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- Carlsson, Julia, 1980
(författare)
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När idéer får liv - Om intraprenader i tre kommuner : Sustainable ideas - the idea of "contracting in" in three Swedish municipalities
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the early 2000s an idea regarding how to organise the Swedish public sector, called internal contracts, attracted attention from many different public authorities in Sweden. Organising in the form of internal contracts means that units within a public authority are given more autonomy to run their own affairs. A distinct feature of the internal contracts model is that it is said to combine characteristics from both public and private organisations, combining the best of both worlds. However, the popularity of internal contracts was short-lived, and just a few years later it seemed to be out of fashion. A few municipalities, however, constitute examples of where internal contracts were subscribed to and supported for a longer period of time. These municipalities showed that theories relating to fashions for ideas, and what causes fluctuations in fashions, are not sufficient to explain variations in the lifecycles of ideas. There are variations in the life cycles of fashionable ideas, with some seeming to disappear as soon as they arise while others remain influential over a longer period of time. Why is this? The popularity and use of ideas is not only the result of gaining legitimacy in an institutional environment, as has long been suggested, but also the result of individual interpretations of ideas, in the context in which they are introduced. Ideas are changed and modified, or translated, as they travel in and between organisations. In turn, translations affect the ways in which ideas are perceived and whether or not they are considered legitimate and supported by the people who receive them. The fate of ideas thus lies in the hands of people, each of whom may accept, modify or deflect them, as well as add to them or let them drop. The study suggests a model for how the life-cycle of ideas can be understood based on how, by whom, when and where they are translated. It illustrates how (1) the receiver of ideas, (2) the carrier of the ideas and (3) characteristics assigned to ideas affect translations and thereby, whether their life-cycles are to become short or long. The study also highlights the fact that ideas are often revivals of earlier ideas rather than new ones, suggesting that ideas seldom die, but are instead given more or less attention in different times and spaces. In addition, in studying the process, not just the ups and downs in popularity, the study shows that what makes ideas come to life, and stay alive, is the result of continuous work. People need to be convinced on a continuous basis that ideas are attractive. Finally, the study contributes to further understanding institutionalisation. What affects translation also affects whether actions are repeated, and over time become taken for granted in an organisation.
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- Carlström, Eric, 1957
(författare)
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I skuggan av Ädel - integrering i kommunal vård och omsorg
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The starting-point of this study is the subject of difficulties in integration. Is it possible to control the integration of occupational groups within an organization? To answer this question the welfare departments of four municipalities were examined. Two occupational groups were chosen by their overlapping tasks, long history and separated growth. These two groups, social welfare workers who peform home-help services, and trained nurses who perform homemedical care, have as an effect of legislation from one day to another been amalgamated in a common organization. This process too place in 1992 by a reform named "Ädelreformen". That year the municipalities in Sweden were directed to integrate home-help services with homemedical care. Social workers and nurses have, after the reform, in a common organization continued to represent different legislations and occupational traditions during the process of integration that began with "Ädelreformen". An exposition of studies on integration points out that integration is regarded as something good by legislators and managers but is often characterized by conflicts, especially between two parties with different occupational perspectives and overlapping areas. This study is focused on understanding management control promoting integration. Three types of control of special importance to this study are: need of resources, right of dispositions, and regulation. Integration is supported by a mutual need of resources between the subordinated parties. Need of resources occur when one party depends on another party for survival and growth. The right of disposition is resources protected by the executives. Such protection supports integration among the parties while the risk of exploiting and asymmetry are reduced. During conflict and differentiation a superior party, the executives, can contribute to stabilization by regulation. Regulation consists of rules from the superior party that state how the interchange of resources should be done between the subordinated parties. Four municipalities have been examined in order to answer the question of this study. Interviews were carried out in each municipality, with executives and subordinated parties, individually and in groups of staff, totally 28 interviews with 85 respondents in total. The four municipalities performed different types of management control. Those were neglect control, market control, partiality control and symmetrical control. Neglect control is when the executive lacks insight in the relation of the subordinated parties. The lack of insight contributes to an unregulated relation between the parties and weak rights of dispositions. The parties compete and claim the resources of the opposite party. Market control brings a strong need of resources to the subordinated parties. A purchaser-provider split allows the parties to accomplish resources by negotiations. Partiality control is when the executives support one of two subordinate parties. The weaker party is exploited by the opposite party. Symmetrical control implies secured rights of disposition. When symmetrical control is performed by the executives the mutual interchange between the parties is regulated. That prevents isolating and differentiating strategies. The result and the main contribution of this study is that management control matters and increases the possibilities of integration. When the executive establish distinct rules, strong rights of dispositions and need or resources, mutual interchange is promoted. Those three components in combination reinforce integration. The mutual interchange then repeated will make the integration grow stronger.
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- Ek, Emma, 1977
(författare)
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De granskade. Om hur offentliga verksamheter görs granskningsbara
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During recent decades audits have taken on a more prominent role in governance, in Sweden and in the Western world as a whole. Audit is used in this context as an umbrella designation for control methods such as inspection, auditing, evaluation, accreditation and certification. What these control methods have in common is that they entail external, (presumably) independent authorities or companies inspecting and assessing various phenomena. A number of auditing bodies scrutinise and provide assessments, and in so doing govern organisations at a distance. This dissertation is about audit in the making. It describes what takes place when operations are made the object of auditing and what happens in organisations while being audited. The question that is answered is: how is auditability achieved? In distinction from many other studies on audits, the auditees have a prominent position in answering this question. The auditing that is at the centre of the study is state inspection within schools and elderly care. In the dissertation episodes and events in the realisation of these audits are described. The analysis is based on ethnographically inspired fieldwork. Building on Miller and Rose’s perspective on governmentality, the study has as its starting-point the technologies and the varying contexts in which these are manifested: in reports, on websites, in everyday routines and meetings between the auditors and the auditees etc. The study shows that being the subject of audit requires extensive work. Auditability is achieved through a large portion of predictability where each step in the process is acknowledged. This predictability entails much more than providing advance notification of audits. It is a way of organising and executing the audit, where the auditees are not just a part of the object being audited, but also the extended arm of the audit authority. They supply the representations that the audit authority needs in order to describe and assess the operation. In achieving auditability the auditees do more than deliver information about the organisation. Auditability also entails making the audit meaningful and useful (it is for our benefit). This is done mainly by (re)interpreting the auditing as an educational opportunity which also normalises the process (it is nothing to be afraid of). Technically auditability is a question of how the object being audited and the benchmarks used are made comparable. The study shows that auditability is achieved through the construction of an object that is defined on the basis of benchmarks and is consequently comparable. In the audit studied there is no formalised report that can be e-mailed to the audit authority, printed out, submitted or put in an envelope. Rather, describing and defining the operation is an important aspect of auditing. The description is undertaken for a specific purpose, namely to act as underlying data for the assessment. It is therefore not surprising that the object and the benchmark are comparable, as the object is defined precisely for this purpose. What the study contributes to previous research is, firstly, bringing the auditees into the debate on how auditability is created. The study also contributes to a less static picture of how organisations are made receptive to auditing: that receptibility entails much more than installing systems that continuously supply the information about the organisation that the auditors need. The study also contributes to problematise the division into auditors and audited by showing that the boundaries are by no means always clear-cut. Finally the study shows that how auditability is achieved partially explains what is being auditable.
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- Erikson, Malgorzata, 1960
(författare)
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Lokala politiska ledare - ett kollage av diskurser
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In order to save what is left of the public trust in the political system, one of the most important tasks is to relegitimize the politicians. The general image of this group, the negative stereotypes and the lack of understanding of their complex duties, must be balanced, and the intention behind this study is to make a small contribution towards a more nuanced picture. The aim of the study is to try, through discourse analyses, to answer the questions: How do political leaders, i.e. members of the municipal executive committees, interpret their roles as politicians, including their relations with others and the circumstances under which they work? And which consequences do these interpretations have on their political practice and their status in society? A number of politicians in two Swedish municipalities have been interviewed, and I have observed on several occasions how these politicians interact in political meetings. It is the text constructed during these interviews and observations that represent the data collected for this study. In the dissertation I have consistently tried to carry three theoretical perspectives with me, perspectives that help me to sort my empirical findings and make them meaningful in a context outside my cases. The first of these three is the power incorporated in the discourses. From theories of freedom and structural oppression I have tried to find examples of how discourses limit our thoughts and how some groups benefit while others suffer. One of the main goals of my study has been to erase the oversimplified image of our politicians. But as it turns out, they are not afraid of creating stereotypes of their own, both of themselves, and - which is the second theoretical theme of the dissertation - of mass media. The third and final theme has been the alleged conflict between leadership and democracy. Theories of democracy and leadership are created by two different scientific disciplines, political science and organization and management studies, where the latter more often than not concentrates on the private sector. In the study I show how the ideals from a managerial discourse collides with a more traditional idealistic one, and how these two discourses are fighting each other, thus forcing the politicians to take sides. This is sometimes difficult since the battle is fought inside the head of individual politicians. I also try to point out how the discourse of organizational democracy slides between these two other discourse.
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- Eriksson, Nomie, 1955
(författare)
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Friska vindar i sjukvården. Stöd och hinder vid förändringar i professionella organisationer
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Implementation of decisions in professional organisations is characterized by the board making decisions for the professions to perform. In this thesis a decision concerning how process directed method of working in medical service is studied. The implementation was studied at two hospitals and units with similar medical alignment. Earlier research shows that medical service is hard to change. The aim with this study is to identify what supports and what hinders the professions’ implementation of a new working method and to explain why. The professions are registered nurses and physicians. They have good knowledge of the medical service and a great interest in good performance for patients as well as themselves. Characteristic is that they carry out decisions if they correspond with their norms and values which describe how medical service is to be performed, i.e. the institutions of medical service. Process directed method of working diverts from the traditional working methods in medical service. The activities in medical service are synchronized into a logical chain without repetitions. It gives a standardized medical service for all the patients included in one group of patients or one diagnosis. The new way of working changes what medical service is offered, where it is performed and by whom. The working method gives medical, as well as administrative, changes. Medically, questioning and changing alters the contents of medical service. Administratively, the medical service directing and organisation is changed. The overall view on medical service is developed with this working method, whether it is performed in one or several units. Established facts for the implementation of the working method is development of the dialogue, which is held between the professions, by real enthusiasts and offers from each hospital management respectively about education and stimuli. The professions’ satisfaction with the new working method also supports the change. Hindering the implementation of the method are activities such as rounds, reports and documentation and they are hard to adapt into the processes since they have developed into ceremonies that could wear traces of path dependence. On top of this there is a general expressed conception of lack of time, which also has developed into a ceremony. Despite that the study showed that existing institutions agree with the decided working method and the implementation is strong when it comes to available bases, the grade of implementation varies and problems of implementation are identified. If the organisation is marked by contentment, the existing working method will be preserved. If the decision is forced upon the professions they will re-form it or re-interpret it. If path dependent activities exist, only parts of the working method are changed which the professions’ experience as frustrating. However, if the professions participate in the implementation of process directed working method through dialogue, real enthusiasts and education and stimuli, the traditional working method will change.
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- Fihn, Glenn, 1965
(författare)
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Normer och reformer. Den landskommunala och stadskommunala budgetens och redovisningens historia 1862-1968
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- At the center of this study is the development of norms for the Swedish municipal budget and accounting in its historic context. By historic context, we refer here to the aspects of the course of history, which concern municipal expansion and institutional change. The study aims at describing and explaining how and why reforms were made in the norms for budget and accounting within the municipal sector of cities and rural municipalities during the period 1862-1968. Why and how budget and accounting reforms were made or, more precisely, which factors were behind the development of the norms for municipal budget and accounting, and whether regulation were put in place voluntarily or through state mandates, are the two queistions that are posed in the study. The reforms of the norms for budget and accounting which are studied more closely, are the proposals which were developed by the predecessors of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities, as well as the proposals for municipal financial statistics forms which Statistics Sweden developed until the 1960s. Based on previous research in the area, three hypotheses were formulated concerning how and why norms for the municipal budget and accounting change. The first one contained an assumption that the regulations around municipal finances and the norms for municipal budget and accounting follow the municipal expansion. The second one contained an assumption that the development of the design of the municipal budget and accounting system, occurs in an interaction between the state and the municipal levels. The third one contained an assumption that here was a difference in budget and accounting between the cities and the rural municipalities, but that these differences have been erased as the differences beween town and country disappeared. The study reveals that municipal expansion and institutional change have an impact on the development of norms for budget and accounting. The breakthrough of municipal business operations at the turn of century in 1900 and the periods of increased financing through borrowing and the accompanying attempts by the state to regulate the loan management were particularly important. The study also shows that the state and the municipalities through direct or indirect interaction have futhered the reforms of the norms of municipal budget and accounting. Finally it is shown that the difference between norms of the budget and accounting of cities and rural municipalities was reinforced until the 1940s only to be completely erased in a short period of time.
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