| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Gullberg, Cecilia
(författare)
-
Puzzle or Mosaic? : On Managerial Information Patterns
- 2011
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Managers and information are key components in most management control literature, and a range of tools and concepts have been developed to better accommodate the information needs of managers so as to ensure efficient action and intelligent decisions. At the same time, the managerial work is often described as highly fragmented, unstructured and interpersonal, with little time for planning and isolated reflection. It is therefore relevant to explore how and to what extent new technologies come into play in managerial information patterns. Furthermore, new management concepts and tools could potentially give rise to new control practices, resulting from e.g. novel relations between managers and other actors, new influential roles, and alternative forms of information flows.These issues are addressed in three papers. The first paper examines the portfolio of information that managers use in their daily work, thereby putting formal information systems into the context of less formal sources. The study is based on interviews with a variety of managers in different organisations. The second paper discusses the interplay between formally designed information-based practices, and the individual perceptions and habits that emerge in relation to the formalised. People at different levels in two public-sector organisations form the basis of the second paper. The third paper explores how various control practices operate together in a government agency, thereby providing new perspectives on how management control is exercised in a knowledge-intensive organisation.It is suggested that managerial information patterns evolve slowly compared to the technological development. Obtaining an overview of one’s area of responsibility is mainly achieved through dialogue and interaction with others. However, new technologies have influenced the more routine exchange of information, thereby causing increased dispersion among users and creating new roles. Subordinates constitute a vital influence on the managerial role and on how managers reason concerning their use of information. This people-oriented type of management results in the use of a multitude of pieces of information that is sometimes very subtle and retrieved in spontaneous interaction. The multidimensional and emerging nature of information provides insight into both the strengths and the limitations of formalising managerial information patterns. Furthermore, various information patterns are interrelated, e.g., they complement each other, substitute each other, or serve different purposes at different times. In total, managerial information patterns resemble a mosaic rather than a puzzle that can be solved by specific pieces. Management information should therefore be viewed from a broader perspective in order to better understand managers’ information needs, how control practices emerge and how information systems come into play.
|
|
| 4. |
- Hamrén, Ellinor
(författare)
-
A Nationalism of Good Intentions : Dilemmas of inclusion and exclusion
- 2021
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation analyses ethical aspects of nationalism and criticizes the nation-state paradigm. Based on theories that concern various forms of 'benign' nationalism, the dissertation explores fantasies of inclusion with the help of various 'positions'. The question is: How are national identities, which are able to include ethnic minorities, constructed to be ethically justifiable, and what do the fantasies that sustain these ideas look like? Empirically I have worked with media material and have conducted focus groups with various ethno-political activists in Sweden and Finland. These minority groups are discussed based on the positions they hold in relation to the idea of the nation, and also the positions they would hypothetically end up in if their ethno-political struggle were successful. The dissertation is based on a discourse theoretical approach, with specifically the concept of fantasy being utilised from the discourse theoretical framework. My conclusion is that what I call the 'Fantasy of Inclusion', that is, a fantasy that the discourse of nations has taught us to desire, is based on ignoring the ethnic character of different groups in cases where it becomes "uncomfortable" in order to maintain the idea of inclusion as 'benign'.
|
|
| 5. |
- Mickwitz, Larissa
(författare)
-
Rätt betyg för vem? : Betygsättning som institutionaliserad praktik
- 2011
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Betyg har haft ett stort utrymme i den skolpolitiska debatten. Framförallt har betygens bristande likvärdighet debatterats. Problemet har huvudsakligen konstruerats som lärares bristande professionalism. Föreliggande studie tar sitt avstamp i denna debatt och den vid tidpunkten aktuella betygsforskning som visat att läraren inte till fullo följer betygsystemet. Studien baseras på intervjuer med nio högstadielärare i svenska och svenska som andraspråk. Relationen mellan betygsystemets formella reglering och lärarnas betygsättande praktik har analyserats i ett nyinstitutionellt perspektiv. Perspektivet ifrågasätter att formell reglering är det som i första hand styr och stabiliserar en verksamhet. Syftet med licentiatavhandlingen är att problematisera relationen mellan reglering och praktik i ljuset av lärarnas berättelser. Lärarna berättar om de motstridiga krav som präglar deras betygsättning. På en idealnivå sympatiserar de med betygsystemet och den betygsdiskurs som präglar skolpolitiska policydokument om betyg. Men när de berättar om sin praktik framkommer en annan bild. Lärarnas berättelser åskådliggör ett glapp mellan ideal och praktik. Lärarna vill sätta ett rätt betyg, baserat på betygsystemets formella reglering. Men i den dagliga verksamheten i skolan har de inte det stöd som behövs. Framförallt artikulerar de en avsaknad av en mottagare för det rätta betyget. Istället efterfrågas ett högt betyg av elever, föräldrar och skolledning. Det är främst genom sin professionalism de kan hantera de motstridiga kraven som betygsättningen omgärdas av. Betygshetsen i skolan kräver en professionell integritet för att läraren inte ska riskera att hamna i rollen som oprofessionell. Vidare har de ett motstridigt förhållande till betygsystemet. Å ena sidan ifrågasätter de inte betygsystemet i sig. Å andra sidan formulerar de sig i dikotomiska termer där betyg sätts mot kunskap. Den ökade pressen på läraren att kunna motivera sin betygsättning (som formulerades som nödvändigt när ett högre betyg efterfrågades) medför att kunskapsuppdraget får ge vika. Betyg tar fokus och energi från övrigt arbete i skolan. Inte minst visar det sig att lärare i sin underviskning tenderar fokusera det som lätt går att mäta och det som de vet testas i de nationella proven. Lärarna reduceras från pedagoger till betygsättare.
|
|
| 6. |
- Nemeth, Ulrika, 1968-
(författare)
-
Jakten på den godkända texten : Läspraktiker och internetanvändning på gymnasieskolan
- 2011
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents a case study from an authentic school practice, where seven students, in their second year of a social sciences program in an upper secondary school, use internet texts in various learning situations. The aim of the study is to map the reading practices of students encountering internet texts. The main data consists of observations, audio and screen recordings, written instructions, and screen shots of the sites visited. Reading practices are analysed, drawing on concepts from New Literacy Studies and Systemic Functional Grammar, including literacy events, literacy in terms of text culture, textual norms, abstraction, authority and modality as a scale of reliability. The results reveal that meaning making resources such as colours, amount of writing and images and choice of fonts all seem to be parts of students’ conceptions of reliability. These textual norms result in learning situations in which students search for texts with predominantly dense writing promoting encyclopaedic knowledge. These highly authoritative texts can be hard to understand for the students, something that the text analyses indicate. In comparison to text books, the internet texts used show, a higher level of authority and abstraction, reinforced by grammatical metaphors. Most situations in the study include peer interaction, but the most obvious learning potential resides in situations with a clear reading goal, where students work in groups and where negotiation is part of the meaning making process. The pedagogical implications of the study suggest the potential for students to achieve a higher degree of understanding of the encountered internet texts, through group work, and discussions concerning the impact of different layouts and the demands of verbal language. Another potential concerns methods for avoiding critical literacy being reduced to trivial visual scanning, via discussions focusing on criteria for reliability evaluations. It is suggested that increased teacher awareness concerning the types of internet texts the students will encounter in authentic situations may contribute to students’ field and genre insight.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Nyquist, Anna
(författare)
-
Improved supply chain collaboration with Green industrial marketing : The case of Swedish textile service industry between 1996 and 2021
- 2022
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Growing environmental problems have led to increasing pressure on companies to improve their environmental performance. This means that also supply chains must become greener, which has contributed to new challenges when it comes to green collaboration and trust. Research has suggested marketing as a tool to tackle these challenges, but how to use marketing to address these concerns has yet to be explored further. The focus of this thesis is thereby to explore and clarify the possibilities to use green industrial marketing as a tool to meet these new supply chain challenges.In line with that, the overarching aim of the thesis is to explore and advance the understanding of green industrial marketing, with the underlying aim of merging the fields of green marketing and green supply chains. There is also the goal of contributing to companies’ knowledge about the field and thus possibly inspire improvements in green industrial marketing and green supply chain practices. These aims are met by answering two research questions. The first research question regards the practice of green industrial marketing, and how this practice has developed over time. The second research question revolves around what strategies, placing an emphasis on trust, can be identified in companies working in green industrial marketing and how these strategies can improve green supply chain collaboration.The literature review focuses mainly on green industrial marketing, with green marketing, the emergence of green business, industrial marketing, green supply chain management, green marketing strategies, and trust as associated theoretical fields related to green industrial marketing. The study is interpretive and qualitative with a focus on one industry, the Swedish textile service industry, during a 26-year time period. Three sub-studies have been combined to explore the phenomenon of green industrial marketing: a qualitative content analysis, a semi-structured interview study, and a minor case study.The results of this study can improve the understanding of green industrial marketing, both as a practice and theoretical area by describing the strategies, including strategies intended to build trust, that are practiced in markets. A typology of eight identified green industrial trust strategies have been developed. The study also contributes to discussion on the differences between industrial marketing and consumer marketing by clarifying the boundaries of green industrial marketing in relation to green consumer marketing. Among other things, the results of this study show that there is a greater relational focus in green industrial marketing compared to what exists in green consumer marketing.This study also contributes to a merger between the fields of green industrial marketing and green supply chain management by showing how green industrial marketing can contribute to improved collaboration within green supply chains in four ways. The first way is to convey different types of environmental information and green market positions, the second is to improve the integration and coordination of green supply chains, the third is to facilitate supplier evaluations, and the fourth is to build trust.
|
|
| 9. |
- Sõmersalu, Liisa, 1983-
(författare)
-
Civic Cultures in Eastern Europe : Communication spaces and media practices of Estonian civil society organizations
- 2022
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What kind of routine media and communication practices do Estonian civil society organizations enact in their everyday work? What sort of symbolic and physical spaces are used, created, and accessed by Estonian civil society organizations and informal citizen groups when engaging internally and with their target groups? How do these spaces and practices evolve over time? These are the questions this dissertation addresses, with the aim of understanding the ways in which already-established and evolving civil society organizations navigate the highly-mediated everyday through their routine media practices and the spaces in which these practices are situated.Theoretically, this study takes a cultural approach to political participation with the concept of ‘civic cultures’ (Dahlgren 2009, p. 103) in the centrum. In this dissertation, the civic cultures framework is concentrated into a focus on the everyday, on media practices, and on communicative spaces. The concepts of ‘everyday’ and ‘spaces’ are empirically accessed through a practice approach. To distill and explore the role of media in the everyday work of civil society organizations, this thesis borrows from “activist media practices” (Mattoni 2012, p. 159) framework.The empirical study is grounded in the wider geopolitical context of Eastern Europe and in the historical context of post-Soviet Europe, and more specifically in Estonian civil society. Using a multi-methods approach based on media ethnography, this study includes a nationally-representative survey, in-depth interviews with civil society organizations, and a longitudinal study of the Estonian Forest Aid movement.This study found that parallel to striving towards episodic visibility in physical spaces, in mainstream media, and in decision making, civil society organizations worked on constant visibility in the social media space. The most used social media platform, Facebook, proved to be an important space for developing civic cultures on an everyday level: it was used for campaigns, opinion shaping, for disseminating news, and for civic talk. Everyday communication within the organizations was done using a mix of different media technologies and face-to-face meetings. Each media technology and communicative space had their own role and function in the everyday work of Estonian civil society organizations.
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
