| 1. |
- Norlin, Måns
(författare)
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Communicating visions for urban development : a micro-study of a governance process
- 2014
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies the topic of policy making in the context of producing a comprehensive plan. The thesis uses the case of a municipality in Sweden. Contributing to the understanding of how governance processes can be performed, this thesis studies policy making in a collaborative situation. A form of micro-study is used to scrutinize in detail the dialogues between participants. The thesis applies Membership Categorization Analysis and Conversation Analysis to uncover the participants' accomplishments. The approaches reveal a variety of ways the participants perform planning, how visions and strategies are implemented in practice and how participants can reach agreement on planning issues. The study provides planning research with further understanding of the situatedness and epistemology of policy making, and it brings to light the variety of ways participants in policy making can enter and inform discussions, thereby enhancing the level of democracy in governance processes.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Jonsson, Robert
(författare)
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Organisationstillblivelse och identitet : en studie av ÖstSam
- 2002
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Organisationstillblivelse och identitet - en studie av ÖstSam" är en licentiatavhandling som syftar till att bidra med kunskaper om organisationers tillblivelse i termer av identitet. A v handlingen bygger på en studie av framväxten av organisationen ÖstSam. I tid sträcker sig studien från slutet av 1996 till början av år 2000. Från hösten 1998 har framväxten följts via intervjuer, observationer och dokument.Studien beskriver framväxten av ÖstSam. Vidare tolkas framväxten utifrån identitet som perspektiv. Detta görs genom att vad ÖstSam utvecklats till i termer av identitet presenteras. Hur ÖstSams identitet växt fram beskrivs också. Utifrån fallet ÖstSam och med hjälp av teorier som presenteras, diskuteras hur organisationers tillblivelse kan förstås i termer av identitet. Diskussionen mynnar framförallt ut i att grundarnas intentioner utgör underlag för innehållet i identiteten, vilket har visat sig omtolkas, rekonstrueras, över tiden. Mot bakgrund av detta menar jag att en organisations innehåll och process är förutsättningar för varandra. Båda är viktiga for vad en organisation utvecklas till. Studien visar också att kontexten påverkat utvecklaodet av vilka man är. Verksamhetens art, organisationens geografiska läge samt tid i form av historiskt arv och aktöremas tankar om framtiden för organisationen har varit av betydelse för vad ÖstSam utvecklats till i termer av identitet.
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| 4. |
- Gyllenhammar, Daniel, 1994
(författare)
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Improvements for value creation in public services
- 2022
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The demands on public services are constantly increasing and the public sector has, over the years, been subject to several management approaches trying to improve it. These new approaches have been criticized lately for an overly emphasis on market forces, specialization, and an intra-organizational focus, resulting in fragmented services and a poor system understanding for both citizens and employees of public organizations. Moreover, the problems faced by today’s society often require collaboration among multiple actors, not speaking in favor of these new approaches that tend to separate professions and functions into silos. To problematize further, the beneficiary of a public service is not always clear, and there are occasions when the wishes of a service user and the society might diverge. Here, value might be perceived to be destroyed for one actor, but created for another. This thesis seeks to increase the understanding of improvements for value creation in public services by investigating the case of the Swedish public service of sick leave. A public service consisting of multiple actors in need of collaboration to succeed in delivering the service. Two research questions (RQ) are used to guide the research. The first is: “How can service user improvements be described and facilitated in public services?” The second is “How is value created and destroyed with service users among actors in public services?” Three papers serve as the foundation for the thesis and answer the RQs. The first paper is a systematic literature review that aims to increase the understanding of customer-related improvements and thereby consolidates knowledge for further use in the thesis, mainly contributing to the first RQ. The second paper goes further into the multi-actor context of public services and investigates how improvements can be facilitated in terms of how to identify, understand, and align improvements, contributing to both the first and second RQs. The third paper regards the perspective of the frontline employees of the public service organizations involved in the sick leave system and how they can improve the aspect of value creation in the public service, mainly contributing to the second RQ. The findings show a complexity of improvements, where mandate to initiate/start an improvement, capabilities to perform the improvement, and the benefits from an improvement could be separated among different actors and dispersed over hierarchical levels and organizational and professional borders. The improvements are also found to be conditioned by a sequence of improvements to realize benefits, contributing to the need for a system understanding to enable improvements in the system. In this context of public services, it is also found that the root cause of the problems the service aims to solve can reside outside of the scope of the public service, leading to only symptomatic treatment of the problem, making it difficult to improving the service per se. It is also found that value can be created at different loci of the system, even with actors that are not typically a part of the public service. To counter these problems, ‘gaps’ in rules and regulations should be addressed. However, this approaches the aspect of standardization, which could also improve the situation, but might also create problematic situations due to the professional context requiring autonomy and risks, decreasing motivation and creativity of the employees. The thesis hereby contributes to the area of public management by infusing it with aspects from change management and quality management to increase the understanding of improvements for value creation in public services.
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| 5. |
- Rebalski, Ella, 1989
(författare)
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Are We There Yet? Combining qualitative and quantitative methods to study the introduction of CAVs in Sweden, and potential travel demand effects.
- 2021
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- By law, Sweden must reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2045. Domestic transportation is one sector in which GHG emissions can be reduced substantially. Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) could potentially help with this and with the transition to a more efficient transportation system, but they could also instead make meeting the target harder. The issues of how CAV technology will be introduced to the general public and what the effects will be are fraught with uncertainty. Thus far, much policy research has been informed by technical, quantitative studies, such as the one in Paper 1 of this licentiate thesis. The study analyses the impact CAVs may have on travel demand. The methodology is based on an induced travel demand model that simulates the effects on Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (VKT) related to changes in Value of Travel Time (VoTT) and the cost of CAV technology. In our most conservative scenario—with the smallest change in VoTT and highest CAV cost—we estimate an average increase in travel distance by car of 5% once CAVs are a mature technology on the market, while this increase reaches 61% in the least conservative scenario. Our results also show that income matters: Under certain conditions, those who are able to work remotely and have a relatively high income have a greater economic incentive to purchase a CAV and extend their travel distance. In Paper 2, we identify and map the broader societal drivers and pressures for the introduction of CAVs in cities. The approach taken in the paper has a theoretical basis in transition management and stakeholder theories and uses a combination of the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) framework and force field analysis to analyse interview transcripts. Survey data complement this analysis. The results provide in- depth knowledge about how actors in different parts of society perceive the introduction of CAVs and the mechanisms behind the expansion of these vehicles. It is clear from the interviews and survey that CAVs are not seen as unconditionally positive; instead, many stakeholders believe CAVs need to be connected to mobility planning and public transport strategies.
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| 6. |
- Smith, Göran, 1988
(författare)
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Public Sector Open Innovation: Exploring Barriers and How Intermediaries Can Mitigate Them
- 2018
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Public organizations are increasingly embracing open innovation (OI) practices. Still, little is known about how the challenges they face when doing so compare to the barriers that have been identified for OI in the private sector. Similarly, despite being recognized as imperative actors in private sector OI, the understanding of open innovation intermediaries’ (OIIs) roles in public sector OI is limited. Given these two knowledge gaps, this licentiate thesis sets out to further the knowledge of what types of barriers impede public sector OI, and how OIIs can mitigate them. These issues are explored through four case studies within the public transport sector in Sweden. In all the cases, public organizations were trying to accelerate innovation through outbound OI practices, and in three of the cases, OIIs were utilized to facilitate the processes. A comparison of the case study findings and extant OI literature suggests that OI practices are harder to adopt for public organizations than for private firms. Public organizations face more rigorous regulations and more extensive bureaucracy, have fewer incentives to take risks, and are influenced by objectives and inner mechanisms that are difficult for external innovators to understand. Further, a cross-comparison of the case studies identifies that OIIs can mitigate the negative impacts of the aforementioned barriers by expanding the boundaries of innovation ecosystems, decreasing costs for distant search and data processing, fostering inter-organizational collaboration, and assisting public organizations in managing the innovation trajectory. Even so, the studied cases also illustrate that the introduction of OIIs can be contested, and that they might have hampering effects as well. Therefore, OIIs need to be carefully designed and launched so that they match the needs of the specific situations.
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| 7. |
- Svensson, Ingrid, 1987
(författare)
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Changing practices for public facilities management
- 2018
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Public facilities management organizations are currently facing several challenges both external and internal. New regulations regarding sustainability (including energy efficiency targets), a transition to a business-like approach/form of governance and changing demographical conditions are examples of outer challenges. At the same time, inner challenges such as need for new knowledge and competencies among the employees and buildings in bad shape, in urgent need of renovation, need to be managed. These aspects enforce public facilities management organizations and their pertaining institutions to change their way of working.The aim of the thesis is to increase the understanding of the change processes through which public facilities management organizations reconsider and revise their existing facilities management practices in order to support long-term goals and sustainable development. The research presented in this thesis builds on a qualitative research design. The practice-oriented theoretical lenses of institutional work, institutional logics and sociomateriality are used in order to examine changing practices for public facilities management. The thesis is based on one main empirical case study, in one organizational context. Within this context, a strategy project was followed, where actors were developing new practices in relation to sustainable facilities management. When investigating the role of objects for public facilities management, the thesis is also informed by two other organizational contexts encompassing projects related to sustainable facilities management. Three papers are included in this thesis. Relating to the aim to increase the understanding of the change processes that public facilities management organizations undergo, findings show that several actors are involved in the work to transform public facilities management organizations in order to meet current challenges. They reside at and travel between different organizational levels and develop practices related do different logics. These actors are not only human, they are also non-humans (objects). The actors are not perhaps “obvious” change agents, rather they are “ordinary” employees doing their jobs, albeit in a good manner. As such, this thesis adds to the body of practice-oriented literature on institutional work, institutional logics and sociomateriality. It also contributes to organizational research that investigates sustainable public facilities management.
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| 8. |
- Takman, Johanna, 1992
(författare)
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Reducing greenhouse gas emissions – Examples from the freight transport sector: Essays on economic growth, public policy instruments, and renewable energy.
- 2021
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of if, and how, we can combat climate change and other non-wanted environmental changes alongside economic development. Paper I address this question by investigating the relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP per capita. Using panel data analysis, an N-shaped relationship is found for lower-middle- and high-income countries, indicating that CO2-emissions increase with economic growth beyond a certain income level. However, no significant relationship is found for upper-middle-income countries. The study also shows that increasing the share of renewable energy is crucial for reducing CO2-emissions. Paper III investigate the performance of European public policy instruments promoting a modal shift of freight transports from road to rail and/or water. Performing a literature review, 93 public policies are identified, whereof ex-post evaluations are found for 20. The evaluated policies are mainly subsidies/grants at national level, or EU-policies. Variation in evaluation methods and performance indicators complicates comparisons of policy performance. However, policies promoting rail are in general more successful than those promoting waterborne transport. Common factors for underachievement include lack of applications, outreach problems, and complicated application processes. Furthermore, broad and general policy targets complicate evaluation as well as fulfilment of objectives. Paper II analyse barriers, opportunities, and potential solutions to renewable energy diffusion, focusing on liquefied biogas for heavy trucks. Interviews with experts and stakeholders in Sweden show that main barriers include financial limits, lacking infrastructure, lacking knowledge, and unstable policy instruments. Yet, several policy instruments already target the barriers to LBG diffusion and given current taxes and subsidies, costs of using LBG trucks are only marginally higher than those for using diesel trucks in Sweden. Thus, continuously evaluating policy performance is important.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Drotz, Erik, 1985-
(författare)
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Lean in the Public Sector : Possibilities and Limitations
- 2014
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The demands on efficiency and quality in the public sector have increased over the past few years, which have raised the need for strategies on how the public sector can be improved (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000). Consequently, the concept of Lean production, or just Lean, have become increasingly spread, especially in health care, but also in government agencies, police, military and social services. Lean production is an integrated operational and socio-technical system with the aim of creating value and reducing waste in operations. Some research has been conducted on Lean in the public sector, but it has been too focused on the a few operational tools and results of these, and there is lack of a comprehensive critical review of Lean from a holistic perspective.The aim of this thesis is to increase understanding of how Lean production is used in different contexts. The thesis particularly focuses on the public sector, and investigates the possibilities and limitations of Lean production in this context. A total of seven organizations have been studied, including two manufacturing companies, three care units and two local businesses. In particular, qualitative methods have been used, along with some quantitative.The thesis shows several possibilities and limitations of Lean in public sector. One possibility is the improved flow orientation that reduces the lead time and efficiency in back office processes. Moreover, the new roles and responsibilities can lead to improved job characteristics for public sector employees. One limitation is that Lean is more commonly used to improve the technical quality than the functional, which means that the focus has been placed on improving the instrumental performance of the service, rather than how the service is provided. There is also often a focus on efficiency in the back office rather than the front office processes. This means that Lean initiatives may become too focused on internal efficiency and thereby miss important aspects of user perceived quality.
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