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The study examines Sweden’s strategy for total defense, emphasizing inter-sectoral collaboration at the regional level. Specifically, it aims to identify potential challenges in such collaboration, leading to the following overarching research question: What are the principal challenges linked to cross-sector collaboration within Sweden’s total defense strategy at the regional level. The study is based on interviews and observations from various collaborative exercises. Six participants from different organizations specializing in total defense collaboration were interviewed. In addition to interviews, six observations were conducted during different collaborative exercises, each resulting in field notes forming the basis for analysis. Data collection took place between August 2022 and October 2023. The analysis of collected data identifies three overarching themes – inability, unwillingness, and lack of synchronization – depicting the challenges of collaboration in total defense. These themes intertwine and construct a complex situation, described as “a colossus on clay feet,” referring to various mechanisms of inertia in civil-military collaboration. The study concludes that the identified themes pose significant theoretical challenges, suggesting inherent vulnerabilities in the concept that may impede its effectiveness, with the most concerning aspect being the inability to address fundamental problems even amidst increased resources and determination, necessitating a focused research direction to tackle these dilemmas.

Following the Cold War, Sweden adopted a doctrine promoting perpetual peace, resultingin significant reductions in military defense capabilities and the dismantling of civil defenseinfrastructure. However, geopolitical events such as the Russian invasion of Georgia in2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 prompted Sweden to reassess its securityposture in 2015, leading to the reconstruction of total defense, and an emphasis oncollaboration between the civilian and military defense sectors. Exercises have beeninstrumental in fostering civil‐military collaboration capability. This study aims toinvestigate whether these exercises are effective in enhancing capability for civil‐military collaboration. Data collection involved participant observation during sevenexercises and was analyzed using constructive alignment (CA). Findings indicate that theexercises did not yield discernible learning outcomes, and this is attributed to the Swedishprinciples of responsibility, deficiencies in CA, contextual support, and entrencheddefensive routines.

This article investigates one crisis management effort during the COVID-19 pandemics first wave in Stockholm, Sweden. Decision-makers in Stockholm were afraid that intensive care unit beds would run out due to the massive spread of the virus and therefore decided to build a temporary hospital in an exhibition hall outside Stockholm. Using field study observations and interviews, this article uses grounded theory method to describe what happened between two actors, a hospital and a regional administrative body, during this process. These two actors, in this article called the Operational and the Administrative organisations, are two separate but dependent actors who had to collaborate during this crisis. The crisis management process can be seen as forced collaboration. By investigating the different phases of the crisis management, we found that there were conflicting situational assessments, conflicting actions, power play and stereotyping, which contributed to making collaboration and crisis management difficult.

Organizations need co-workers who are committed to common goals and that are loyal to the core values of the organization.[1] The conscious fostering of organizational core values is seen as an important tool in creating loyal co-workers and hence an effective organization.[2] Professions with a strong vocational calling such as medicine (Kallin, 2010), the police (Ewin, 1990 ; Foust, 2018) or the military[3] have particular demands on loyalty to certain core values, and individuals are expected to adopt these as their own. However, organizational core values can be contradictive (Billig, 1988) and sometimes in conflict with the individual´s own core values which – when incompatible – can in turn cause severe moral stress and mental illness.[4] This implies a need for clarification about what is expected from members of an organization concerning the objectives and manifestations of core values. In terms of loyalty, the military profession is possibly one of the most demanding, expecting individuals to risk their own lives and to kill other human beings for the benefit of the organizational goals. However, since misplaced loyalty can cause destructive,[5] and unethical behaviour[6] with enormous consequences – especially in the military (Winslow, 1998) – there is a need to be clear about what kind of loyalty behaviour is constructive and vice versa. Although loyalty is a concept that seems to be defined in many different ways, the number of studies of loyalty and its meaning are quite limited - especially in military research.[7] The overall purpose of this study is to broaden understanding of the meaning of loyalty within the military. Because important core values of an organization are set – or strongly influenced[8] – by its leaders,[9] the aim of this study was to explore how high-ranking officers in the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) give meaning to their own personal experiences of loyalty and to describe possible common patterns within the participant group.

 [1] Wieseke, Alavi & Habel, 2014.[2] Berghaus & Cartagena, 2013.[3] Huntington, 1985 ; Moskos & Wood, 1988 ; Kirkhaug, 2009 ; Olsthoorn, 2011 ; Beard, 2014.[4] Molendijk, Kramer & Verweij, 2018.[5] Gabriel, 1982 ; Connor, 2010.)[6] Umphress & Bingham, 2011.[7] Olsthoorn, 2011 ; Connor, Andrews, Noack-Lundberg & Wadham, 2019.[8] Larsson, Haerem, Sjöberg, Alvinius & Bakken, 2007.[9] Fergusson & Milliman, 2008 ; Oh, Cho & Lim, 2018.

In early 2020, decision makers in Stockholm were concerned that intensive care units (ICUs) would fill up because of the massive spread of the coronavirus. Therefore, they decided that a group of doctors, a construction company and the Swedish Armed Forces would build a temporary hospital inside an exhibition hall. Using field study observations and in-depth interviews, this study investigates the role of boundary spanners and leadership in crisis management and team learning. Two types of boundary spanners were prevalent: the 'Leader' and the 'Expert', and together they are crucial for successful crisis management, and for team learning. This study contributes to filling a gap in research regarding the role of boundary spanners in team learning within and across teams. Results show that research into boundary spanners and team learning can use the variables in Edmondson's team learning model for thematic data analysis, and to describe and understand how boundary spanners can contribute to learning within and across teams, when collaborating in the mutual management of crises.

Officer education has a long tradition of being primarily a vocational education focused on training in knowledge and skills that can be used here and now. The content of officer education has mainly been based on the profession’s overall and proven experience. Rapid technological development, globalization, new threats such as terrorist attacks, hybrid warfare and gray zone issues, refugee issues, and the effects of climate change have meant that officer education needed to be reformed in order to provide knowledge and skills to deal with the unknown in a VUCA world. The goal is to create officer education that will produce officers with ambidextrous competences and skills, who have the knowledge to take up their positions immediately after training, but which also provides them with the knowledge and skills to prepare them for the unknown, lifelong learning, and gives them the ability to handle a rapidly changing environment.

The aim of this study is to analyse diversity in team learning behaviour between and among national respondents’ perceptions during a military staff exercise (CJSE). Edmondson’s team learning behaviour model is used as the theoretical basis of the study. The results showed statistically significant differences both between and among national respondents’ perceptions. The research results indicate that team leader coaching, team psychological safety, the importance of obtaining expert knowledge as well as pre-exercise training are perceived to be crucial for team learning behaviour. The study has theoretical and practical implications for a more nuanced understanding of the diversity of team learning behaviour in the context of a multinational military teamwork exercise and for working as a part of multinational temporal teams in particular.

After the end of the Cold War, many European countries cut back so heavily on defense expenditure that they lost their capacity to defend themselves. This resulted in greater need for improved cooperation and interoperability among member states’ armed forces. One important attempt to improve the understanding and interoperability among the European Union (EU) nation’s armed forces was taken in 2008 by the creation of the European Initiative for exchange of young officers aimed to make the officer education in Europe more transparent and convergent with each other. This article presents a proposal for a generic pedagogic model for an academically professional officer education that can improve understanding and interoperability among the EU nation’s armed forces. The model helps to facilitate a process of professionalization of the military profession with an officer education that can meet the requirements of higher education systems as well as the demands of the military profession.