I have a Masters Degree in International Management from BI and defended my Phd i Strategy at BI in 2013.
My research interests are within interorganizational relationships and alliances. I am especially interested in collaboration, coordination, trust, and practices. I am working closely with firms in the construction industry and are part of Centre for the Construction Industry at BI. I am national course responsible for the Strategy course at Bachelor third year and I am teaching parts of courses (mainly related to trust and cooperation) at Master of Management and Master of Science.
To ensure cooperation, parties in inter-organizational relationships (IORs) draw upon both control and trust. Yet, how control–trust dynamics change as IORs evolve remains unclear. This study illuminates the interplay between control–trust dynamics and IOR dynamics by unpacking how control and trust refer to and create one another through action–reaction cycles. We find that conflicting enactments of vulnerability and risk caused by critical incidents lead to tensions between the parties (IOR dynamics) regarding how and when they rely on control and trust. Consequently, coping practices are applied to redefine the controlling and trusting domain and mediate between the multiple and temporal domains to ensure that control and trust refer to and create one another to (re)form positive expectations. The study's main implication is that it makes little sense to study control-trust dynamics in IORs, like other relational phenomena, in isolation and at a single point in time.
Bygballe, Lena Elisabeth; Swärd, Anna & Vaagaasar, Anne Live (2021)
A Routine Dynamics Lens on the Stability-Change Dilemma in Project-Based Organizations
A central issue in project-based organizations (PBOs) is how to balance the need for flexibly responding to changing customer demands and creating consistent performance in the organization at large. This article discusses the relevance of a routine dynamics lens for understanding this dilemma. We show how routine dynamics might help to understand how and under what conditions routines—with their dual capacity for stability and change—produce a variety of performances, some stable and some varying, in the PBO. As such, we contribute to the stream of research that seeks to explain how PBOs build capabilities and how they work.
Bygballe, Lena Elisabeth; Swärd, Anna & Vaagaasar, Anne Live (2020)
Temporal shaping of routine patterning.
Reinecke, Juliane; Suddaby, Roy, Langley, Ann & Tsoukas, Haridimos (red.). Time, Temporality, and History in Process Organization Studies
Bygballe, Lena Elisabeth; Swärd, Anna & Vaagaasar, Anne Live (2019)
Routines as truces in temporary multi-organizations
It is widely held that collaborative project delivery models, such as partnering, represent a key means of improving construction project performance. Institutionalizing these models in practice, however, is not straightforward. We suggest that the (in)ability to establish new routines may be one reason for the variance in partnering outcomes. Based on a study of a partnering project, we develop a model of how partnering is institutionalized through the establishment of routines, enabled through common understanding and truces between the partners’ interests. The model illustrates how such routines develop through a balance between top-down structural interventions and emergent social learning processes.
Swärd, Anna & Bygballe, Lena Elisabeth (2017)
Lean Construction i et Strategisk perspektiv
Kalsaas, Bo Terje (red.). Lean Construction. Forstå og forbedre prosjektbasert produksjon
Swärd, Anna (2017)
Kontroll er bra - tillit bedre? :
Magma - Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, 20(2), s. 27- 34.
Swärd, Anna Sundberg (2016)
Trust, reciprocity, and actions: The development of trust in temporary inter-organizational relations