| 1. |
- Babri, Maira, 1986-
(författare)
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The Corporate Code of Ethics at Home, Far Away and in Between : Sociomaterial Translations of a Traveling Code
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Corporate codes of ethics (CCEs) have become increasingly prevalent as overarching ethical guidelines for multinational corporations doing business around the globe. As formal documents, governing corporations’ work, policies, and ways of doing business, CCEs are meant to guide all business activities and apply to all of the corporation’s employees, suppliers, and business partners. In multinational corporations, this means that diverse countries, cultures, and a myriad of heterogeneous actors are expected to abide by the same standards and guidelines, as stipulated in the CCE. Despite this empirical reality, CCEs have previously been approached by academics mainly as passive company documents or as marketing or management tools, in the contexts of their country of origin. Building on Actor-Network Theory this thesis applies an interactionist ontology, and relational epistemology, seeing the code as a sociomaterial object with both material and immaterial characteristics, and moving in a global arena. Furthermore, the CCEs are assumed to be susceptible to change, i.e. translations. With these assumptions, the CCE of a multinational corporation is followed as it travels between its country of origin (Sweden) and another country (China) and goes to work in different contexts. Heterogeneous empirical materials such as interviews, company documents, observations, shadowing, and emails are used to present stories from different contexts where the CCE is at work. The overall purpose of the thesis is to contribute to the theorizing of CCEs, thereby providing further understanding of the possible consequences of CCEs in contextually diverse settings. By following traces of a CCE, this study posits the need for a simultaneous understanding of three dimensions of CCEs for CCEs to be understood in contextually dispersed settings. The three dimensions are a) material translations of the code, b) enactments of these translations, and c) ideas associated with the material and enacted code. The study contributes to the understanding of CCEs by highlighting a specific country-context (China), by putting together knowledge from codes in various contexts, and the overarching contribution lies in highlighting codes as different kinds of objects and adding to the existing literature – specifically, contextualizing the CCE as a vaporous object.
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| 2. |
- Rasoal, Dara, 1980-
(författare)
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Perspectives on clinical ethics support and ethically difficult situations : reflections and experiences
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Healthcare personnel encounter ethically difficult situations in their everyday work and clinical ethics support might be important to support healthcare personnel to deal with these situations. The overall aim of this thesis was to describe perspectives on clinical ethics support, experiences of being in ethically difficult situations and experiences of facilitating ethics reflection. Methods. Study I had a descriptive design in which research articles were reviewed (n=54). In study II audio-recorded moral case deliberation (n=70) in 10 Swedish workplaces in hospitals and community care were analysed. In study III interviews were conducted with facilitators (n=11) of moral case deliberation. Study IV used non-participant observation during three weeks as well as informal conversations with healthcare personnel (n=12) in community home healthcare. Results and conclusion. In study I, two perspectives emerged on clinical ethics support, a “Top-down” perspective, where an individual or a group of “experts” in ethics could recommend the best course of action and a “Bottom-up” perspective that allows healthcare personnel to manage ethically difficult situations through ethical reflections led by a facilitator. Studies II and IV showed how ethically difficult situations on different levels are often connected with emotions and uncertainties. Study III showed the role of the facilitator to be fundamental in creating a space for self-reflection among healthcare personnel. Study IV showed that healthcare personnel face complex demands and expectations from the healthcare organization regarding the provision of care as well as having to meet the needs of patients and their next-of-kin. To conclude, healthcare personnel needed to find a balance among demands and expectations in order to satisfy those stakeholders involved and they had to seek compromise. There is a need for clinical ethics support that helps healthcare personnel reflect individually and collectively on ethically difficult situations they encounter in their everyday clinical practice. From this standpoint, a “Bottom-up” perspective may reduce the risk of moral distress among healthcare personnel and promote care based on person-centred values.
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| 3. |
- Redmalm, David, 1981-
(författare)
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An animal without an animal within : investigating the identities of pet keeping
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- If the human is an animal without an animal within—a creature that has transcended the animal condition—what is a pet? This creature balancing on the border between nature and culture, simultaneously included in and excluded from a human “we”, is the focus of this thesis. The thesis analyzes the discourses and normative frameworks structuring the meaning of pets in people’s lives. By extension, it analyzes how the boundary between “human” and “animal” is produced, negotiated, and challenged in the relationship between pet and owner.Each of this thesis’ four constituent studies focuses on an aspect of personal relationships between humans and pets: pets as figures for philosophical thinking, the dual role of pets as commodities and companions, the grief for lost pets, and the power issues at play in the everyday life of pet and owner. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s genealogical approach, crossbred with Donna Haraway’s material-semiotic perspective, the analysis exposes the powers allowing pets to occupy these various positions.The thesis demonstrates that pets occupy a special position as boundary creatures in the lives of humans, allowing humans to play with and thus reproduce dichotomies inherent to the contemporary Western worldview, such as human/animal, person/nonperson, subject/object, and friend/commodity. However, pets’ conceptual transgressions may also challenge this worldview. On the one hand, pets are bought and sold as commodities, but on the other, they are widely included in the human sphere as friends or family members. This paradoxical position is accentuated in the construction of a more-than-human home, and it is also visible when pets pass away. This thesis argues that pets, these anomalous creatures, may help humans understand that there are no humans or animals within, only relations between them. Based on this argument, this thesis develops a sociological approach for analyzing the production of humanity and animality in relations between humans and other animals.
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| 4. |
- Salmonsson, Lisa, 1978-
(författare)
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The 'Other' Doctor : Boundary work within the Swedish medical profession
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds who work in Sweden. Based on 15 qualitative interviews with medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds, this thesis explores the medical doctors’ feeling of professional belonging and boundary work. This thesis focuses mainly on the doctors’ experiences of being part of the Swedish medical profession while, at the same time, being regarded as ‘different’ from their Swedish medical counterparts. It starts off with the idea that medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds may have, or could be regarded as having, contradictory social positions. By virtue of being part of the Swedish medical profession, they belong to one of the most privileged groups in Swedish society. However, due to their immigrant background these doctors do not necessarily occupy a privileged position either within their profession or in society in general. This thesis shows that doctors with immigrant backgrounds feel that they are not perceived as full-fledged doctors, which seem related to how they are somewhat ‘othered'. The results show that these doctors cope with being seen as different from doctor with non-immigrant backgrounds, by using the notion of ‘migranthood’ as a resource in negotiations in everyday work life but they also do what they can to overcome the boundaries of ‘Swedishness’. Belonging should therefore be seen as having a formal and an informal side, as getting a Swedish license does not automatically mean that you feel belonging to, in this case, the Swedish medical profession. This seems to put doctors with immigrant backgrounds in a somewhat outsider within position, which seems having to do with boundaries between who is included in the ‘us’ and in the ‘them’. Lastly, these findings indicate that sociologists need to expand the understanding of professional groups to also include boundary work within these groups. In order to do so, this thesis argues that sociological theory on professional groups could be combined with sociological theory about social positions as that is one way to understand the outsider-within position that these doctors (and presumably other skilled migrants) have to cope with.
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| 5. |
- Bergwall, Andreas, 1972-
(författare)
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Proof-related reasoning in upper secondary mathematics textbooks : Characteristics, comparisons, and conceptualizations
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Proofs and proving are difficult to learn and difficult to teach. A common problem is that many students use specific examples as evidence for general statements. Difficulties with proofs are also part of the transition problems that exist between secondary and tertiary schooling in mathematics. As mathematics teaching often follows a textbook, the design of textbooks has been pointed out as one possible cause of the problems, and international textbook research suggests that proofs often have only a marginal place in textbooks.This thesis focuses on proofs and proving in upper secondary mathematics textbooks. It also addresses theoretical and methodological questions about what marks an opportunity to develop proving competence, and which properties of such opportunities are relevant to investigate and characterize. The thesis is based on data from four Swedish and Finnish textbook series for upper secondary school, and focuses on sections on logarithms, primitive functions, definite integrals, and combinatorics. It examines how addressed mathematical principles are justified, and whether the textbooks’ exercises offer opportunities to develop proof-related skills such as formulating and investigating hypotheses, developing and evaluating arguments, identifying and correcting errors, and finding counterexamples.The results show that just over half of the mathematical principles addressed in the analyzed textbook material are justified, and that only half of the justifications are general proofs. Few exercises are proof-related (10%), and those that include reasoning about general cases even fewer. General proofs are more common in the Finnish books, but proof-related tasks are more common and of a more varied nature in the Swedish ones. The most common form of proofs are direct derivations of calculation formulas, while reasoning about existence and uniqueness is unusual, as are contrapositive proofs and proofs by contradiction.Based on the results, explicit suggestions are offered as to what teaching can pay more attention to. For the analysis and design of proof-related activities, a framework consisting of four main categories is proposed: develop a statement, investigate a statement, develop an argument, and investigate an argument. Several properties that such activities may have, regardless of which category they belong to, are discussed. Finally, three areas for future research are suggested: how worked examples can support students’ learning of proof, how textbooks can be designed to stimulate formulation as well as the formal proving of hypotheses, and mapping of differences regarding proof between upper secondary and university textbooks.
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| 6. |
- Brav, Agneta, 1955-
(författare)
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Industrial work groups : the impact of job design, leader support and group processes on initiative and self-organization
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From an organizational perspective the issue of which organizational solutions will benefit productivity, efficiency and the innovation process is central. Work groups can be an effective means. The general aim of the thesis from a psychological perspective is to examine work conditions and thereafter investigate how such conditions impact on whether or not work groups redefine stipulated tasks to incorporate initiative-taking and self-organization, thus enabling them to implement meaningful change.Based on action regulation theory, detailed work task analysis is assumed to be worthwhile as it provides data that cannot be captured with interviews or questionnaires exclusively. Data is based on work task analyses and questionnaires administered to work groups at four Swedish industrial organizations. In Study I a theoretical model of the relations of job design, work routines and social routines and reflexivity and learning processes was tested. Results showed that job design and work routines strongly impacted on reflexivity and learning processes. In Study II this model was extended into a theoretical inputprocess- output model to include group initiative and self-organizational activities as outcomes of job design, mediated by group processes. The model provided substantial, but not complete, support. Job design strongly impacts on reflexivity, and reflexivity directly impacts self organizational activities. To explore the importance of leadership support and potency longitudinally for group initiative, in Study III two data collections were included. The findings showed that potency, compared to perceived autonomy and support from leader, was the best predictor of group initiative. Together the studies show that the dimensions of job design, support from leader, reflexivity, and potency as well as cooperation and social support are important for the outcomes of work groups if the organization wants groups to take initiative and engage in self-organizational activities. It is also advocated that job design contains an inherent potential for learning and the possibility to make use of one’s resources. Main findings, strengths, limitations, practical and theoretical implications, directions for future research and when it will be worthwhile to invest in group work are included in the discussion.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Henningsson, Johan, 1965-
(författare)
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Fund Managers as Cultured Observers
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the last few decades, Intellectual Capital (IC) has been recognized as an important resource in firms. In order to improve IC reporting, a number of guidelines have been initiated in Europe and in Japan. The capital market has been one important target group for these initiatives. However, actors on the capital market seem to be ambivalent towards IC information. They both demand and find such information useful, and at the same time, they seem to lack interest in it. This thesis contains five papers that aim to explore how actors on the capital market deal with IC information. A qualitative research approach is applied involving interviews with 14 fund managers in Stockholm. In the analysis of the data, fund managers are seen as ‘cultured observers’, meaning they are influenced by social forces when they observe IC information. Three social forces were identified as being imposed on the respondents. These forces represent social logics that are created in the relationship between the fund managers and · the organization in which they work · the market price and rationale · the agendas around certain companies The seemingly increased complexity of IC information does not always bother fund managers. The rationale of interacting social networks reduces this complexity in order for the information to make sense in their meaning-based reproduction. With respect to ethical funds, this thesis suggests that the rationales of the three social forces above do not seem to have changed in order to include social aspects. Instead, these aspects are taken care of elsewhere in organizations, leaving fund managers outside of their potential for compromising market rationales. Furthermore, fund managers tend to reduce the complexity of information concerning personnel and the working environment by depending on having the right management in organisations. This thesis contributes by increasing our understanding of how the social environment influences fund managers when they observe IC information. By regarding fund managers as ‘cultured observers’ it explores how complexity is dealt with, an approach that contrasts with assumptions within finance theory about profit maximizing actors. Here, the market price and rationale represent one social force among many.
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| 9. |
- Höglund, Linda, 1972-
(författare)
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Discursive practices in strategic entrepeneurship : discourses and the use of repertoires in two firms
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This is a thesis in marketing concerned with entrepreneurship in established firms and the discursive practices that take place within a perspective of strategic entrepreneurship. The study of discursive practices in this context assumes a concern with how different aspects of entrepreneurship are produced and consumed by people in text and talk. Strategic entrepreneurship can be seen as an organisational form of entrepreneurship. The latest contribution within strategic entrepreneurship tends to focus on opportunities and advantages in organisations as two processes that need to be considered and managed jointly.In this thesis, I have studied the discursive practices of how scholars position strategic entrepreneurship through an enhanced literature review and by means of a close analysis of assumptions made within strategic entrepreneurship, but also by studying two firms and their discursive practices of constructing opportunity and advantage positions. The results have then been analysed with reference to discourse theory and previous research within entrepreneurship based on European traditions that builds on the linguistic turn.By conducting an empirical study of two firms, I have studied discourses in use, and how they are produced by people. In so doing, two main findings emerge in the discussion of the empirical results: 1) Opportunity and advantage positions emerge in social interaction and are co-constructed. 2) Opportunity and advantage positions are constructed by the use of multiple discourses, on different levels of discourse and for different functions. The main purpose of the thesis is to enhance the understanding of entrepreneurship in established firms and the activities labelled as strategic entrepreneurship. In addressing the purpose, seven theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research emerge in areas of strategic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and the enterprising self.
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| 10. |
- Johansson, Ann-Christin
(författare)
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Psychosocial factors in patients with lumbar disc herniation : enhancing postoperative outcome by the identifiction of predictive factors and optimised physiotherapy
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Psychosocial factors have been advanced as an explanation for the development of chronic disability in 20 to 30% of patients treated by lumbar disc surgery. Aims: The overall aim of this thesis was to study the role of psychosocial factors in patients undergoing first-time lumbar disc surgery in relation to the outcome of both surgery and subsequent physiotherapy. Methods: Sixty-nine patients with lumbar disc herniation undergoing first-time disc surgery participated in the studies; in addition, Study I included 162 knee patients for comparison. Psychosocial factors were assessed preoperatively, as was the activation of the physiological stress response system. Pain, disabil-ity and quality of life were assessed before, and 3 and 12 months after surgery. Coping and kinesiophobia were analysed before and one year after surgery. The results of two different postoperative training programmes were compared. Results: There were no differences between disc and knee patients regarding the presence of psychosocial stress factors preoperatively (Study I). Disc patients with low diurnal cortisol variability had lower physical function, perceived fewer possibilities to influence their pain and were more prone to catastrophise than patients with high diurnal cortisol variability (Study II). The results of clinic-based physiotherapy and home training did not differ regarding postoperative disability and pain 3 months after surgery. The home-based group had less pain and higher quality of life in comparison to the clinic-based group 12 months after surgery (Study III). Patients’ expectations of returning to work could best predict pain, disability, quality of life and sick leave one year after surgery (Study IV). Psychosocial factors were only weakly asso-ciated to pain, disability, quality of life and sick leave preoperatively. However, these associations were stronger in patients with residual pain one year after surgery. Conclusion: Psychosocial factors and, in particular, patients’ expectations regarding outcome are associated with the results of lumbar disc surgery. Assessing psychosocial factors preoperatively and developing an active home training programme after surgery could create options leading to better results for these patients.
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