This is the first study that analyses out-of-home waste from both the client and business perspective, emphasizing how digital solutions can help in reducing the phenomenon.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the development of the quality movement in Sweden since the mid-20th century. The authors are convinced that a summary of the Swedish quality journey so far will offer important lessons for further quality improvements in Sweden and elsewhere.

The authors study how the quality movement has been included in the industrial agenda and how it has been adopted in student curricula and in research. The authors have a focus on how business leaders have learnt, adopted, adapted and innovated with respect to quality development. often in collaboration with academia.

Although the quality movement has fit well with the Swedish culture and that successful corporate leaders have successfully used the specific cultural characteristics there is still a lot to be learnt with respect to the public sector, where the ideas from the quality movement have problem to overcome institutional barriers.

The study is limited to the Swedish context.

There is a serious need to revitalize the public sector by getting leaders and politicians to understand the need for systematic quality improvement.

If future Swedish achievements with respect to healthcare and other social welfare elements are to once again become world-class, the public sector needs to be open-minded and collaborate with the industrial sector and academia to find cost-effective strategies for making quality improvements. However, the private sector must also be alert not to be overtaken by some highly active Asian countries.

Swedish large companies have been very successful in applying quality leadership – however, in the public sector, this has not been the case. Suggestions for improvement are made.

Knowledge regarding the importance of the psychosocial work environment for health and well-being in the workplace is extensive. However, more knowledge is needed about how the managers’ organizational conditions are related to what occupational health and safety management (OHSM) is actually conducted and how this relates to the work-related health of employees. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate if managers’ organizational conditions are associated with the conducted OHSM, and if the conducted OHSM is associated with the psychosocial work environment and well-being of the employees.

An electronic questionnaire was sent to managers and their employees working in 10 different organizations in Sweden, resulting in 1,097 valid responses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the results.

The SEM analysis showed that managers’ conditions were related to employee well-being via OHSM and psychosocial work environment (job demands and job resources).

This study contributes to the existing literature in the field of OHSM by placing explicit focus on the role of organizational conditions for conducting OHSM. By studying not only the link between work environment and health, but also focus on the underlying organizational structures for OHSM, provides additional possibilities for prevention of the increasing work-related illness. As such, this paper contributes to a more holistic perspective in the field of OHSM.

The aim of this paper is to describe, analyze and explain the level of compliance of accounting practices with legislation and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) within the Swedish water and sewerage sector.

The empirical data are based on a document study of the annual full cost accounting reports for the financial year 2010. We obtained complete data from 250 of Sweden's 290 municipalities. The data are analyzed by statistical methods. The explanations are based on an institutional theory.

Most of the organizations surveyed in this study had taken measures in line with the new regulations, but none of them had adapted fully to the new requirements. Thus, we suggest that the industry has responded to the new regulation by compromise and avoidance. The statistical analyses show that compliance with legislation and GAAP is associated with legal form, minority governance, fee, tax base, population growth and audit firm.

This paper provides insight into the factors that explain compliance with accounting regulation. Future research would benefit from researching the decision process when organizations choose to comply or not to comply with specific accounting regulations in the public sector.

Few prior studies focus on the actual compliance of accounting practices at the municipal level in relation to accounting regulation and the factors that explain the level of compliance. Knowledge of the factors that explain compliance to accounting regulation will benefit from future policy decisions on regulation and auditing of public sector accounting.