When the corona pandemic began in early 2020, universities as well as other sectors in society, were profoundly affected. Higher education was expected to continue to work as usual, except that everything should be conducted digitally. In this crisis, teachers received a “carte blanche” from management to handle the situation in any way they found appropriate (Hjelm-Lidholm, Mauléon, Müllern & Solli, 2021). However, the support functions at the universities (student support, administrators, university management) did not show the same ability to adapt to the crisis. Our study (Hjelm-Lidholm, Mauléon, Müllern & Solli, 2021) shows that although teachers acknowledged how they were the ones who had the know-how of handling the dramatic shift from on-site teaching to off-site teaching they felt they weren’t provided with appropriate support in order to being able to conduct this transformation in an efficient way (Hjelm-Lidholm, Mauléon, Müllern & Solli, 2021). The lack of appropriate support from management and other support functions made the dramatic shift in many cases challenging for the teachers. One teacher described it as laying out the rails whilst the train was moving (Hjelm-Lidholm, Mauléon, Müllern & Solli, 2021). In these occasions teachers turned to their closest colleagues to find support in the often chaotic situation. What is interesting here is how we found that the strong bureaucratic governance of universities (as well as other public institutions) were either not prepared or appropriate for handling the crisis. The bureaucratic governance system, we found, rather obstructed than supported the crisis driven digital transformation of teaching from on-site to off-site.

This paper allows for broader reflections on how professionals interact with managers in times of crisis, but also on the role of digitalization in the continued change and development of universities. It is our hope that this paper will spark a debate on the role of university teachers (professionals) in the strategic management of universities, considering the clear trend towards increased centralization and bureaucratization.

Aims: To investigate the differences between Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway regarding residential/home care units' and frontline managers' background factors, the resources allocated and measures taken during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether and how these differences were associated with COVID-19 among older people in residential/home units.

Methods: Register- and survey-based data. Responses from managers in municipal and private residential/home units. Number of municipal COVID-19 cases from national registries. Multilevel logistic multivariate regression analysis with presence of COVID-19 among older people in residential/home units as the outcome variable.

Results: The proportions of residential/home units with client COVID-19 cases, mid-March-April 2020 were Denmark 22.7%, Finland 9.0%, Norway 9.7% and Sweden 38.8%, most cases found in clusters. The proportions were similar among employees. Client likelihood of having COVID-19 was six-fold higher if the employees had COVID-19. Mean client cases per residential/home unit were Denmark 0.78, Finland 0.46, Norway 0.22 and Sweden 1.23. For the same municipal infection incidence class, Sweden's mean client infection levels were three-fold those of other countries. The regression analysis variables country, municipal COVID-19 incidence proportion, and care type were associated with client cases at p <= .001. Compared with Denmark, the odds ratios (ORs) for Sweden, Norway and Finland were 1.86, 0.41 and 0.35 respectively. The variable difficulties in preventive testing had an OR of 1.56, p <= .05.

Conclusions: Municipal COVID-19 incidence, employee cases, and the lack of testing resources somewhat explained the confirmed COVID-19 cases among older people in residential/home units. A two- to five-fold unexplained inter-country difference in ORs in the multivariate analyses was notable. The level of protection of vulnerable older clients in municipal and private residential/home units differed between the included countries.

Förhållandet mellan politik och administration i kommuner har varit under diskussion i många decennier. Relationen har förändrats, till exempel som en effekt av olika reformer – inte sällan beskrivna i efterhand som en del i New Public Management (NPM). Även rollerna för de aktörer som främst arbetar i gränslandet mellan politik och förvaltning kan förväntas ha förändrats. I denna rapport fokuserar vi på utvecklingen av en ledande chefsroll i Sverige: kommundirektören. Huvudfrågan vi besvarar är: På vilka sätt har rollen som kommundirektör förändrats under de senaste 25 åren? Vi har genomfört undersökningar av svenska kommundirektörer vart femte år med början 1995. Den senaste som genomfördes var 2020. Våra resultat visar att förändringarna är mest framträdande när det gäller bakgrundsvariabler – här är tendenserna på flera sätt tydliga. Förändringar i rollens innehåll och utförande kan sammanfattas som att allt mer fokus läggs på att hantera linjeförhållanden, ekonomiska frågor, organisatoriska processer samt samhällets utveckling – och gärna tillsammans med kommunstyrelsens ordförande. Men i stort sett är mycket sig likt.

Sveriges universitet och högskolor har sakta men säkert utvecklat en byråkratisk linjestyrning, där den professionsstyrda, kollegiala styrningen har fått stryka på foten. Här följer lärosätena en större managementtrend som är både synlig och bekymmersam.