Businesslike or not? : A mixed method study based on the Balanced Scorecard comparing the public and private rental-housing companies in Sweden

Abstract: In 2011 a new law concerning the public rental-housing sector in Sweden was imposed. The reason behind the amendment was that the Swedish government was concerned that the previous law did not comply with the EC-laws concerning state aid and competition rules. Public housing companies in Sweden were prior to 2011 favoured with regards to financial aids, which led to the competition on the market being perceived as unfair according to private rental housing companies. The New Act regulated the public housing companies to begin to operate under more businesslike principles, which hopefully would level out the competitive state in the sector. This study has seeked to investigate whether or not the wanted effect of the New Act was truly fulfilled. By using a mixed method study, collecting both qualitative data from interviews and quantitative financial data, the two sectors have been evaluated using a Balanced Scorecard theoretical framework. In order to assess how the public sector has developed in relation to the private sector, convergence was an additional theory used. Through semi-structured interviews with 14 respective 10 persons in leading positions of public and private housing companies, data for the perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard and perceived competition was collected. Quantitative financial data was collected to support the information from the interviews. Using a deductive research approach, the qualitative data was analysed through a qualitative content analysis method and the quantitative data through descriptive statistics. The result showed that public housing companies do operate under more businesslike principles for some perspectives of the BSC, but that the two sectors still differ in other perspectives. The perspective where convergence was found was the financial, whilst the two sectors still vary in the customer and internal-business-processes perspective. The two sectors were already similar within the learning and growth perspective, thus the result did not show any convergence for this perspective. The question regarding competition was where the two sectors diverged the most in their answers. The analysis of the findings led to the overall conclusion that the public housing companies have exerted themselves to operate under more businesslike principles. However, stakeholders within the rental housing industry do not agree on what these principles should entail for the public housing companies. As neutral competition was the wanted effect of the amendment these stakeholders need to overcome their differences in order for it to be achieved.