University of Gothenburg
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Oskar Svärd

Senior Lecturer

School of Public Administration
Telephone
+46 31-786 44 85
+46 766-18 44 85
Mail
oskar.svard@spa.gu.se
Visiting address
Sprängkullsgatan 19
41123 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 712
40530 Göteborg

About Oskar Svärd

Background Master in Political Science, University of Halmstad. Doctoral student of Public Administration since 2009. Research project In my dissertation I study the corporate governance structures and board work in local housing companies, owned by the municipalities. These boards and companies are good examples of market reforms in the public sector in Sweden. The housing companies have a mixed form of organization logics. They shall provide welfare services and be accountable to the public and the voters, while they at the same time are under pressure to act as a private company in terms of funding and organization. This leads to contradictory conditions for governance of these companies. The responsibility to govern the housing companies rests on a board of local politicians. In there work, the politicians have to balance the challenges associated with the public sector and the private market. Values of democracy and justice must be balanced with the demands for efficiency, profit maximization and customization. How these conflicting conditions affect board work is the focus of my research. The overall aim with the thesis is to increase the knowledge of board work in the public sector and how the dual organizational logics affect what boards in the public sector really do and why they do it. Teaching Welfare politics, Swedish politics, democratic theory, qualitative research methods.