Internal and external communication for sustainable development

Case study on the municipality of Gnosjö

Franziska Hoffstaedter

Master thesis, 15 hp Supervisor: Media and Communication Studies Karin Wenström

Sustainable communication Examiner: Spring 2020 Leon Barkho

JÖNKÖPING UNIVERSITY Master thesis, 15 credits School of Education and Communication Course: Media and Communication Science with Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden Specialization in Sustainable Communication +46 (0)36 101000 Term: Spring 2020

ABSTRACT Writer: Franziska Hoffstaedter

Title: Internal and external communication for sustainable development Subtitle: Case study on the municipality of Gnosjö Language: English Pages: 38

Sweden hosted the first environmental development conference in 1972 and since then has been a European role model in sustainability issues (UN, 1972), following the triple bottom line: concern for the planet, people and profit (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). The present study deals with the application of micro-ethnography in sustainable communication, in the case of the municipality of Gnosjö in Sweden. Based on internal, external and strategic communication literature, the case study of Gnosjö, in which different areas of organisational communication were represented and how they affected the sustainable development of the organisation, is presented and analysed. It was investigated, which communication channels the municipality uses, how these channels look like and which aspects influence the communication and its development. The approaches of micro-ethnography were applied to collect and evaluate data. For this purpose, data were collected from participating observations with employees at Gnosjö town hall and the collection of seven interviews with informants from the fields of communication and sustainability and constantly compared. The exploratory data analysis reveals how the employees remained powerless in performing their work routine. Politicians, as the main decision-makers, play an important role in the development of the municipality. Therefore, they should attend training programs to understand the importance of sustainable communication internally and externally.

Keywords: Internal and external communication; Sustainable development; Micro- ethnography

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Table of contents Introduction ...... 4 Aim and research questions ...... 6 Previous research ...... 7 Role of internal and external communication ...... 7 Dealing with sustainability issues ...... 10 Positioning the study ...... 11 Theoretical frame and concepts ...... 12 Sustainability communication ...... 12 Internal and external communication ...... 13 Organisational communication ...... 14 Micro-ethnography ...... 15 Method and material ...... 15 Research design ...... 15 Data collection ...... 16 Research process ...... 19 Transcription and analysis ...... 20 Relationship with the research strategy ...... 21 Analysis and results ...... 22 Phenomenon ...... 23 Context ...... 27 Causal conditions ...... 29 Intervening conditions ...... 31 Strategies and consequences ...... 33 Discussion ...... 38 Conclusion ...... 40 Limitations of the study ...... 41 Future research ...... 42 References ...... 43 Appendix ...... 46 Interview request ...... 46 Interview guidelines ...... 47 Codebook ...... 49

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Introduction

“Whatever exists in the social world is the product of human communication” (Allen, 2016, p. 12). In recent years sustainability became a major topic in the news, politics and for companies. The idea of sustainability is the outcome of different interdependent topics around politics, history, research and social movements (Godemann & Michelsen, 2011). Sustainability, in theory, is composed of different levels: The idea in theory of intra- and intergenerational justice, concept, key principles of resilience, sufficiency and efficiency, fields of action, target groups and implementation (Godemann & Michelsen, 2011, p. 16). Part of growing recognition is the interest in media sustainability exposing global challenges as pollution and scarcity of resources (Picard, 2017). Sustainability in the communication of media sets the impetus behind behaviour change and awareness. The sum of human activities affects not only the environment moreover the quality of life. Therefore, development in media and communication is a critical component of national development to support the effectiveness of local media. In order to deal with local, domestic and international issues people need to communicate with each other. Part of communication development is to combine and use traditional media, communications infrastructures and information technologies (Picard, 2017). For example, Svalna, an application (app) combines forms of information with technology for raising awareness of the environment’s health (Andersson, 2020). Svalna is a Swedish service for those who want to keep track of their climate impact and how to reduce it. The app collects information from individuals about their emissions from food habits, everyday transport, travelling and living conditions, for example. Svalna uses that information to calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions individuals caused in one year (Svalna, 2017; Andersson, 2020). Confident of participation, knowledge and commitment the founders of Svalna believe in a transition to a more sustainable world. How that journey looks like is dependent on how communities are organised. In Sweden, the climate council of Jönköping county (Klimatrådet Jönköpings Län) organises seminars within a forum for the climate council to help increase knowledge about the benefits of such collaborations as with Svalna (Olsson, 2017). The start- up Svalna ran a one-year climate campaign from September 2019 until September 2020. Within this period around 7000 citizens of Jönköping county started using the app Svalna and wanted to reduce their climate impact by five per cent until the finish of the campaign. Among the participants are 17 people who are pioneering the transition, as so-called Climate Fighters, and accept the challenge of reducing their emissions by 30 per cent within one year (Andersson, 2020).

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The 290 Swedish municipalities have a joint mandate to work with Agenda 20301. All Swedish municipalities have signed the Agenda 2030 to implement the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), political goals, intended to ensure sustainable development worldwide on an economic, social and ecological level (UN, 2015). Therefore, it is important for municipalities to work consciously and continuously with sustainability, as municipality influences development on a local level. The work on Agenda 2030 in Jönköping has been implemented in different ways. For example, the global goals were translated into policy documents and decisions. The municipality further works on the fulfilment of human rights and the environment, as well as education and information about Agenda 2030 (Nilsén, 2020). Further Jönköping county wants to be a role model in increasing the dialogue with actors outside the county. One of Jönköping county’s municipalities is Gnosjö Kommun (Swedish for a municipality), partner of Svalna and the climate council (Svalna, 2017). Gnosjö is a special municipality in the county because of its spirit of awakening, solidarity, cooperation and strong confidence in the region’s capabilities (Wigren, 2003). Gnosjö is an entrepreneur region and in its field the leader in western Småland. The municipality sets its priorities in environment & infrastructure, entrepreneurship, participation and culture. Gnosjö is famous for its spirit of tackling challenges and problems by the people and companies who operate in the region of Gnosjö. People who live this spirit stand for collaboration, motivation through others, help, generosity and the building and production of local goods (Wigren, 2003; Gnosjoandan, 2020). One of the municipality’s collaboration is the participation in Svalna’s climate campaign to motivate its own citizens to fight climate change (VanDerMeulen, 2019). Communicating such environmental engagement is not typically easy as these challenges are often systematic and complex (EEA, 2016). Although science and research about environmental knowledge are constantly improving, incompleteness is a concern. Most people do not associate intense rainfalls and droughts with climate change, for instance, although it is similarly connected to the decision of transport and energy source people take (EEA, 2016). In the discussion of how to meet challenges of climate change, there is no doubt that mitigation activities must be carried over on a global, national and local level. To influence public knowledge and engagement, the need is to know why people differ in their attitudes. To live well within the limits planet earth has provided means to behave well in terms of changing fundamental elements of lifestyle and adapting those into daily routines. This need for more action or change can be conveyed - in part - by efforts by public authorities to communicate about policies and to encourage citizens to act. However, the application of micro-ethnography for the investigation of sustainability communication in the environment

1 With the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development, the international community of states expresses its conviction that global challenges can only be solved together. The Agenda creates the basis for shaping global economic progress in harmony with social justice and within the ecological limits of the earth (UN, 2015).

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of a municipality has not yet been empirically investigated. Although there are some quantitative and qualitative research approaches to this topic, there is a lack of empirical studies and results using the example of Gnosjö Kommun. This research project, therefore, aims to investigate how the communication of the municipality is shaped regarding sustainable development. The method of micro-ethnography will be used for the investigation. In this thesis, the researcher argues that internal and external forms of communication in the municipality of Gnosjö can be influenced by political motivation or by political decisions to a large degree. Therefore, it is interesting to discover what measures should be taken to communicate sustainability ideas and the SDG to potential electors and internally to the departments.

Structure In the following chapters, the research topic will first be examined in more detail. For this purpose, the next chapter outlines the research objective and the research questions. This is followed by a brief overview of the current state of research on internal and external communication in communities and sustainable development. The theoretical background in the following chapter includes internal and external sustainability communication and the necessary strategic alternatives for its application. This leads the work on the further differentiation of the research interest and the chosen method of study to the detailed description. The analysis and classification of the results of the work are presented in the penultimate chapter and form the basis for the concluding discussion in the last two chapters. Here the main findings are interpreted in relation to the literature, the limitations of the work are worked out, and an outlook on future research and practical application is provided.

Aim and research questions

The municipality of Gnosjö addresses sustainability issues within their community. However, the practical aspects of communicating the needs of Gnosjö’s citizens for a more sustainable lifestyle and reducing their carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint has not been researched yet. This study shall shape a framework to understand, explain and describe the phenomenon of communication forms at Gnosjö Kommun and which practical ideas are to implement for a communication strategy. The aim of the research is to analyse internal and external communication with a focus on sustainability aspects. The study presents recommendations for an effective communication strategy for the long-term. For the present research work, it is first necessary to empirically test these theoretical preliminary considerations (see previous research). The research interest formulated in the introduction on how the communication channels of a municipality are designed regarding sustainability is therefore specified here. The following main research questions (RQ) will lead the research:

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RQ1: “How does Gnosjö Kommun handle communication-related sustainable concerns internally and externally?”

RQ2: “What changes does Gnosjö Kommun need to make in order to successfully implement sustainability communication internally and externally?”

The answer to the first RQ is intended to provide insights about which communication characteristics are integrated at which points in a communication strategy and the second RQ shell put light on how to strengthen a municipality in the changing context of sustainable development. However, to take up all aspects from the theoretical preliminary considerations, guiding sub-questions are formulated in the following, which are subject to the research question and are intended to focus it. The guiding sub-questions have the task of translating the first research question into questions for empirical research and thus form the basis for the survey instrument. Since qualitative survey methods have an open character, the guiding sub- questions play an important role. They help in the design of survey methods and serve as guidelines for the collection of data (Seale, 2018). The following guiding sub-questions were developed within the framework of the present research work:

RQ1.1: “Which forms of communication are used and how are these forms implemented?”

RQ1.2: “Which aspects influence the forms of communication and its development?”

To be able to answer the guiding sub-questions posed here as well as the research questions, the methods used in the present research work are described in detail in the chapter method and material.

Previous research

One of the most important steps for the development of an appropriate research framework is to critically review existing literature and to position this study within it (Hansen & Machin, 2019). Based on the research question this review details with the state-of-the-art literature in the field of sustainable communication and development in theory, methods and data. The literature shell help to understand what has been written about the nature of internal and external communication with a focus on a local level of municipalities.

Role of internal and external communication

Communication is central to shape the understanding of the natural world and the individual’s role in it. How humans act, support or reject certain policies reflect the understanding of their role. In addition, communication is the source to discuss different points of view (Zikargae,

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2018). Sustainable development at municipality level follows laws and regulations set by the government of a country. The implementation of the prescribed laws by the government is maintained, although the tightening of individual laws varies according to the interests of the municipality. To ensure public participation in local affairs the South African Municipal System Act from 2000 directs South Africa’s (SA) municipalities to ensure that they make use of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) (Gazette, 2000). The plan includes communication with the public for integrating their voice into local processes. Molale (2019) identified with qualitative research to what extent participatory communication takes place in the case of Jouberton Township in the Matlosana local municipality. Using participant observation, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the study found that community members were passive participators in municipal IDP processes in which their involvement was limited to being informed about what would happen or had already happened. (Molale, 2019, p. 57) The findings in Molale’s (2019) study suggest empowering the target community in participatory communication, as discussions and decision-making, during IDP processes in the municipality. An ethnographic approach made it possible to focus on the voices and feelings of the target group to elaborate on how a municipality communicates externally. The same ethnographic approach was applied by Msibi and Penzhorn (2010) studying participatory communication in the Kungwini local municipality, SA. They discovered that the participatory communication approach is prized as well as determinative to the local development for the municipality (Msibi & Penzhorn, 2010). Zikargae (2018) sees gaps in the treatment of environmental issues due to the lack of information flow and integration of communication tools on the part of public authorities. The results of Zikargae’s (2018) study present the unavailability in the case of Ethiopia’s authorities to communicate the issue of environmental concerns on a political and public level. Developing countries are victims of climate change and therefore Ethiopia is suffering from drought, for example. This environmental relevant information needs further addressing communication strategies from the authority. Within different strategies and channels of communication people’s behaviour can be changed. Additionally, environmental communication of authority is divided into internal and external environmental communication and linked to sustainable development. Positive outcomes in sustainable development are foreseeable if the provided information is reliable, sufficient and easy to access (Zikargae, 2018). Digging deeper in the case of Ethiopia, Zikargae (2018) investigated qualitatively how an authority communicates environmental issues. The author conducted four in-depth interviews and supplemented those with documents, which are essential for the data collection. Those included authority guidelines and documentary coverage of Amhara Mass Media TV concerning environmental issues (Zikargae, 2018). In this case, Ethiopia’s environmental problem is not given much

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attention to the communication between the authorities and the public. The country’s authority lacks in creating awareness for its situation and creates a weak public dialogue (Zikargae, 2018). Calder and Beckie (2011) used the same qualitative approach to explore the use of communication processes in municipal sustainability planning (MSC) and applied the method on a comparative case study in Canada. Data was collected by means of twelve semi-structured in-depth interviews from two different communities in Alberta. Background information of the MSC process was retrieved from documents of the federal Gas Tax Agreements and the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan for the interviews’ structure development. Environmental engagement is to involve the public in decision-making and planning. But the commitment might not last as it takes time and effort for engagement in the long-term, while the role of communication is fundamental to engagement (Calder & Beckie, 2011). Five levels of engagement of different communication methods were identified by Calder and Beckie (2011): informing, consulting, involving, collaborating (participatory decision-making) and empowering citizens. The study uncovered that the authorities must work hard to maintain public confidence. Trust is necessary for sustainable and consistent messages to communicate climate risks (Calder & Beckie, 2011). Leiserowitz (2006) assumes that decision-making is a cognitive activity and about risk perception and policy preferences. The theoretical relation between risk perception and policy support can be explained with the cultural theory. The growing relevance of political power underlies globalisation and its power to construct news frames on climate change. With a national representative survey, Leiserowitz (2006) analyses climate change perceptions among US administration. The author’s results indicate, if people cannot feel critical consequences of climate change, US citizens consider the issue as moderate and something affecting “people and places far distant in space and time” (Leiserowitz, 2006, p. 64). However, the majority of US citizens, for instance, believe someone else should solve issues concerning the environment. Thus, climate action is externalised to the US government, industry and so on are addressed, while no changes happen in the ordinary people’s behaviour (Leiserowitz, 2006). This expresses the paradox in US risk perceptions of climate change and the distance to environmental issues. To influence public knowledge and opinion, one needs to know more about why people have different attitudes and perceptions about climate change and its possible consequences. Leiserowitz (2006) sees a general lack of urgency about climate change and its national communication from the political set of priorities. This research could be strengthened with an ethnographic approach to include knowledge of people’s attitudes and perceptions about climate change. Acknowledging that values and beliefs from experts, in addition, play a role in risk communication, sustainable development takes environmental communication to an upper

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level (Waddel, 1995). With the “Social Constructionist Model” (Waddel, 1995, p. 207), all participants communicate and engage emotions. The model considers valuing the communication process as much as the outcome, where risk communication is an interactive exchange of information. Taking sustainable development on a regional level includes an environmental community composed of environmental activist groups, governmental organisations, companies and the civic. According to this case study, Waddel (1995) argues that sustainable development obliterates differences between experts and the public. Réka and Borza (2012) demonstrate that organisational communication, irrespectively of which organisational field, is a complex phenomenon. Internally work productivity is dependent on communication and essential to reach joint goals. Their study reveals that cultural organisations pay more attention to their external communication. With their study, they are raising awareness of the importance of communication within an organisation to take part in a competitive environment. For the study, they used a quantitative approach in the form of a questionnaire of 300 representatives (Réka & Borza, 2012).

Dealing with sustainability issues

Everyday environmental friendly practices such as recycling, energy-saving and the use of public transport can be promoted through a routine home or school activity and by connecting the public with broader social values through the news media (Lakew & Olausson, 2019). The potential of news media differs from younger to elderly news consumers independently if they are sceptics or dogmatist of climate change. Lakew and Olausson (2019) argue, the higher the number of positive influencers (social multipliers) the more pro-environmental attitudes or behaviour and more self-efficiency. However pro-environmental attitudes and intensions do not guarantee pro-environmental behaviour (Lakew & Olausson, 2019). With a focus on people and their nearby surroundings concerns about climate change are different (Lujala, Lein, & Rød, 2014). The results of Lujala’s et al. (2014) study moreover display that mere living in a more exposed area, but without personal harm experience, has no impact on respondents’ concerns about climate change. Risk perception not only plays an important role in shaping climate policy, but is also central to gaining support for initiatives to adapt and mitigate (Lujala, Lein, & Rød, 2014). The current example of climate change is of a cognitive and discursive process in which the originally strictly scientific discourse is gradually transforming. Olausson (2011) indicates that taking on banal characteristics as in expressions like “carbon footprint” and “climate-friendly” are integrated as social representations into everyday cognition and discourse. The role of media can additionally be described as the agenda-setter in shaping the public’s representation of climate change (Olausson, 2011).

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Mass media influence the general public with visuals and stories. These ways help to remember messages and to communicate complex content immediately and to shape the public’s opinion on certain topics (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Public opinion and engagement are examined by O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole (2009) using the theory of fear messages in climate change communication. The authors describe to what extent fear messages in climate change communication go in engaging the public. With two empirical multimethod studies, the research considers the role of visual and iconic representations of climate change for the public. Use of qualitative methods in both studies allows participants to freely articulate their personal view of climate change. The results explain that fear messages generate attention but rarely long-term engagement (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Similar results can be viewed in a study with focus groups by Olausson (2011) where fear messages generate short term engagement as well as emotional fatigue and active coping strategies. A solution-driven way to reach the public is to frame environmental issues as something other than environmental problems, for example, climate change as a public health problem (Maibach, Nisbet, Baldwin, Akerlof, & Diao, 2010). Using an explanatory study, Maibach et al. (2010) demonstrate that people relied more positively on information about health benefits in a short, public health-framed essay on climate change than on information about climate change associated with prevention policies. The authors believe in the public health community to address the problem of climate change more personally and therefore more relevant to the public. According to Lakoff (2010), the presentation of environmental movements reaches most attention through globalisation. As the details of environmentalism are more complex the simple way to understand social movements is to frame them (Lakoff, 2010). Movements shed a light on issues which are not visible to everyone at first appearance (Lakoff, 2010). Olausson (2009) discusses the connection between media frames and ideological hegemony in the media’s responsibility for collective action. The responsibility for solving large-scale environmental problems like climate change is not one of the individuals, but more likely the political realm (Olausson, 2009). Olausson (2009) uses the tool of critical discourse analysis to capture the ideological and unintended to unfold the taken-for-granted values related to the dominance of power.

Positioning the study

The review of the literature indicates that scholars use mixed methods, for example, a triangulation of methods as in an ethnographic approach (Bryman, 2016) for the investigation of sustainable communication. Previous research indicates, that in most cases communication about sustainability is connected to climate change. The contexts influencing people’s

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behaviour are different but the literature about sustainable communication regularly focusses on the relation of individuals and their attitude towards the environment. The process of recognition builds on the power of authorities to communicate the issue of sustainability. Literature about the involvement of employees themselves about how they relate to such issues has not been investigated yet. “There was no observational and ethnographic work into what kinds of values, decisions and processes lie behind the use [of sustainable communication]” (Hansen & Machin, 2019, p. 75). An empirical research gap is recognizable in how authorities as in this case a municipality can communicate in the long-term issues of sustainability to their external stakeholders to understand and implement in daily life. In addition, the importance of ethnography for internal and external communication according to sustainability has not been discussed yet. In the case of Gnosjö’s communication department, existing research explicitly and implicitly investigates the characteristics of sustainable communication to the public and how different methods of communication involve or affect the public. The literature review suggests using a qualitative approach of micro-ethnography to close the gap of sustainable communication within the internal communication at the municipality of Gnosjö and the dialogue with their external stakeholders.

The contribution of this master thesis will provide new empirical knowledge through micro- ethnography on internal and external environmental communication with the aim to help authorities building on a communication strategy.

Theoretical frame and concepts

Before responding to the individual points of the theory, this research deals with the relationship between the individual terms of communication. Starting from the main research question, the focus of the study is the communication on the sustainability of the municipality of Gnosjö. However, communication cannot be described as a fixed term but is constantly influenced and shaped by internal circumstances, external factors and different forms. Communication is a broad field, so the focus of this research is on sustainability communication, which is subject to the relationship between communication and sustainable development (Bucur & Petra, 2011). The handling of sustainability communication (see introduction) is examined with a micro-ethnography approach within the municipality and in dialogue with stakeholders externally.

Sustainability communication

In organisations, communication plays a critical role (Allen, 2016). How an organisation is working relies on the language they are using. Allen (2016) sees the existence of whatever it is in the social world as the product of communication. Through diverse forms of

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communication, the concept of sustainability in an organisation has gained importance, in general. Various sources of knowledge in theory and practice allow organisations and individuals to act towards goals – for example, sustainability goals. How these goals look like are created by human interaction and are continuously challenged. This creation of defining sustainability communication exists in various forms (Allen, 2016; Bucur & Petra, 2011). Following Cox (2013), the definition of environmental communication combines the transmission of information from a source to a receiver about the broad field of environmental topics. Therefore, this research brakes down the term of environmental communication into a pragmatic and constitutive function. Pragmatically the instrument of communication is the tool for solving problems, strongly related to education. In a constitutive sense, the instrument of communication is the instrument for defining problems, the possibility of understanding the object of a problem that has arisen. In acknowledging something as a problem, constitutive communication evokes values and creates a certain perspective for people’s attention and understanding (Cox, 2013). Within and between organisations, communication is the tool to help authorities to implement all issues of sustainability. Using this tool enables organisations to educate their employees and leaders. Further, communication warns the public how to deal with danger and natural disasters. It is the tool for organisations in persuading the public and their own staff to change their behaviour (Hansen, 2015; Allen, 2016; EEA, 2016).

Internal and external communication

For organisations, who are not related directly to the field of communications, the topic of communication is not that present on their daily agenda. Many organisations are facing challenges regarding sustainability-related messages. They fear to raise their voice about their impacts, either positive or negative, on sustainability because of the possible backlash of their audience (Allen, 2016, p. 13). Moreover, organisations are facing the challenge of internal communication, due to political disagreements what is on the internal agenda and should be communicated to the public. As a result, messages are transmitted late or not at all. For the support of internal information and control processes greater transparency in sustainability reporting can be useful (Herzig & Schaltegger, 2011). How people act and what they believe depends on how communication is organised (Gunster, 2017). To engage the public in pro-environmental practices, they need to be accurately informed about environmental issues. According to Gunster (2017), the level of concern rises as soon as people are aware of a specific problem’s extent. Likewise, people’s reluctance can be attributable to a lack of relevant information and the deficit of authorities to communicate this issue (Gunster, 2017).

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Communication is influenced by the public sphere, a community who share concern or topics and engage others in communication how they view the environment and their relation to it (Cox, 2013). In the theory of communicative action, the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas (1984) argues that actions are communicative when the participants are coordinated based on mutual understanding and not on personal success. Communicative rationality occurs when communication is free of coercion, deception, strategy formation and manipulation (the ideal speech situation). In short, communicative rationality suggests that people are motivated by a will to understand and learn from each other. (Svensson, 2008, p. 210) This understanding and rationality are achieved in ideal speaking situations. Whenever individuals share their concerns through questioning, arguing, celebrating with others, they exist in the public sphere (Habermas, 1984). Communication enables participation and engagement internally and externally (EEA, 2016).

Organisational communication

Forms of communication Communication is critical for knowledge sharing between different cultural groups. The effectiveness of work in groups depends on the forms of communication and is therefore valuable for organisational structure (Michailova & Sidorova, 2011). Professional institutions can help to structure communication departments and develop a communication plan for their organisation. Channels of formal internal and external communication stay in focus to design. To bring about change, campaigns are conducted and communication tools are established as a standard. These tools are essential for sustainability communication and are reflected in recurring documents and reports. These documents are available to the public, for example, via the company's own website. Internally, the company uses defined documents for compliance with rules and for certification (Allen, 2016). Formal sustainability communication further requires an organisation to hold regular meetings with its employees. According to Allen (2016), the issues of sustainability must be addressed internally by the management on a regular basis, for example, through monthly internal newsletters, on the intranet site or similar. With a strong internal communication strategy, the topic of sustainability can be credibly communicated externally (Allen, 2016).

Strategic communication For an organisational change towards sustainability, a strategy is based on the organisation’s culture. Therefore, the organisation’s leaders should prove to what extent sustainability fits into the current strategy or the existing organisational culture. Based on this, they should discuss possible changes that the organisation would like to make (Allen, 2016). According to

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McAleese and Hargie (2004), strategic communication follows five guiding principles in management: Define a guiding strategy, evolve culture leaders, spread the culture by communicating effectively between employees, measure performance, and communicate the organisations’ culture with external groups of interests. These principles can be applied to any organisation, no matter which cultural background. The authors recommend taking time on building on these principles to avoid short-time solutions. Further, these guidelines shell help an organisation to achieve common goals for sustainable development internally and externally (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). To identify a sustainable-orientated organisational culture the human relations model after Quinn (1988) can be applied: The human relations model sets its focus on training and development for employees, open communication as well a participating culture of decision making. The cultural model stresses “environmental health and safety, human well-being, and employee skills, satisfaction, commitment, and productivity” (Allen, 2016, p. 193).

Micro-ethnography

To operationalize this study a micro-ethnography approach is applied. Micro-ethnography has its roots in ethnography and this in anthropology with the focus on people (Hansen & Machin, 2019). It’s a method and theory at the same time and involves the researcher to participate in people’s daily life (Seale, 2018; Bryman, 2016). The researcher takes an observational role by listening and watching to what happens in a specific case. This observation takes place of an extended period of time and the researcher asks questions through informal and formal interviews with the investigated unit. Ethnography is not a single method it is an approach that relies on several sources of data. Within micro-ethnography, the time of observation is limited and the focus of the study lies on a specific aspect instead of a broader field of research (Bryman, 2016; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). For this reason, this study takes a micro- ethnography approach into account for the investigation of internal and external communication of sustainable concerns at the town hall of Gnosjö Kommun in Sweden.

Method and material

Research design

The scientific value of the present work lies in the explanatory approach of internal and external communication. The basis of qualitative research is the study of understanding how an area functions and the description of people and their culture (Hansen, 2015; Bryman, 2016; Seale, 2018). The application of a micro-ethnographic approach is one way of representing the latter by using different data sources to obtain the ideal value for the study. Within ethno-methodical research, the study follows the concept of researching and

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conducting different data in a constant comparison (Altheide, 1987; Glaser & Strauss, 2006; Bryman, 2016; Seale, 2018). The theory is generated instead of quantitatively tested. The difference is that ethnography does not use the data to produce social facts measured with a questionnaire, rather it displays evidence of human behaviour in a specific social context (Hansen, 2015; Seale, 2018). Alternatively, a quantitative approach would be possible whereas the choice of a qualitative approach leaves the explorative core of the study intact regarding the non-holistic transferability of the theoretical principles to the research object. For reasons of a lack of generalizability of the results, which are a prerequisite for quantitative research, a hypothesis- guided, explanatory methodology is not used. Consequently, the qualitative principle of openness and the theory-building approach was followed (Hansen & Machin, 2019). To understand meanings and behaviour ethnography constantly interacts between formulating the problem, collecting and analysing data. This process refers to ethnographic content analysis (ECA), a constant comparison between developing the concept, sampling, collecting, coding, analysing and interpreting the data (Altheide, 1987). The solution of the content-related research problem was achieved through own data collection and analysis, which means that the study can still be described as an empirical primary analysis. Accordingly, the data were collected once using a cross-sectional study.

Data collection

Observation Systematic participatory observation is assumed if the observer himself - in this case, the researcher - is part of the event to be observed, for example, if the researcher does not make his or her observations as an outsider. If the observation is open, the observer - unlike with covert observation - does not try to hide his or her role as an observer. For the practice of fieldwork the researcher constantly took the role between more active as participant as observer and less active as observer as participant (Seale, 2018). The phenomenon of communication is abstract and subjective together and mandates the researcher to get in personal contact with the participants and to discover communication structures. Therefore, participation and social interaction are welcomed and participants were fully aware of the overt observation. However, this role takes the risk of identifying with the people being studied. According to Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) is everyone a participant-observer in the social world gaining knowledge by simply participating in it. In the authors’ view, “such participant knowledge on the part of people in a setting is an important resource for the ethnographer”, although its validity is to be questioned, as is information from other sources (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 98). The study considers that the researcher

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is the primary research instrument within micro-ethnography and critically evaluates the production and evaluation of empirical data. This research process involves observations and interviews to understand how internal and external communication gets practically created, the organisational cultures and institutional practices that can have a huge influence on the nature of [communication and] the ideas, values and identities that help to shape the motivations, understandings and practices of [the employees at Gnosjö Kommun]. (Hansen & Machin, 2019, p. 68) In the case of Gnosjö Kommun, the researcher had open access to the field of research and held informal talks with partners from different departments to achieve most out of the ethics.

Interviews The researcher complemented her observations with seven semi-structured interviews. All the interviews were held in Sweden with Swedish employees and private persons during the time of the investigation. In the context of a semi-structured interview, neither the questions nor the answers are binding, thus enables the interviewer to ask questions if the answers are incomplete (Bryman, 2016). To achieve a result, research into social structures and processes requires a pre-defined categorization of the guiding questions, which is why social science, qualitative survey method of the guideline-based expert interview was used (Bryman, 2016). This should ensure that the interviewee provides information on all important aspects. The interview recordings are available as transcripts, as so-called raw data for evaluation. Qualitative research deliberately relies on interpretative and unstructured data collection. Therefore, the results are quite vague and it cannot be guaranteed that the desired information is provided in the transcripts (Bryman, 2016). For this study, interview partners with different professional and motivational backgrounds are selected to cover a wide range of information. Thus, the study follows the quality criterion of triangulation and looks at the study from two different perspectives (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007).

Documents The study was complemented with documents (Bryman, 2016) retrieved from the municipality’s official website, as well as projects that employees were working on. The researcher collected the relevant documents from the participants or open access documents from the case study’s website. A document was classified as relevant when it was suggested by the observed participant (Altheide, 1987).

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This data collection technique is used in this study to familiarize with the area under investigation and to check and supplement the information from the observation and the collected interviews (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007).

Investigation unit

Figure 1 Map Jönköping county from Fred, 2005

By the end of February 2020, the researcher began her observation at Gnosjö Kommun for a period of five weeks. Gnosjö Kommun is part of Jönköping County (Sweden) and borders the west and north to Gislaved municipality, east to Vaggeryd municipality and south to Värnamo municipality (see figure 1). The municipality has a total of 9,776 inhabitants according to the statistics from 2018 (VanDerMeulen, 2019). The municipality is organised in five departments: Kommunledningsförvaltning, the city/ municipality administration, that’s where the researcher was located during the time of the investigation. Teknik- och fritidsförvaltning, the technology and leisure management; Kultur- och Utbidningsförvaltning, the culture and education administration; Socialförvaltning, the social administration; Samhällsbyggnadsförvaltning, the construction & building management and Räddningstjänst ihop med Givsaldes Kommun, the emergency and rescue service together with Givslaved municipality. In total over 900 employees are working for the municipality in Gnosjö and round about 45 are located in the town hall of Gnosjö (Thorup, 2019), where the observation took place. The communication department of Gnosjö Kommun consists of one person who is responsible for internal and external communication. Further departments support this person with content for the website or the local magazine which are then gathered and published by the communication person. Based on the investigation unit used for this case study, the communication analysis of Gnosjö Kommun’s communication department identifies strength and weaknesses in their communication strategy.

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Research process

Social setting Within the first days of observing, the researcher was introduced to all the employees working at the town hall of Gnosjö Kommun. Noticeable from the beginning of the investigation was the openness of every single employee. No matter to whom the researcher was introduced the respondent offered help and interest to answer questions. The introduction process happened face to face, by the researcher’s contact person showing the researcher around. After the first days, the researcher received an overview of the location, the people working in each department and how the municipality is organised, by asking her way and searching the intranet as well the official website of Gnosjö Kommun. Admittedly every employee has their own office the researcher rotated for desk working through different offices within the administrative department whenever someone was out of the house for different reasons. This created a working atmosphere in which the researcher was treated like a colleague. The community spirit was strengthened by taking lunch and Fika2 breaks together with other colleagues. For the case of Gnosjö Kommun, the researcher was much welcomed and further help outside the period of study was offered.

Field notes and document collection The investigation in the town hall unfolded as follows: The researcher visited a total of 19 employees in their offices, sat down and talked to them. In most talks, the respondents were open to start talking about themselves and their role in the municipality. Two out of 19 participants did not feel comfortable in having a talk in English and referred to a colleague in their department. Both requested participants were working in the social department and one of them mailed some answers in Swedish to the researcher after a request. The content was translated in the best possible way, as far as the researcher’s language skills allowed. Further, seven out of the participants shared some documents and tools on their computer screens during the talks. Subsequently, they provided the researcher with these documents and tools, they felt important to share in relation to the topic of sustainability. From two out of the latter seven respondents sent an e-mail with documents for future analysis. All the verbal chats took between 15 and 60 minutes, depending on the information flow until the researcher was satisfied with the quantity and quality of shared information. The researcher also listened and observed attentively what happened in the corridors or in the coffee corner. The researcher had more than one conversation with some of the respondents, and with one of them, the researcher spent two hours a day on the bus to work. All the information and impressions

2 Fika is a social institution in Sweden and Finland. It means the interruption of an activity to have coffee with the family, friends or colleagues or, less often, another drink. A Fika break can last between 15 and 45 minutes (Duxbory, 2014).

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collected were first written down in the researcher’s notebook, and in a second step put into a coherent text at the end of each observation day. These notes are full field notes and considered for the upcoming ECA (see transcription and analysis).

Interview process In the first week of the observation period, the interview guidelines were prepared, based on the literature on sustainable communication. The researcher obtained consent verbally from every interviewee before each interview was recorded (see appendix). The first interviewee was a politician (R1) from Gnosjö Kommun. The same guideline was then applied to four further interview partners from the sector of communication outside of Gnosjö Kommun. From participant, to participant, the order of interview questions was adjusted and further questions were added if necessary. Some of the interview questions had to be rephrased during the interview process due to language barriers. This enabled a continuous flow of speech and did not interrupt the respondent’s answer or lead to the repetition of information (Bryman, 2016). During week three of observation, the second interviewee (R2) was questioned. The respondent works as a communication expert for climate adaptation projects in the public sector in Sweden. For the third interviewee, a different interview guide was prepared as the respondent (R3) was not asked because of her profession but rather for her participation in Svalna’s climate campaign, mentioned in the introduction of the study. Although the questions focussed more on the usage of the app Svalna, the answers also applied to the research aim of the communication strategy of a municipality. In the fourth week of observation, a respondent (R4) working as a strategist for sustainable growth and a respondent (R5) working in sustainable journalism were interviewed. The research was rounded off with another respondent (R6) participating in the climate fight and a respondent (R7) working as an international strategist in sustainable development. With one exception, all interviews were conducted in person at the respondents’ offices, recorded with a mobile device and then transcribed using Microsoft Word software. An interview was conducted through the software Microsoft teams, as a video call, and subsequently processed.

Transcription and analysis

For the ECA the researcher took the role of an overt observer by listening to what people say and writing drown information in full-field notes. The analysis of data followed the dialectical process of micro-ethnography, including a constant comparison between the triangulation of data and theory emerging during the process of ethnography. The analysis’ structure follows the structure of a coding paradigm from Strauss and Corbin (1998) (see analysis and results). Following the concept of micro-ethnography, the phase of theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 2006) was done during an observation time

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of five weeks at the case of Gnosjö Kommun. For the study of the social phenomena of communication at the municipality, a triangulation of data is being applied. Webb et al. (1966) originally designated the approach of triangulation for the measurement of concepts using more than one method to build trust in the results. As such the triangulation was associated in quantitative research. Within ethnography as a qualitative approach, the triangulation of data suits until theoretical saturation is reached. Saturation means that no additional data is collected unless the researcher is confident about the category building and no further categories will be found within this time frame of investigation (Glaser & Strauss, 2006). A triangulation of data collection increases the validity of investigations in qualitative research (Bryman, 2016). For the collection of empirical information, the qualitative method of semi- structured face-to-face and telephone interviews and a systematic observation were used (Hansen & Machin, 2019) to develop a deeper understanding of how the municipality communicates environmental issues and problems.

Coding process The triangulation of data is present as text documents – transcripts - and was imported to the qualitative data analysis software Nvivo12. From there the coding process started out. In the first step, open coding took place, while the researcher read several times through the material and started out coding words, phrases and paragraphs. After repeating the coding the researcher summarized the codes among concepts in a codebook (see appendix). In the second step, axial coding brought the research to an upper level following Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) coding paradigm. Main relationships between the codes were built. Therefore, the researcher took pen and paper and draw a mind map to follow the coding paradigm referring the codes to the phenomenon, causal conditions, intervening conditions, context, strategies and consequences. From there the researcher built up the first ideas of theory. In the third and final step, selective coding identified a single category as the central phenomenon of the study. In this process, the researcher systematically related the core category to other categories and added categories that needed further refinement (Bryman, 2016). The researcher was able to derive a theoretical model from the coding process, which is described in more detail in the results section.

Relationship with the research strategy

Hammersley (1992) identifies validity and relevance as important criteria for the adequacy of measures. Both in quantitative and qualitative research the issues of ecological validity is relevant as it relates to the naturalness of the research approach. Naturalistic stance particularly relates to ethnographic research, in which observing and interviewing participants is a standing out element of data collection (Bryman, 2016). Trustworthiness is a criterion of

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qualitative studies which includes the criterion of validity. Characteristically for an empirical study is, that the study must be plausible and credible. The importance of the topic of sustainable communication is considered as relevant in ethnography to study for the understanding of various relations to communication within a specific context (Glaser & Strauss, 2006). For external validity, vital to ethnographic studies is that the study follows three dimensions of sampling: Time, people and context (Seale, 2018). During five weeks of investigation, the data was collected with a variety of people from different professional backgrounds. Reliability is mainly a criterion of quantitative research to show how far a study is replicable. Since it was impossible to lock up the social setting and circumstances around the investigation of Gnosjö Kommun the conducted study is not reliable. Although the ethnographic role of the observer can “adapt a similar social role to that by the original researcher” the findings of the researcher of hearing and seeing could not be replicable (Bryman, 2016, p. 390). The aim of the study is to gain insights from different perspectives on the forms of communication Gnosjö Kommun is using.

Analysis and results

For verifying theoretical relationships and understanding the meaning of data an ECA was used for this study. The interactive process between the researcher, concepts, data collection and analysis is distinctive for an ECA (Bryman, 2016). This study has the aim to be systematic and analytical, by receiving categorical data for every source of data to develop an analytical construct for further studies. Some elements and topics can be assigned several times since a clear demarcation to categories and concepts is not commonly possible (Altheide, 1987). This chapter presents the results of empirical research. For this purpose, a category-specific evaluation along the main topics is carried out. In other words, all the informants’ statements, participant observation and content of documents for each main thematic category, including its subcategories, are summarised and jointly evaluated. The ECA is followed by the results for each paragraph in this chapter. According to Strauss and Corbin (1998), some distinctions are to be understood more gradually than categorically and there are overlaps in the analysis and presentation of results of some categories. A relationship between the axial categories and the core category is built to explain the happening of the social process. This integrates the knowledge of the phenomenon into existing knowledge of internal and external communication on sustainable development. For the analysis process, the formal conducted interviews are cited with the respondent’s number, for example, R7 refers to the seventh respondent, a communication strategist, introduced in the method chapter. To locate the respondent’s statement, the lines from the transcripts are included in brackets such as ‘(R7, l. 201)’. Information taken from the informal

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talks, documents and the observation itself are all recorded in the field notes, are not presented with any form of citation yet are set in context as follows:

Phenomenon

This concept is the theoretical version of what is called a phenomenon in the coding paradigm: An event in the data that was conceptualized - and in this respect theorized - and which context must be processed in this step of analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Internal communication Central to every type of investigation was the topic of communication and how it was dealt with. The phenomenon of communication appeared repeatedly during the research process in observing the employees communicating with each other in the municipality and while conducting the formal interviews with the informants (see method and material). Visible differences in communication are between the observation of the employees’ internal and external communication and the interpretation of the conducted interviews. Among all the employees, direct contact was more established than using communication tools. The employees visited each other in their offices and address a request verbally before writing an e-mail. E-mails, telephone calls and the transition to video calls were used for internal communication, whereas e-mails and telephone calls rather than personal meetings, were the most common ways to communicate externally. Further, internal information was reachable on the intranet, to which the researcher only had access using a local computer during the time at Gnosjö Kommun. The use of the intranet is to share knowledge and information internally and only accessible by the organisation’s employees (R7, l. 201). During the time of the investigation, the communication person at the municipality and two other colleagues were building upon a communication plan for a redesign of the intranet platform. This platform shall be the centre of information, easily accessible for every employee, in the future. For this project, the responsible employees were meeting every week in the mornings and discussed the reconstruction of the internal webpage. For the technical structure, an external IT company was delegated. Together they were working in a team, met physical and discussed the content in a calm setup. Because of the short distances within a small municipality a good communication among each other and good knowledge of the tasks of other co-workers dominated, from the political point of view (R1, l.403). In contrast, the employees’ point of view, on the communication climate, differed. Many participants were uninformed and although the municipality is small the municipality had difficulty addressing a problem and rather waited for external solving. For example, one participant pointed out ceasing the project of implementing the UN SDG. She explained that since it is no longer on the political agenda, no one has been assigned this task,

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so it should be done on the side. This, in turn, means that for such a comprehensive project there is no time left besides the tasks that would otherwise have to be fulfilled and the project is forgotten. In general, the flow of communication is rather slow, which can be attributed to the working atmosphere. The researcher observed that the employees took much time together for the processing of a request. They visited each other in the offices and took a seat. Then the requests were addressed, but the conversation included topics beyond that, before returning to one’s own workplace. There was a pleasant working atmosphere, which the employees themselves classified as such, yet the social interaction leads to time pressure to work on their own tasks. This conspicuousness was reflected in the change of mood throughout the day. Starting the break the participants appeared more stressed than during the break and before returning to their workplace. In the morning, the first Fika break took place at half-past ten and everyone could join in voluntarily. On average, this break lasted thirty minutes and then everyone returned to their office, before the one-hour lunch break followed between half-past eleven and twelve o’clock and the second Fika break at half-past two. For the lunch break, the employees had to punch out and everyone kept to their one-hour break. Observable was that everyone kind of has its own lunch routine. Most of the colleagues sat together in the same groups and started lunch at the same time. On some days one or two colleagues were sitting on their own and not joined by others. The group rather sat very tight to each other than joining the other colleague at another table. During the Fika break, the employees were more relaxed and these breaks were part of their working hours. It was a time and place where the employees shared personal stories rather than talking about their work. A special Fika break took place every Thursday afternoon when it was ‘quiz time’. Every week another employee prepared a quiz on a topic of their choice for their colleagues to participate. The setup was as follows: The question master stood in the middle of the room at a high table reading out the questions with the challenge cup to win standing on the table. During the quiz, everyone concentrated on their own answers and no answers were shared loudly. After the last question, the right answers were read out or discussed in the group. On the foundation of trust, everyone calculated its points together and the winner was rewarded with the challenge cup to keep until the next quiz round. The questions were held in Swedish and the researcher got a direct translation from an employee to participate as well. The breaks are important to the employees and some were aware that this privilege is not available at every workplace. In the first interview, the respondent (R1) reported that such coffee breaks were not possible in the caring sector, for example. Every month, the respondent joined another workplace, preferential not an office job, to get experience about the different tasks in the municipality. She reported about her day in the caring sector: First, she enquired to bring anything besides her own lunch, like coffee or if there will be some. Then her contact

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person replied that she will not have any time for a coffee break. And this was verified as they started to work, taking care of the elderly, at 7 o’clock in the morning and did not return before the lunch break. That was when the interviewee realized how privileged they are in the town hall to take a break twice a day (R1, l.184-188). Another formal respondent (R2, l.214) saw the Fika talks as an important interaction of informal communication. While these are examples of internal communication another formal respondent named the Fika talk as an external event to organise small lunch seminars around the topic of environmental sustainability in town, about six times a year (R7, l. 261-263). These informal internally meetings were social interactions between the employees and have the potential for simple strategic meetings to improve internal sustainable communication. It is simply because the employees are used to the schedule and voluntarily spend their time together. To encourage the employees, it makes sense to build on established and functioning paths: “To internal and external, not to blame anyone for not having done all kinds of things to start from where you are and do a better [job] from there” (R2, l.57-59). The Thursday quiz round offers competition in a playful way to educate employees, for keeping the informal attitude while taking the journey for integrating more issues of sustainability (R6, l.230). For improvement in internal communication, the municipality must work on their formal communication. Observable was that in many cases important information does not get brought to the politicians because the different department managers are in between. That effects that information does not reach the population or further electoral. Therefore, a feedback loop is required to clarify actions politicians are taking and actions the employees want to take (Allen, 2016). One formal respondent (R1) estimated that positive feedback has the possibility for further motivation (R1, l.233), like engagement. Further formal communication was not observable between the politicians and the staff, more verbal informal talks instead of holding meetings or sending direct e-mails. The participants from different departments independently talked about their ideas which must be brought to the politicians’ attention to make a change for the citizens, yet have not been taking into consideration because of the fulfilment of the politician’s priorities for the municipality. In the case of internal sustainable communication and beyond, networking is essential for the employees’ own further training and the expansion of knowledge (R7, l.82). For more internal transparency in information flow, the municipality must take this approach seriously into consideration.

External communication The challenge to efficient communication with the public requires a stable internal communication in the first stage (Allen, 2016). Both internal and external communication complement each other. In 2018, every municipality in Sweden signed a governmental paper

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to implement the UN SDG and to meet the Agenda 2030 (R7, l.73-87). Sweden’s government adapted The Swedish Environmental Code in 1998 to promote sustainable development. Municipalities must follow this code by all types of measures and operations that the code intends to protect, regardless of private actions or business activities (Environment, 2000). It could be observed that all the actions of the congregation were in accordance with the law, but did not go beyond it. The employees were prepared to work for a sustainable development that transcends all tasks, but were held back by the politicians. Partly this is caused by the municipality’s financial and staff budget. There were not enough people who can only focus on the UN SDG or the Swedish Environmental Goals. Central to each employee’s duty was to work towards the political goals focussing on different priorities rather than sustainable development. From a citizen’s perspective, the municipalities must take charge of informing the citizens about sustainability: I think they have a huge responsibility to inform the citizens about sustainability. […] They should really like to inform about the consequences of climate change and how it affects their citizens and how they can be a part of the solution and they also have a possibility to reach out to a lot of people. So, I think they should try to find good ways to communicate. (R6, l.275-279) The information level, in general, must be raised with activities towards the society including different target groups. Communicating to everyone can be a challenge yet the municipalities have the responsibility from the general government to implement the SDG on a local level (R7, l. 95-100). Indeed, municipalities are aware of taking the responsibility from the national government to implement the SDG and to promote those to the citizens (R1, l.342 et seq.; R4, l.99 et seq.; R7, l.122). Through its practical mentality, the municipality already implemented aspects of sustainability, but one respondent admitted that there was a lack of structure: “It is typical Gnosjö spirit. We are doing, without structuring things. Just the easy way” (R1, l.415). To motivate people for acting, information on sustainability must be broken down on a local level, how it can affect the community (R5, l.201-203). For example, were environmental hazardous activities reported as news on the local website and the Facebook page. The communication person in the municipality collected the news and published those digitally. Certain issues affecting citizens in a direct sense were given a telephone call and in the second instance in person. The communications department at Gnosjö Kommun and formal respondents explained to the researcher that the focus of external communication is on getting local news into the media and press, writing articles, doing interviews and working with social media (R1, l. 22, 202; R2, l. 14, 36). To reach out to a wide target group, “being active on social media gives you access to many users”, explained a respondent (R3, l. 155). To meet the people where they are, the politicians go into dialogue with the citizens at different towns around Gnosjö, once a week. Talking about what is going well and what needs

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improvement in the municipality (R1, l.263 et seq.; R2, l.53). Analysing the minutes taken from these dialogue meetings the researcher did not find any topics regarding the UN SDG. The secretary of the municipality confirmed that the local implementation of the UN SDG does not get attention in the dialogue meetings. Updates on the official website of Gnosjö were used by the citizens as well as the employees. This was observed when the participants illustrated examples of implementations in the municipality. Further activities around the municipality were planned throughout the year, where the communication department of the municipality worked together with other municipalities for organising cross-municipality events or facing a crisis. One participant from the neighbouring community Givslaved visited a communication group in Gnosjö Kommun to discuss current issues or to prepare for a future crisis, once a week. As she told the researcher it was better to be present in-person to avoid missing important information. She and other participants reported that a great number of information was shared informally in direct talks and not recorded on any documents. While minutes about official meetings and talks are uploaded on the local website on a regular basis. This is a testimony to the existing external communication to the citizens, where there is still room for improvement. The framing of sustainability is not yet addressed frequently enough.

Context

The context represents the set of conditions in which the action and interactional strategies take place (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The specific set of properties that belong to a phenomenon; for example, the location of events or incidents in a dimensional range that relate to a phenomenon.

The background to the phenomenon of internal and external communication lies in general in the organisation itself. Regarding the municipality’s website and the observation of Gnosjö Kommun, it was organised into five departments and the sixth department is a shared one with the neighbouring community Givslaved. More details about the head contact persons for the departments were presented on the website yet no details about the teams working in the departments. This has the effect of lacking in social sustainability and the related employee’s appreciation. Regarding local sustainability, in many cases, the municipality was a pioneer in entrepreneurialism (R1, l.382). From the invention of products to the guarantee of workplaces. For the municipality itself, they set the following core goals: Think and work across borders, collaboration on board goals, actively developing employee’s benefits, the citizen in focus and compare themselves with other municipalities for continuous improvement. The goals were printed on paper and hang in every office to remind every employee of the municipality’s joint

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goals. Further yearly goals were discussed by the responsible person for digitalisation setting the focus to be the most attractive municipal workplace in Sweden, in the year 2020. Although the municipality was collaborating with the climate council of Jönköping the municipality did not involve environmental goals from the climate council in their agenda. With different leaders in the departments, there were different goals to work towards and by the final instance, it was to meet the politicians’ goals. All the formal and informal respondents agreed final decisions were made by the politicians and those are the ones with the power to change established working methods (R1, l.219; R2, l.176; R3, l.221; R4, l. 204; R5, l.216; R6, l. 296; R7, l.45 et seq.). Reasons for other focus than the environment was because of the current political leaders and no active green party in the municipality of Gnosjö. A participant and a formal respondent explained that every employee had two roles, one is doing the job and the other one is being a citizen. For a political change, there is the need for more involvement on part of the citizen (R3, l.221). Participants of the municipality shared experiences of the Kommun’s transformation in the context of the industry. From international production, back to local and from easy work with higher education - the complexity of digitisation challenges the industry (R1, l. 313). The further sustainable transformation was visible on a small scale, for example, shifting from sending letters to sending e-mails. A respondent explained that the digitisation looms how to reach the citizens. From reading the newspaper and meeting the politicians locally in the community house to watching the broadcast from home and staying connected via social media. A shift in the generation is visible to the politicians in the Kommun (R1, l. 273). Further formal respondents made clear that a generation change was visible in the change of the society itself towards more sustainability awareness (R2, l. 125 et seq.; R3, l.25). For future preparation, an employee from the building and environmental department confirmed that the municipality collaborated with the county administration board following an emergency guide on how to prepare for a crisis. This involved in specific preparation for environmental disasters. This work took place more on a department level than on a political level. These environmental questions were not that large five to ten years ago but now they must reach out to all the people using a communication strategy stressed three of the formal respondents (R2, l. 124; R4, l. 99; R5, l.29). People are concerned about the climate, how they can fight their climate impacts, like food waste, for example (R6, l.31, 263). While there was no communication about food waste between the Kommun’s colleagues at lunchtime. On the contrary, all those who had leftovers of food threw them into the trash can instead of taking them home in their lunch containers. No matter women or men, older or younger employees. The researcher asked one participant, working for the social work department, with the question about food waste. She shared her thoughts and told the researcher that Swedes generally are big in food waste in the way ‘why should I reduce my waste if other countries are

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not following’. When she talked about sustainability issues, feelings of disappointment and frustration were observable. The same feelings were observable with another participant, working in the environment and building department. With her knowledge in biodiversity and being an environmental activist, she is confident about the potential a municipality has for change. Her ideas and concerns about the environment are not heard by the politicians because her department does not have meetings directly as a team with the politicians. It is the leaders of the departments who meet and talk in board meetings yet do not include the team on agreements. Further, she puts the interests of the politicians in focus which are more economical than environmentally focussed. Investigating the background of the phenomenon the results reveal a transformational path in ecological and social change. Whereas the path has been paved internally by the employees the organisation itself must engage in the transformational change to make a serious commitment to addressing sustainable development. “Effective strategy must be formed from often competing [for] voices as internal tensions result from differences in levels of knowledge, risk exposure, and training” (Allen, 2016, p. 140).

Causal conditions

The causal conditions provide the analysis with conditions that lead to the studied phenomenon. The above-mentioned background of the phenomenon is strongly connected and parallels were observable in the characteristics of different people’s communication. A formal respondent interlinked environmental change in society to behaviourism (R4, l.125). Food waste is a practical example of how to deal with sustainability. One formal respondent explained the change in behaviourism: People want to know more about facts and figures related to their lifestyle for comparison (R4, l.34-36). One example is the application Svalna a tool for measuring an individual’s emissions (Andersson, 2020). Two app users agreed on the statement about facts and figures as they like to be competitive and to watch their results (R3, l.125-128; R6, l.146-148). The first interviewee, a politician, explained that the citizens like to see pictures about the politician’s activities and to comment on it on social media (R1, l. 202). Simultaneously the politician needed to take social distance from the platform and avoiding taking comments personally because it is hard to please every single citizen in the municipality (R1, l.216). On an abstract level of research, the general public demonstrated interest in issues about sustainability on social media. This is different to usual marketing from companies, for example, because the municipality does not sell a product it sells values and “people are prepared to invest because it is their tax money, they are prepared to invest in that because they get the connection why this is so important” (R5, l. 230-231). Out of the citizen’s perspective the local governments must take responsibility, speed up the discussion about

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sustainability and inform the citizens about the consequences (R2, l. 169; R4, l. 125; R5, l. 289; R6, l.275; R7, l.122). They have to make it closer to the people and not that big and not everything at the same time. They should […] use specific aspects of environmental awareness and […] sustainability. So maybe it is about electricity [one] month, and then they should focus on that […]. They tend to do everything at the same time and then nothing happens. (R6, l. 265-269) One formal respondent stressed that with responsibility comes the opportunity to communicate, which a municipality must use to reach a large audience (R4, l.125). Part of their possibilities is to motivate the citizens towards sustainable behaviour, like nudging (EEA, 2016). A way of designing cities to make it easier for their citizens to adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle (R5, l.305). Another way is the employer’s motivation towards their employees: To make sustainability more attractive, providing information about alternatives and supporting greener solutions (R2, l.109). Observable was that some of the employees hoped for new regulations by law as legal orders have more power than giving oral or written advice. In addition, their hope is to experience a local political change towards environmental interests within the municipality as this can be a chance to take a behavioural change for the future. “We always need the higher authority […], the leading politicians” to get the approval for a new way to follow (R7, l. 369-370). Whereas a result is that the municipality was not taking charge of their possibilities and responsibility yet, more likely comparing themselves to other municipalities (R1, l.405). Whilst a municipality must take responsibility they must be aware of how to communicate. In many ways, sustainable communication went the way of greenwashing (R6, l.281). This happens when “corporations claim to be environmentally friendly through practices and products when they really are not” (Coombs & Holladay, 2012, p. 74). For the building of trust, the municipality must be transparent and communicate the problems they are facing in a balanced way to goals and achievements, emphasised a formal interviewee (R6, l.44). For example, presented Gnosjö Kommun themselve as a fair-trade town without being aware of the real meaning behind fair-trade. For example, does the municipality stress they included the fair- trade logo in the newsletter of the municipality and hosted events with fair-trade products. While a respondent clarified that promoting a municipality as sustainable or fair-trade certified is less meaningful instead of pointing the focus on some sustainable examples the municipality is engaged (R6, l.283 et seq.). Like protecting the environment by changing to renewable energies or like in social aspects the integration of refugees and handicapped people (R1, l.392). The characteristics of communication can make differences in convincing decision- makers, strengthen leaderships and generate enthusiasm in the community for behavioural changes on a local level (Bucur & Petra, 2011).

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A behavioural change on a local level was not observable for now. Miscommunication took place internally and externally. The official website included context which was outdated and misplaced. This was noticeable by comparing the same topics on the website to the neighbour municipality’s website. Content about crisis communication stayed within the crisis group and no minutes were taken for the later proof or to catch up on the meetings. Here it was observable that people react differently on themes: You [must] have a communication that is very broad that sort of speaks to different types of people because some people are […] following information and are very interested and some are […] may be more interested in economics or health issues. […] You [must] have communication that […] goes into different areas. (R5, l.45-50) To reach everyone, the communication of the municipality must be done from different perspectives. Instead of congealing in one communication way with the excuse, not everyone can like what one politician stands for (R1, l. 219), the Kommun needs to look for what different people like. “Everybody cares about something, you have to find what they care about and then you can start there. […] In communication, you [must] listen first and then speak and that’s what we are maybe not good at sometimes, we speak [immediately before we listen]” (R5, l. 69-75). To meet the local people, it is important to let the organisation itself have its say; those who are responsible for sustainable development (R2, l. 53; R5, l.81). Building trust in the people and they can relate to the topic, therefore inventions of strategic communication need to be systematic and organised to know about the changing attitude of the target group (Bucur & Petra, 2011). The municipality was open to speak about themselves and to share stories of success and failure, which is effective for the community’s trust, acknowledged a formal respondent (R5, l.252). Openness a characteristic of communication was observable only informally and therefore not reachable internally and externally.

Intervening conditions

By intervening conditions, on the other hand, Strauss and Corbin (1998) understand the broader, structural and not necessarily case-specific context. They understand this as the structural conditions that affect the action and interactional strategies that relate to a phenomenon. They facilitate or inhibit the strategies used within a specific context (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For the strategy to meet the phenomenon, of internal and external communication, the municipality faced challenges. To reach the public, the openness and transparency of the city administration must be increased based on formal communication (Bucur & Petra, 2011). To carry out marketing campaigns, the municipality relies on overcoming financial investments and hiring new staff, emphasised some employees. Observable was that these

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investments were not priorities for the municipality at the current stage as they have a tight budget for every department. For this reason, a shift from responsibilities was happening and the concentration no longer lay on the implementation of the UN SDG but rather on the digitalisation within the municipality (see phenomenon). While the municipality concentrated on balancing the economic budget, actions towards the implementation of the UN SDG were taken place yet not communicated or translated internally and externally. The formal respondents recommended that to reduce ignorance in leadership positions, the municipality must invest in the internal training of politicians. Meanwhile, politicians, as decision-makers, must constantly update their knowledge, which involves a level of effort. As concerns and priorities differ from personal agendas the effort of educating politicians must be ongoing, for them to be able to promote the message about sustainable development internally as well externally (R7, l. 164 et seq.). By the investment of continuous effort towards sustainable communication, it is possible to meet the different target groups in the municipality. Because those people who are earlier adapters are influencing a lot of other people and if they are feeling proud and get support for what they are doing. They are spreading the message even more and they not only just get tired and grumpy because they know, so you have to reach to new groups but you also have to pay recognition to those early people. (R5, l.331-335) With the introduction to new tools for sustainable development, effort in the form of adapting and learning the application of the new tool is included (R3, l.117). In last, the work about sustainability is organised in political programs that politicians are accepting and then giving the line on how the employees must work (R7, l.45). This line is intervening with some of the ambitions employees want to follow in their work as it has been observed in the municipality. Because when you want something to be done, or get done really in Swedish municipalities or even on the regional level you […] have to make sure that the executive committee of the leading politician group basically says, ‘we are doing that’, in order to […] be able […] for the public servant to push it and to work with. (R7, l. 361-365) Another formal respondent confirmed thus depending on who runs the city or the country affects the employee’s work (R2, l. 175). Every strategy or innovation is a long process in the political world (R1, l.149). Too much information about different topics further overloads the receiver (R6, l. 280) as well as hard to build trust in the information (R3, l. 143). The latter paragraph results that the municipality faced challenges. All challenges are the result of the requirement of effort the municipality must take throughout the year (R7, l. 263). This allows at the same time a strategy to a long-term communication plan internally and externally. “The concept of motivated cognition indicates employees’ motivation influences how they select, process, and interpret sustainability initiative-related messages” (Allen, 2016, p. 180).

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Measuring values can be challenging for the municipality. For example, the environment and building department of the organisation can invest in energy-efficient equipment and materials to save energy, but their savings may be limited to their employee’s and citizen’s behaviour in wasteful behaviours (Bolderdijk, Steg, & Postmes, 2013).

Strategies and consequences

Above the preconditions for the strategy were discussed. The following paragraph analyses the strategy of how the actors encounter the phenomenon and how the strategy can look like in result. For a better understanding of the relationship between strategy and consequence, this and the last part of the analysis are presented in the same subchapter. Different forms of communication throughout the municipality could be observed. At the top, the commitment to transformation must come from the political side. As politicians change from time to time and not every single one has participated in seminars about sustainable development, they should undergo appropriate education and training (R7, l.107 et seq.). This effort in communication must be continuously within the entire organisation: From politicians, leaders to the regular worker (R7, l.167). Important is to educate different politicians who are committee members, where decisions are taken. To make a change happen in Swedish municipalities, a respondent stated: “You basically [should] make sure that the executive committee of the leading politician group […] says, ‘we are doing that’” (R7, l.361- 265). Political commitment is the base for any public servant to push development forwards. Within a municipality, politicians have the power in terms of formal possibilities to motivate the citizens to change their behaviour (R4, l.124). During the observation, a respondent, working with digitalisation, explained that political tasks are primary operative than strategic in the municipality. Using the municipality’s potential for acting requires a political change in the eyes of the public servants. Since the power of the worker is limited to making proposals that politicians should use wisely and efficiently. Depending on who runs the city influences everything concerning the environment (R5, l. 216). Although the municipality acts useful in many cases, they did not communicate it (R1, l.406; R5, l.266). Two of the formal respondents explained that this lack of information results in less support for environmental orientated parties (R3, l.221; R5, l.267). The following consequences can be drawn from this: Educating politicians is mandatory and therefore communication can be difficult in order that everyone is aware of the circulating issue. Therefore, the politicians underlie the responsibility to improve themselves in participating in seminars and workshops. These training opportunities can be led by a consultant who teaches ways of implementing the UN SDG on a local level and ways of working together to affect the global situation (R7, l. 107 et seq.).

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Suggestions from the respondents were to integrate some competition among the employees and other municipalities (R6, l.235 et seq.). Actively communicating with each other with visuals and facts, for example, through the app Svalna, to see how the competitors are limiting their climate impacts. A challenge among colleagues can have the effect of exchanging thoughts, raising their awareness towards sustainability and be determined to download the app. Companies and organisations around Gnosjö can join the competition for a joint goal and therefore strengthen the relation to the citizens to identify themselves with the municipality (R4, l. 180). Somewhere it is always the citizen’s benefit whatever we do and therefore it is very important that all the employees get this type of refreshed information or education about how we do work with sustainability in order not to forget those different aspects whenever they do their daily work. (R7, l. 224-227) Further, it is important to include experts in the field of sustainability to raise the knowledge for the municipality and the region. A formal interviewee named the example to integrate communication experts from the energy sector to bring the knowledge of fossil-free solutions closer to the citizen (R2, l.95). Including experts is beneficial for the municipality to be endowed with material and expertise (R2, l.118). These provisions can cause visible satisfaction in the employee’s daily work. Conferences or events held by externals were appreciated by the participants (R2, l.148).

In order to communicate on different levels (R7, l. 183) meetings were held. Either physical or via video conference groups met and discussed. Observable was that in the municipality a chosen group of people met due the preparation for a crisis. Part of this group were the department leaders who summarized the important facts to share with their teams afterwards. How the information was communicated to the team was not clear as no meetings between the managers and the staff were taken place. That circumstance is required by the participants to be changed for the long-term. Established were feedback sessions in the form of interviews which the digitalisation department conducted with the employees and managers, whereas the evaluation of the interviews was not yet methodologically sound. For certain was, that the respondent who conducted the interviews was meeting with the board afterwards to discuss a strategy for the municipality. Contextual the interview guide was built up in four topics and provided in a text document: Leadership, competence, infrastructure and e-services and tools. Doing internal surveys is a step towards a sustainable working environment (Allen, 2016). A formal respondent emphasised that the feedbacks must be kept down to facts and not getting emotional that is necessary for politicians, managers and the employees for future improvement (R3, l.127).

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On a frequently base meeting, the administrative department assembled, not yet across departments. For the discussion of a budget plan, the board of the municipality held personal meetings. In this meeting, the board, the leaders of the five departments and politicians, discussed how to balance the budget among the departments. In result, the team was not included in discussion rounds with the politicians, only the leaders. For future development, a discussion round must include team members for a broader mix of opinions and suggestions (Allen, 2016). Another formal respondent acknowledged the advantages of meeting with colleagues from other departments to gather ideas about their duties, which results in communication ways were shorter whilst working across departments (R7, l.25). In comparison with other municipalities, Gnosjö Kommun can adapt: To exchange their knowledge in meetings held by a mixture of politicians and managers with the employees every month. This can be conferences or platforms where the employees can exchange information more internally (R7, l.186). Besides internal personal meetings, the politicians went to external meetings in the direct dialogue with the public. Those dialogue meetings had the purpose of discussing the concerns from the citizens directly and enabled to build up trust. The secretary of the municipality reported uncertainty of these dialogue meetings, as the numbers of participants are decreasing. Therefore, the board needs a solution to meet the right target groups. Meetings with the communication department could lead to a more target group driven dialogue. It’s suggested by the formal respondents, in favour of a simple solution: The dialogue meetings can be held online with a direct chat connection for the citizens to raise questions (R1, l.253; R2, l.315; R6, l.195; R7, l.183). One respondent pointed to the technical tools of the room where the interview took place: “And there are so many things which can be done from home or from a conference room like this, but it is important to meet as well. We can’t isolate us, we need the dialogue, like face to face” (R2, l.201-203).

Part of network building was the existing and close collaboration with Gnosjö’s neighbour municipality Givslaved. This included the exchange of best practice examples and ideas about what other municipalities have done to implement sustainability to obtain useful examples and strengthening the work (R2, l.334; R7, l.157). From working on sustainable development like transforming businesses to make their own municipality more energy efficient has been a goal shifted towards the direction of direct communication with the citizens (R4, l.121). Projects like Svalna were an example of collaborations to include the citizen. One interviewee explained the advantages of collaborating between communities: Experiences are exchanged and the cooperation is an opportunity to strengthen communication between each other. Costs can be shared, for example, by integrating a common image film, with Svalna or other organisations. In addition, digitalisation is understood and social media are integrated (R4, l.162). As a

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suggestion by two of the formal respondents was to include a celebrity or someone local from a company to speak in a short movie clip for sustainable development and to download the app Svalna as a marketing campaign. They argued that people follow role models and therefore it depends who speaks to them (R5, l.58). Letting someone speak who is well known facilitates more people to identify with the topic of sustainability on a local level (R4, l.179; R5, l.59). Other environmental collaborations were observable around the municipality of Gnosjö, likewise, people in authority were not making the most out of it. The county administrative board did different projects on preserving the environment together with the municipality. This included, for example, a brochure on a regional information campaign on alien species, projects on preparation for climate change and a plan for opportunities and challenges for growing tourism as well as care homes. Many parts must work together in an ecosystem (R5, l. 282). For fast stories, a municipality must know a local journalist rather than cooperate more to understand about journalism. This has the effect that the journalist can explain to the municipality how journalism works to reach out to the citizens (R5, l.354). Another formal respondent explained the importance of networking on the example of public energy offices, which provide free services. Their service is about providing the ideal energy solution for the future and beyond that, they help to connect companies and municipalities with each other. Their point of networking with each other is to share the knowledge and take advantage of each other for sustainable work in the long-term (R2, l.324-335). “The whole [of] society need to collaborate. We can’t do it on our own in the municipality. We have to have the citizens, the companies” (R1, l.354-356). Collaborations between the companies and the municipality guarantee a more sustainable future, like using a recycling system across municipalities detaching old ways of disposals. The politician said that collaboration is the key to everything, even to meet the 17 UN SDG (R1, l. 394). A formal respondent shared the idea that in the established recycling system, the municipality could insert an education strategy directly to the citizens (R6, l.261 et seq.). Addressing the topic of food waste in collaboration with local food suppliers, food distribution at schools and printing stories on bin bags. Subsequently, a campaign on sustainability arises to raise awareness in close contact for the citizens to grasp. Then the mission is to avoid overloading the citizens with information. Respecting the latter, the municipality could build a campaign strategy and change the topic every month. Important is to introduce such an education program and then implement it step by step as “they tend to do everything at the same time and then nothing happens”, stated a respondent (R6, l.269). Another respondent advised these different forms as ideas to engage more citizens on a practical approach towards a more sustainable lifestyle regarding consumption and social interaction (R4, l.53 et seq.). The municipality’s opportunities can result in behaviour change of the citizens. Using money for marketing campaigns enables the municipality to talk to their citizens in a sophisticated way

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instead of forcing them to change through taxations and regulations. Collaborating with a campaigner saves money and effort for a joint communication strategy. For example, an external collaboration can take over the marketing communication on local media as they share their knowledge on how to attract users (R4, l.264). Involvement within the municipality was observable as followed: Every two months the municipality cooperated in a campaign with the Fair-Trade certification program and hosted a small carnival to represent the importance behind Fair-Trade. Another example of engagement by a politician in the municipality was directly by herself. Every month she took over the role of any worker in the municipality, especially in physical work placements to capture a better picture of the importance of everyone’s work. This involvement directly with the citizens resulted in favour of building trust and commitment. With sustainability, it is important that the receivers can feel the sense behind it. Around this sensible topic, communication should come from organisations themselves and people who are responsible for this topic to deliver the message most confidential (R5, l.81 et seq.). Noteworthy, the municipality can underlie nudging, designing their town citizen-friendly. For example, the installation of water fountains can lead to more water consumption from reusable bottles and building more bike lanes and parking spots can result in higher usage of bikes and the decrease of carbon dioxide: “It is a sort of a balance between you can not only communicate - you [must] have stuff what you can communicate” (R5, l.312). First, the municipality is in charge to practically frame development easier for the people, second, they can communicate the message: “We have made it easier for you to help us, or living sustainable” (R5, l.314). Raising the level of information, in general, is to have external communication activities towards the citizens (R7, l.94). For an information flow in the long-term, the responsible department of the municipality needs to do campaigns everywhere and continuously (R7, l.169 et seq.). Such the municipality has the possibility to reach out to every target group in means of addressing issues some people are not confronted in their daily work. In relation to the UN SDG, the municipality’s task was to promote all the aspects because all the goals have somehow influence on the other. Observable was that participants who work in the urban planning department were aware of environmental issues and how to deal with it but did not know about gender equality, for example. This results in a mandatory fusion across departments for sustainable communication in the long-term. Whilst planning on a communication strategy in the long-term, its materials should as well last for multiple purposes. Collaborating here with other departments, organisations or municipalities can help Gnosjö Kommun to be more visible and recognized in different sustainable terms internally and externally (R7, l.282). This results that different forms of communication are existing to use in a strategy and practical communication is essential to get in close contact with the citizen to get recognized (R5, l.330).

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As well as internal communication between colleagues can raise the awareness and engagement towards sustainability (R3, l.19).

Discussion

The results presented in the previous chapter are now summarized and interpreted in relation to the theoretical framework to answer the research questions. In this section, the research questions and its sub-questions are answered, the answer mask reflects the overall theoretical framework in discussion with the previous literature. The results are thus to be seen in the larger theoretical context and general conclusions of the study can be drawn in the following chapter.

RQ1: “How does Gnosjö Kommun handle communication-related sustainable concerns internally and externally? The presented results are building a story around the phenomenon of communication. With the method of micro-ethnography, the research contributed to a better understanding of how municipalities are communicating internally and externally. In the case of Gnosjö Kommun, the dilemma of helplessness how to communicate issues of sustainability was observed. As well as Zikargae (2018) points out the gaps in the treatment of environmental issues within municipalities. Likewise, the study by Leiserowitz’ (2006) identified a general lack of urgency in communicating environmental issues by public authorities.

RQ1.1: “Which forms of communication are used and how are these forms implanted?” Following the thread of the analysis of this study different forms of communication were discovered, standing out are the forms of informal internal and external communication. Informal communication takes place during Fika and lunch breaks, which are characterised by openness. This character is not visible in the external communication of the municipality. There, communication concentrates more on telephone calls and e-mails than on personal contact, although this depends on the duties of each employee. Internally, the task of the communication department is to gather important information and news to publish them in the local magazine or online on the website and Facebook page. Internal knowledge can be accessed via the intranet or is usually shared informally between colleagues, as meetings mostly are held with the town’s council board of directors rather than within each department’s team. The city administration follows guidelines on sustainability issues as set by the county administration board and government laws. Therefore, they work closely with neighbouring municipalities (see investigation unit). The topics of collaboration include holding local events or preparing for a crisis with appropriate material, such as brochures and dialogue meetings

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with the citizens. These forms of communication converge with the study by Calder and Beckie (2011), for example, informing, involving and collaborating as methods of communication.

RQ1.2: “Which aspects influence the forms of communication and its development?” The employees of the town hall of the municipality were dissatisfied with the current forms of communication. However, the dissatisfaction, which is reflected in the lack of opportunities, the employees would like to take advantage of internally and externally, is limited in terms of politicians’ preferences. Furthermore, the preferences of politicians are the main aspect that influence communication and its development in the municipality. Réka and Borza (2012) also point out that internal labour productivity depends on communication to achieve common goals. Moreover, employees feel left behind when making decisions on development aspects because managers are in between or decision meetings are only held between board members and politicians. The political interest in communication is more economic than environmental, where they do not search for the interests of local residents and rather tend to stick to what they say. It could be observed that everyone was working for themselves rather than across departments and in collaborations. In a similar way Molale (2019) used an ethnographic approach to discover that the members of a community are only passive participants in external communication.

RQ2: “What changes does Gnosjö Kommun need to make in order to successfully implement sustainability communication internally and externally?” The research results reveal a need for improvement in the transparency of forms of communication, which can be related to the five guiding principles of McAleese and Hargie (2004): Therefore, the improvement of communication forms must start from the top to (1) define a guiding strategy (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). Politicians need to be educated in communicating sustainability issues. This includes the effort of individual training and a transformation towards sustainable change requires the commitment of politicians. Politicians and leaders need to be trained in the importance of sustainable communication and networking to work together internally and externally to build a sound ecosystem. This can be done by using and building on existing strategies by (2) measuring performance (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). The main argument of this study is based on improving formal communication from policy makers to employees. Conversely, thoughts and ideas need to be brought from the staff to the politicians, otherwise the municipality will remain in its old patterns and not reach the citizens. For a broader pattern of opinion, members from different departments must be involved, as this is one way of developing a sustainable communication strategy. This coincides with the study by Waddel (1995) on the involvement and exchange of ideas between experts and the public for sustainable development. This solution can help the city administration to

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overcome the political dominance of the power (Olausson, 2009) of communication and to create a more sustainable communication. In terms of a communication strategy, city government can achieve greater transparency, both internally and externally, if (3) the culture of the organisation is communicated to external stakeholders (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). A strategy brings challenges, and each department must continuously strive to develop a long- term communication strategy by (4) spreading the culture through effective communication among employees (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). External forms of communication with citizens are used through various media channels. The content has to change to engage citizens for sustainable development and therefore the city administration has to learn to use media channels to gain recognition from its target groups. This includes to know how to use which content of interest for external motivation towards sustainable development. Olausson (2011) sees the media as an agenda-setter for public commitment to sustainable development. Civic engagement (5) requires the development of a leader who cares about the environment for the planet and people (McAleese & Hargie, 2004). Lakew and Olausson (2019) argue, that the higher the number of positive influencers, the greater the motivation for the environment. This research showed in the results a circulation around the phenomenon of internal and external communication and its intervening and causal conditions. These are caused by the main argument of the study of political influence on communication.

Conclusion The practical application of micro-ethnography enabled the researcher to understand processes within the municipality of Gnosjö. The empirical findings result from the extensive discussions and observations of the present research. Since climate change will change the economy and all value-added processes, there is an interest from a business perspective in adapting to these changes. Organisations should, therefore, explore every possibility that enables them to successfully adapt to change. The present study demonstrates that the organisational change in which the municipality finds itself regarding the ecological transformation can benefit from certain working methods of sustainability communication. Organisations, therefore, can change the way they work and adapt to new environmental conditions by means of a sustainable communication strategy or certain components. Especially established, conservative leaders can benefit from these findings. However, the added value of applying sustainability communication in this area has not yet been empirically investigated. The present research work offers the first approach to close this research gap. Subsequently, the limitations of the present research work are listed and an outlook on future research and practical application is presented.

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Limitations of the study

The limitations of this research relate on the one hand to the theory of internal and external communication strategy and on the other hand to the applied empirical method of micro- ethnography. The theoretical background used for internal and external communication was not fully included in the answers to the questions by two of the formal respondents. Accordingly, sustainability communication should not be understood as the outcome of climate change, but rather as a future-oriented approach. Only when organisations understand their communication they will be able to overcome the difficulties when faced with the challenges of the external environment (Réka & Borza, 2012). To reach internal and external goals in the municipality communication is vital to understand these goals. Communication exists in the strategies, mission, values and culture of any organisation, irrespective of their field of activity (Réka & Borza, 2012). Due to the theoretical background used for internal and external communication, it is therefore not possible to represent organisational communication in its entirety regarding its strategy. The empirical method used to answer the research question moreover leads to limitations in the research work. Micro-ethnography is limited to its external validity and generalizability. External parameters did not allow this study a more extended data collection process, as known from other studies (see previous research). The observation at the town hall further leads to methodological limitations. The verbal chats conducted on-site were only noted down with field notes and not digitally recorded. Furthermore, all respondents were selected based on their profession. A quantitative research approach could have supported the method of ethnography with measurements from receiver and sender. Although it can be stated that all seven formal interviewees are suitable as experts for the present research work, due to their professional positions and previous experience in the two subject areas of communication and sustainability. Seven interviews conducted is not sufficient to obtain representative results. The interview guideline used was perceived as complicated in terms of the question posed by all interviewees within the interview. In view of the available time, no pre-test was carried out; this could have provided more clarity in the structuring of the questions. This becomes particularly clear when the qualitative approach is supplemented by the quantitative aspect. Nevertheless, all contents could be evaluated, since the expert statements and the results of the field notes allowed the respective necessary conclusions to be drawn. In principle, it can be discussed about the empirical research of this study whether advantages of the application of internal and external communication can be derived regarding sustainable transformation by means of ethnography. The real added value of the method in practice is difficult to measure purely based on micro-ethnography.

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Future research

Based on the limitations of the work, however, it became clear that no measurable advantages of the method’s application can be deduced from the method used. Rather, the present work illustrates the potential of the application. Future studies are therefore recommended to highlight the organisational benefits more clearly. To make this possible, experimental research could be carried out, in which the application of sustainability communication and above all the concrete advantages of it are investigated. An imaginable implementation would be an experiment with two groups that are offered the same task over a longer period. While one group works with common methods, the other group is provided with a new communication strategy or with components of it. The results could then be compared to identify differences and advantages of applied sustainability communication. Furthermore, future research should be carried out to illustrate the organisational change regarding ecological transformation. As the present study revealed, the classic communication channels can no longer be lived in today’s world, especially about sustainability.

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Appendix

Interview request

Hello to whom it may concern,

I am Fran and study Sustainable Communication at JU. I am working in collaboration with the Climate Council and the municipality of Gnosjö. For my thesis I am doing research in the field of Sustainable Communication and taking a closer look on Gnosjö Kommun and how they internally and externally communicate issues regarding sustainability.

Within my fieldwork at Gnosjö Kommun I came across your contacts from XXX and wanted to ask you if you can help me out with the following request.

I am looking for a contact at XXX working in the field of Communication development with whom I can conduct an interview in English of approximately 30 minutes in the calendar week 11 or 13.

I would be very grateful to receive a positive answer and wish you a good week.

Tack se mycket.

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Interview guidelines

Interview formalities: For formal reasons, I must ask you if I may record this interview with a device?

Guideline interview authorities

Warm-up question: Please briefly tell me something about your professional background and your area of responsibility.

Start: 1. What are the three most important characteristics of sustainable communication within a municipality that spontaneously come to mind in your function as [...]? 2. With which forms of sustainable communication within a municipality are encountering in your activities in the region? 3. What changes in sustainable communication within a municipality did you perceive as most significant? 4. How do these changes in sustainable communication affect your work concretely? 5. These are examples for the conversation flow: a. Legal framework (general framework for action) b. The respective fields of action c. Does this influence the results of your work? (examples) 6. What regional developments and trends could influence the future significance of communication for your work? 7. These are examples for the conversation flow: a. Political/economic developments b. Climate change c. Changed mentality of the population/ different lifestyles and demands d. Technical progress e. Demographic change - population development 8. What is the ideal design or the ideal condition of sustainable communication in the municipality of […] from your perspective? a. Are there any goals or requirements with regard to your activity that contradict each other in the point of designing a sustainable communication? 9. What possibilities do you have as a regional actor to influence the local communication? (formal and informal) 10. What incentives are there in the region to implement the UN 17 sustainability goals (SDG)? a. Would you like to cooperate / How could you cooperate with other actors in the future with regard to the implementation of the 17 SDG? b. How can a municipality hold more appeal on communicating the 17 SDG? 11. Is there anything else you would like to add as an important aspect of the topic? 12. Would it be possible to contact you again in case of any uncertainties that might arise could surrender?

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Guideline interview Climate Fighters

Warm-up question: Please briefly tell me something about your motivation having become a climate fighter?

Sustainable Communication: 1. What are the fields of environmental issues you are most interested in or concerned about? 2. How did you hear of the Climate Campaign? 3. What are the three most important characteristics of sustainable communication? 4. What kind of feedback and advice that guide you in how you can change behaviour would you like to receive? 5. How can Svalna give users features that are desirable and effective without requiring unacceptable levels of effort? 6. How can Svalna provide accurate and timely information, feedback, and advice without bad (adverse) effects on mood? 7. How can Svalna (harness) use sensible context in a way that users feel comfortable with, trust, and find useful? 8. How can Svalna keep your interest of using the app for an extended period of time? 9. How can Svalna tackle (harness) social media to make interventions engaging and provide social support in a way that users are willing to engage with? 10. What ways of communication do you prefer? a) Nudging: Pushing you in a certain direction to encourage of certain behaviour. Please name some examples (e.g. simple visual designs, as footprints on the pavement leading to garbage bins, thank you cards for saving water etc.) b) Social marketing: competing offers, offering an alternative product which automatically leads to behaviour change. Please name some examples (e.g. direct and personal contact with people) c) Social innovation: products that automatically meet a social need Please name some examples (e.g. car sharing, urban gardening, sharing economies) d) Social Media: Exchange of UGC Please name some examples (e.g. motivation to influence) e) Public participation: part of decision-making process Please name some examples (e.g. surveys, meetings, workshops, open houses, online discussion forums) f) Ecolabelling: Labelling schemes to enable consumers to make an informed choice between various products and services. Please name some examples (e.g. Nordic Swan, FairTrade, own labels as from Arla Foods) 11. In your point of view what possibilities has a municipality to involve their citizens?

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Codebook

Codes and concepts

Name Description Files References

Behaviourism Observable behaviour from the employees 0 0 of the municipality (influence of habits) Confession Admitting things are wrong or need 5 7 improvement. Handling sustainability Professional and private 2 10 Food Waste Example of handling sustainability 1 2 Handling with fellows Climate / Atmosphere in the office 1 8 Helpfulness The quality of being helpful among 3 8 colleagues Language Barriers with the English language 4 8 Motivation Enthusiasm to act towards sustainability 5 11 Openness Honesty in voluntary discussions 3 4 Citizens perspective Feedback from citizens (CF) 8 13 Social Distance Avoiding sensitive topics 2 2 Social Time Breaks, Private Talks 2 3 Communication 0 0 Communication Different forms of communication 7 38 characteristic Communication forms Which forms are used for communication 8 62 Collaboration Working with others 8 30 Comparison Comparing with others 4 4 Education Training / education of staff/ politicians 7 24 Effort Input / workload to achieve something 3 5 External Communication to the public 9 36 Communication Internal Communication among the employees 5 24 Communication (informal and formal) Feedback Talking about positive and negative things 4 5 happening in the municipality Networking Building contacts outside the municipality 3 6 Meetings Physical meetings for discussions and 5 20 regulations Frequency of The number of times meetings are held 3 10 meetings Content Topics for a better understanding of the 3 5 context

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Name Description Files References

Comprehension Understanding 7 13 Introduction Topic of research 1 1 Personal thoughts Thoughts on observation 1 4 Organisation Structure, Goals, Plans, Activities, Actions 1 4 of Gnosjö Kommun. Leadership Characteristic to be a leader; the fact being 1 3 a leader Responsibility Someone’s duties 7 43 Social Work Specific department work 3 5 Satisfaction job Pleasant feeling about someone’s duties 1 5 Sustainable activities Something is done to meet SDG 7 32 Recycling Example of sustainable activities 2 2 Target Group A particular group the municipality needs 2 9 to reach Transformation A complete change in structures and 7 19 habits Economic Change (New) economic goals 0 0 Budget The money each department has available 3 9 Environmental Change (New) environment goals 7 20 Future Preparation Preparation for crisis 1 2 Goals Aim to reach something 2 6 Pioneers The municipality is one of the first in 4 4 doing something Political Change Politic goals 8 27 Social Change Goals for the society 6 10

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