Strategic management in Swedish municipal housing

Purpose – Present directives in municipal housing have been imposed by the Public Municipal Housing Companies Act, put into force on January 2011 in Sweden. The Act, states that public municipal housing companies (PMHCs) should run their operation on “businesslike principles,” e.g., commensurate with new public management. The purpose of this paper is to determine if forthcoming practices are apparent in the owner directives that govern operations of these companies. Design/methodology/approach – The research is both exploratory and qualitative in nature and utilizes in-depth case studies of 20 selected PMHCs. Observations for 2013 were compared with similar documents collected ten years prior (2004) using commercially available NVivo software to qualitatively analyze information. Findings – Results suggest that statistically significant changes in directives have occurred and adaptation to the new Act may already have started to take place at this relatively early date. Practical implications – Insofar as Sweden might be a model for other countries interested in extending their efforts in managing public housing, observations here provide some insights into possible results. Originality/value – This is the first attempt to determine the impact that complying with “businesslike principles” has on operations in Swedish housing, which tends to be a model of effectiveness in the global housing sector.