Denna rapport har tagits fram av Havsmiljöinstitutet på uppdrag av Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, som en del av arbetet med Ekosystembaserad havsförvaltning. Uppdraget är att undersöka möjliga finansieringsmodeller som kan stödja långsiktig regional ekosystembaserad havsförvaltning. Genom att analysera hur finansiering fungerar i liknande projekt och initiativ kan en förståelse för styrkor och hinder med olika modeller utkristalliseras. I arbetet ingår också att ge en tydlig bild av hur dessa organisationer fungerar.

Uppdraget innefattar en detaljerad beskrivning och analys av olika typer av samarbetsorganisationer, grundad i följande punkter (Överenskommelse gällande kartläggning av regionala samverkansprojekts styrning och finansiering, 2023):

• “Organisationens omfattning: Detta inkluderar information om organisationens storlek, antalet heltidstjänster som finansieras av organisationen, och hur många som är involverade i dess verksamhet.

• Styrningsstruktur: En beskrivning av hur organisationens styrning är utformad, hur beslut fattas, och vilka som är ansvariga för olika delar av verksamheten.

• Finansiering: En utförlig beskrivning av organisationens finansiering. Detta inkluderar hur stor del av finansieringen som kommer från grundfinansiering och hur stor del som genereras genom projektmedel.

• Uppfattade framgångsnycklar och eventuella svårigheter med fokus på organisationens omfattning, styrningsstruktur och finansiering.”

Genom att undersöka och framställa dessa aspekter kommer uppdraget att skapa en djup förståelse för strukturerna, styrningen och finansieringen hos olika samverkansorganisationer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been first and foremost a health crisis, but it has also had severe negative impacts on the global economy. It has shaken regional economies, especially labour markets, over the last two years. Arctic regions are no exception. The aim of this article is to analyse the regional economic impacts, as well as the recovery processes, of the COVID- 19 pandemic in Arctic 5 cities in Northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway (Oulu and Rovaniemi in Finland, Luleå and Umeå in Sweden and Tromsø in Norway).

In many countries, including Finland, Sweden and Norway, governments decreed various types of lockdown policies to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to such policies, the pandemic has had an asymmetrical impact not only on individuals but also on communities and regions. This has given new urgency to a place-based approach to regional development, mitigating territorial inequalities. Our goal is to study how hard the Arctic 5 cities have been hit by the COVID-19 shock and how well they have been able to absorb, adapt to and recover from the crisis. The research question thus focuses on the resilience of the regions.

In this study, we focus on the analysis of public statistics concerning the development of labour markets. We also analyse changes in human behaviour during the pandemic using the information provided by Google Mobility data. These mobility data and labour market indicators are used to measure regional economic and social resilience. Our research shows that, for example, regional socioeconomic structures have played an important role in how well the regions have been able to withstand the pandemic and recover from it. Differences in national containment regulations have also affected this development. These cross-border comparisons provide information on how well different measures in different regions across national borders have functioned and what impacts they have had on regional economies, especially on labour markets and people’s mobility.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been first and foremost a health crisis, but it has had severe negative impacts on northern economies. This pre-study report aims to provide a statistical review of the regional economic impacts as well as the recovery processes of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Arctic 5 cities in Northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway, i.e., Oulu and Rovaniemi in Finland, Luleå and Umeå in Sweden and Tromsø in Norway.

Our cross-country regional research design makes it possible to study how the COVID-19 shock and the differences in national and regional containment regulations have affected these areas compared to the development in other regions and at the national level. This pre-study report will focus on the labour market effects of the pandemic and the role of sectoral structures in the Arctic 5 cities.

The aim of our long-term research, which is based on this pre-study, is to analyse the short- and long-run regional economic impacts as well as the recovery processes of the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Our goal is to provide valuable information about successful and less successful practices in these regions and thereby provide policy recommendations for the future. Regional effects will be analysed from the point of view of regional resilience.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which notions of space, constituted by management accounting and operations, interact, conflict and are understood by operations managers in a variety of situations within the context of iron ore mining. The authors address a dual question: How do accounting space and production space relate to each other? And what does it mean for operations managers to reside in both those spaces at once?

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on field studies at a mining company involving operations managers who experience tensions between accounting and production responsibilities and must prioritize between different courses of action to create value.

Findings

In contrast to the view that management accounting poses a problem for operations managers in production environments, the authors show how especially discursive tensions foster reflection and choice. Operations managers prioritize their actions in accordance with management accounting or operations based on how they experience and reflect upon the tensions they encounter, dominating artifacts and their experienced relation to space. Operations managers are not tied to specific spaces, but they prioritize their responsibility to management accounting or operations depending on the space to which they feel a sense of belongingness.

Originality/value

Drawing upon a conceptualization of tensions between management accounting and operations as a spatial phenomenon, it is possible to understand the dilemmas experienced by operations managers in a dynamic and relational way. The authors propose that viewing tensions between management accounting and production as spatial phenomena enables a novel understanding of how such tensions can create reflexivity in responsibility with operations managers.

This paper presents an economic model for optimizing loading at the draw point in sublevel caving (SLC) operations. The input data consist of estimated bucket grades based on bucket weights from Load Haul Dump machines. This information, together with average operational mining costs, was used to create an economic model providing a real-time economic assessment of the draw point performance for SLC rings. The results demonstrate the importance of continuous draw point monitoring to optimize SLC operations. The proposed model provides an economic assessment of operating draw points and will help mine personnel to decide when to stop loading from a blasted ring. It can also help mine management understand the complexity of material flow in SLC operations. Finally, it provides operational flexibility for the mine to optimize loading at the draw point by increasing ore recovery while maintaining operational control of draw point performance.

This paper addresses the question of how it is possible, despite the persuasive characteristics of the business partner role, to explain the prevalence of hybrid accountants in management accounting practice. This research question is addressed from an institutional theory vantage point, suggesting that institutional drivers exist in every organization that shape the role of the practicing actors. The empirical evidence presented is drawn from a case study of a mining company pursuing a change program to transform its management accountants into business partners. The results illustrate how the hybrid accountant role is formed through an interplay among regulative, normative, and cognitive institutional drivers that influence the role of the management accountants in opposing directions. Because of the tension between facilitating and impeding institutional drivers, the change program toward business partnering results in a hybrid accountant role which is characterized by a combination of traditional and business partner traits. Hence, the conclusions suggest that the prevalence of hybrid accountants in management accounting practice can be explained by tensions between opposing institutional drivers that contribute to a compound role.

This paper focuses on the operations managers’ use of non-financial information in their operational work and examines whether this use increases their satisfaction with management accounting systems. Survey responses from 168 operations managers in a Swedish mining company unexpectedly demonstrate a positive relationship between operations managers’ use of traditional management accounting and management accounting system satisfaction. Our findings from a subsequent qualitative workshop in which operations managers participated suggest that trust in integrated systems is damaged by careless handling of input in such systems and interpretation difficulties caused by a lack of effective guidance from accountants. Operations managers perceive traditional management accounting as objective and appear to use it collectively as a basis for learning and improvement. Operations managers use traditional management accounting proactively with their teams, but simultaneously seek help from ‘business-oriented’ accountants to navigate in operational situations.