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Purpose – This article explores how issues of shared responsibility are discursively negotiated within the realmof managing collaborative efforts between organizational actors for sustainable urban development abiding tothe agenda 2030.

Design/methodology/approach – The research explored shared responsibility as localized, micro-discursivenegotiations within and between local organizations in Sweden.

Findings – Analysis displays how speakers’ use of rhetorical resources vacillates along two continuums:the who responsible for sustainability and the discursive construction of agency. This shows that theposition where the actors share responsibility, that is when the actors are constructed as both able andwilling to take responsibility and as sharing a collective identity, is continuously being negotiated incommunication.

Originality/value – The article contributes to literature on collaborative ways of organizing and managingcomplex public challenges. With a focus on the discursive construction of shared responsibility, theconcept of in-here-ness is introduced to denote accepted and assumed responsibility, which may shiftthrough the use of pronouns: from a narrow “I” or “we” of stakeholders to a wider “we” of collaboratingparties. The article further contributes to the empirical field of sustainable development at themunicipal level

This paper presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of visual data gathered in regular, monthly data sampling on Google, DuckDuckGo and Bing on the theme ‘the future of work’ that were published online on Polish and Swedish websites during 2018–2021. Visions about the future in the form of images create an archive of ideas on the potential directions of societal development, where discourse is present both in what is visible, and what is invisible. The study shows predominantly stereotypical framings of work by young office workers. Conclusions are drawn on how the future is visualized contrary to popular claims of job losses that are predicted to strike mainly the younger, middle-class population. In the images collected, humans appear as mainly content in a working life without manual labour, frustration or clutter, but also without leisure, displaying a lack of visions of an older workforce, as well as the possible role of humans as useful and fulfilled without work in the future.

In organizational change processes, shared meaning and understanding is crucial (Outila et al, 2019). But what if shared meaning is hindered due to a linguistically constructed discursive void (Tietze, Tansley & Helienek, 2017, p. 152)?

In this organizational change project, the management board of an academic institution wanted to explore conditions for organizational culture in the Post-Covid organization. During the pandemic, the premises had been emptied as both teaching and research was done remote. After initial difficulties, most employees had found new ways of working from distant and did not wish to go back to campus. However, management feared that the feeling of organizational community would get lost if employees did not meet in real life over time. 

In the beginning of 2022, the internal project 'Gemenskap på distans', translated to 'Community in remote work' was introduced. But as the project was presented, management experienced resistance among coworkers. Why? The answer might lie in the word community, that linguistically counters core values in both academic and Swedish culture. 

Community is described as ‘the social fabric’ of society (Westoby & Harris, 2020) or of the organization (Baptista et al, 2020). The word ‘community’ is most often used as a noun to describe a group on a mesolevel in society or organization, (Vartiainen, 2020, p. 227). Likewise, Baptista et al (2020, p. 3) separates understandings of workplace technologies in the “individual layer” from the “group and community layer”. Community can further be related to urban tribes of people sharing common cultures (Sennett, 2012). Stemming from a Christian theological viewpoint, Cobb (2007) describe communities as emergent through internal relations of belonging and point to the close relation between community and institution, using the term ‘person-in-community’ (p. 577) to acknowledge the lack of the individual in the single term ‘community’. 

A common translation of 'community' in Swedish academic literature would be 'gemenskap'(Lundberg, 2005; Räsänen, 2009). However, this translation is ambiguious, and leaning on a German translation, where the fundamental distinction between gemeinshaft (gemenskap) and gesellshaft (samhälle) must be emphasized (Asplund, 1991). Further pointing to a difference between 'gemenskap' and 'community', the Swedish word refers to a sense of positive belonging (Svenska akademins ordbok, 2022). During the past decades the Swedish culture has gone from holding strong collective values to individualistic values emphasizing the individual as autonomous in relation to community (Lundberg, 2005). Likewise, the Swedish word 'gemenskap' builds on the individual as sensing belonging - with the individual in the center of attention (Strang, 2014). 

Even if a word is untranslatable as language, it´s meaning could be understood by a native speakers of another language, if s/he shares un understanding of the figures of thought that the word embraces (Asplund, 1991). As shared meaning is negotiated, strategies for mutual understanding and bridging sensemaking between native speakers of different languages within an organization can be deployed (Outila et al., 2019; Tietze, Tansley & Helienek, 2017). This study aims to explore such a translating process of the discursive void of community in a Post-pandemic academic organization. 

This study focuses on how ideas of ‘digitalization’ are discursively constructed in the Swedish steel industry. Using a discursive psychology approach, we identify seven interpretative repertoires in the discursive practicing of digitalization: everyone-else, speed, competition, job loss, control, safety, and equality. Examining their functions and effects, we show that not only is digital transformation constructed as more productive, efficient, competitive, technologically advanced, safe, and equal, it also involves a shift towards the blue-collar worker being more vulnerable; a construction where she is able-minded but lonely, physically fragile, obtuse and unreliable, and a victim of a development beyond her control, forcing of her to acquire new competence. We conclude that this reproduces asymmetrical power relations between workers and companies, pushing the challenges of digital transformation to the workers. At the same time, we also see how these local discourses hold a possibility of tempering this asymmetry through the construct of togetherness of different contexts, bodies, and hierarchal levels, thus connecting steel industry workers of the future through the use of digital technology. 

Purpose The ongoing "digitalization of work" is one of the major phenomena shaping contemporary organizations. The aim of this study is to explore linguistic constructs of white-collar workers (WCWs) related to their use of digital tools. Design/methodology/approach The framework of ideological dilemmas (Billig et al., 1988) is mobilized to investigate the conflicting demands WCW interviewees construct when describing the ongoing digitalization of their office work. Findings This study shows how "digitalization of work" is enforcing an organizational ideological dilemma of structure and flexibility for WCWs. In the digital workplace, this dilemma is linguistically expressed as the individual should be, or should want to be, both flexible and structured in her work. Practical implications The use of language exposes conflicting ideals in the use of digital tools that might increase work-life stress. Implications for managers include acknowledging the dilemmas WCWs face in digitalized organizations and supporting them before they embark upon a digitalization journey. Originality/value The study shows that the negotiation between competing organizational discourses is constructed irrespective of hierarchical positions; the organizations digital maturity; private or public sector; or country. The study confirms contradictory ideological claims as "natural" and unquestionable in digitalized officework.

Given how social media are commonly used in contemporary Nordic countries, social media platforms are emerging as crucial for relational work between employers, employees, and potential employees. By means of a discursive psychology approach, this study investigates employers’ constructs of relational work on social media through the use of two interpretative repertoires: the repertoire of loss of control and the repertoire of ever-presence. The consequences of these interpretative repertoires are a masking of power relations, especially between employers and young employees in precarious labor market positions and those with limited digital knowledge or financial means. Further, the positioning of social media as part of a private sphere of life means the invasion of not only employees’, but also managers’ private time and persona. The result of this study hence calls for the need to understand relational work on social media as part of normative managerial work.