Steadfast is an expression of dance as an emotional and spiritual experience, as well as an exploration of the deep connections that may be fostered through the art form of dance. My personal experience, which will function as inspiration for this choreographic piece and performance, has led me to see dance as a means to connect with God when used as worship and a way to connect with other people and form meaningful relationships. Through the production and execution of this performing art, I hope to explore and experience these aspects of dance as well as my own personal journey. I learned a vast measure about myself in my four years of college that led to the development of who I am today. This composition is meant to mirror some of the emotions that I experienced in my time of growth; however, I don’t want my piece to try to tell a story or follow a sequence of events. Instead, I hope this dance provides the audience with more of a deep, emotional, and spiritual dive into the places that my heart and soul went during this time-period. Steadfast means so much to me, and as the culminating artistic presentation in my college career, I want to use my growth as an artist and individual to display an array of emotions to the audience. The dance is a cry for help and surrender, but it also expresses the feelings of joy, love, and hope that one might feel when they make it through a valley and find themselves standing on a mountaintop. This ensuing written work is a narrative of the choreographic process and explanation of the inspiration behind the production of my thesis, Steadfast.

Yes / Sida requested the Helpdesk to review and analyse the direct and indirect implications of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 for the portfolio of programmes supported by Sida in the Eastern Partnership Region (EaP) and in Russia; taking into account the Results Strategies for Sweden’s support to these regions and countries.

In the early 2000s, the world witnessed the emergence of a new variant of the juridical entity whose fundamental characteristic is the conjunction between public and private actors with the intention of delivering public infrastructures that otherwise would be impossible to realise. This new variant came to be known as the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Since then, it has taken centre stage in development discourse assuming academic and practical importance due to the perceived role it plays in global development. Although research interest in PPP contracts has increased globally, only a few studies focus on the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. The present study contributes by filling in this gap and providing a comparative perspective on the regimes of the PPP contract in Mozambique and South Africa. While PPPs may provide much needed infrastructure to meet the needs of end users, this often comes at considerable cost. The fiscal cost and distributional implications of PPPs are accentuated when compared with state borrowing. In addition, when it comes to risk management, all those risks that are supposedly transferred to a private operator are never truly transferred and, in the end, the government is always the residual risk holder should the PPP consortium fail. Far from freeing resources to be invested in other poverty reduction programmes, PPPs can absorb funds that could have been devoted directly to such programmes. In the end, rather than compensating for weak state capacity it places significant extra demands on it. These contradictions call into question the merits of promoting PPPs to overcome developing countries' public service financing gap, as the evidence clearly suggests that PPPs often have tended to be more expensive than their public procurement alternative, and in a number of instances they have failed to deliver the envisaged gains. The research in both jurisdictions has also analysed context-specific factors capable of jeopardising the successful implementation of PPP contracts. These include non-streamlined regulatory frameworks, state capacity constraints, weak integrity systems, and corruption. The key recommendation drawn from the research is that in order for the PPPs to be able to harness their full potential and deliver on expected gains, substantial regulatory and institutional reforms are needed in both jurisdictions studied.

<p>Several organizations in the public and private sectors find partnership projects as a valuable means to implement their organizational strategy. Several of these projects span over diverse sectors and have partnerships involving multiple organizations located in different geographical locations. One type of such partnerships is the Public Private Partnership (PPP), which involves collaborations with partners coming from public and private sectors to meet predefined goals. Such collaborative projects with multiple partners and diverse backgrounds face a number of management challenges in working towards mutually set goals.  The focus of this research is on the challenges encountered in partnerships in achieving common goals for PPP projects in e-Governance.</p><p>Specifically, the purpose of the research was to answer (1) What are the partnership challenges in achieving common goals in PPP projects in e-Governance? (2) How can these challenges be overcome? After critical review of literature on relevant topics, a case study methodology was adopted using semi-structured interviews as data collection technique in an attempt to answer the research questions. Two PPP projects in e-Governance with intangible outputs were chosen as cases for the study, namely, (1) Wild life Environment Monitoring System (WEMS) developed by the United Nations University and being implemented in India and (2) the Stamps and Registration Information Technology Based Administration (SARITA) being implemented in the Maharashtra State of India. An online survey with a quantitative approach was used as a tool for triangulation to substantiate the results and findings from the qualitative analysis of data collected from the case studies.</p><p>At the end of the study, the challenges encountered in partnerships for PPP projects in e-Governance and the measures taken to overcome the challenges were identified. A framework has been developed from the findings of this study is expected to contribute to a certain extent in developing a theoretical basis for defining the characteristics of partnerships and in understanding how partnering organizations work to achieve common goals in PPPs. The practical and theoretical implications will have an impact on how we could go about studying this type of partnership and also in understanding how to develop and manage the partnerships for attaining mutually agreed upon goals.</p>

Several organizations in the public and private sectors find partnership projects as a valuable means to implement their organizational strategy. Several of these projects span over diverse sectors and have partnerships involving multiple organizations located in different geographical locations. One type of such partnerships is the Public Private Partnership (PPP), which involves collaborations with partners coming from public and private sectors to meet predefined goals. Such collaborative projects with multiple partners and diverse backgrounds face a number of management challenges in working towards mutually set goals.  The focus of this research is on the challenges encountered in partnerships in achieving common goals for PPP projects in e-Governance. Specifically, the purpose of the research was to answer (1) What are the partnership challenges in achieving common goals in PPP projects in e-Governance? (2) How can these challenges be overcome? After critical review of literature on relevant topics, a case study methodology was adopted using semi-structured interviews as data collection technique in an attempt to answer the research questions. Two PPP projects in e-Governance with intangible outputs were chosen as cases for the study, namely, (1) Wild life Environment Monitoring System (WEMS) developed by the United Nations University and being implemented in India and (2) the Stamps and Registration Information Technology Based Administration (SARITA) being implemented in the Maharashtra State of India. An online survey with a quantitative approach was used as a tool for triangulation to substantiate the results and findings from the qualitative analysis of data collected from the case studies. At the end of the study, the challenges encountered in partnerships for PPP projects in e-Governance and the measures taken to overcome the challenges were identified. A framework has been developed from the findings of this study is expected to contribute to a certain extent in developing a theoretical basis for defining the characteristics of partnerships and in understanding how partnering organizations work to achieve common goals in PPPs. The practical and theoretical implications will have an impact on how we could go about studying this type of partnership and also in understanding how to develop and manage the partnerships for attaining mutually agreed upon goals.

Zugl.: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2008.

De största affärsjuridiska advokatbyråerna i Sverige har genomgått stora förändringar de senaste decennierna och advokatens yrkesroll är i förändring. Byråerna har blivit mer professionella i strukturen, men dess ägandeform har länge förblivit oförändrad. Ägandeformen består av ett delägarskap vilket innebär att advokatbyrån ägs av ett antal advokater som även är anställda på samma byrå. Den potentiella vinsten fördelas i slutet av varje år mellan delägarna, vilket sker på olika sätt vid olika vinstdelningssystem. Fallföretaget i vår studie förändrade vid årsskiftet 2014 sitt vinstdelningssystem till ett equal partnership. Vi har i studien undersökt varför fallföretaget valt att byta vinst- delningssystem och hur förändringen påverkat användningen av andra ekonomi- styrningssystem. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av Malmi och Browns (2008) ramverk över ekonomistyrningssystem som ett paket och Andersons (2001) ramverk över olika vinstdelningssystem. Insamling av data omfattas av en intervjustudie med fyra delägare på fallföretaget samt en enkätundersökning med 13 delägare. Studiens resultat tyder på att ett förändrat vinstdelningssystem var en förutsättning för att utnyttja byråns fulla potential. Vidare ställer ett equal partnership högre krav på användning av övriga ekonomistyrningssystem, då incitamenten i belönings- och kompensationssystemet har förändrats.

Faith communities are often used as used as sites for health promotion research and the leaders of those faith communities play an important role in successful campus/faith community partnerships. This study examined (a) faith leaders’ definitions of health, (b) ways in which faith leaders envision campus/faith community partnerships to be structured, and (c) faith leaders’ perceptions of the roles that faith leaders may assume in such partnerships. Grounded theory methodology was used. In depth interviews were conducted with ten clergy members. The findings revealed that clergy embraced a holistic definition of health. They expressed a desire to participate in studies that resulted in improved health and contributed to improved relationships with the university. The clergy’s perceived roles in research that emerged from this study were (a) provide approval, (b) recruit participants, (c) identify volunteers, (d) lend influence, (e) keep information flowing, (f) serve as spiritual teacher/educator, and (g) provide input on the study design. A theory of the process of negotiating clergy roles emerged from the data. This theory suggests that the process of negotiating clergy roles is a fluid and iterative process that occurs at several phases of the research process from entertaining a proposal to participate in research through conducting the study. Implications for researchers include (a) investing time to develop relationships with faith communities, (b) identifying the importance of a holistic definition of health, (c) maintaining flexibility regarding the roles clergy may assume, and (d) identifying links between study objectives and the mission of the congregation.

‘Partnership’ has become a buzzword in development circles. The term is used to describe almost any relationship that pools the resources of different actors to address societal challenges and concerns. Because it encompasses such a broad range of perspectives, the contention of this thesis is that partnership can only be fully understood in relation to practice. A critical assessment of a selection of my research publications is used to explore how partnership is interpreted in different contexts, why and by whom, and to what extent it might offer possibilities for achieving social progress. This review finds that partnership can be construed as both a structure and a process, and as a means to an end and an end in itself. Attention thus needs to be given to its instrumental value as a development tool and to its intrinsic worth in cementing social capital. Consideration is given to connections between these different forms of partnership and other development ‘solutions’; the complex interplay between external, organisational and individual drivers for multi-stakeholder collaboration, and evidence for the benefits of working in this way. This analysis reveals that it is hard to judge the effectiveness of partnership due to the complexity of different levels of interaction; lack of clarity on goals and motivations for partnering; and, because process-related results generally emerge in the long term, attribution is a challenge. It is thus suggested that assessments of partnership might more usefully focus on methodologies that enhance its potential to generate individual and societal value. The attributes of such ‘transformational’ arrangements, and how these compare with other collaborative connections, are examined using a typology that builds upon a transactional-transformational partnership continuum. Further investigation into the nature of stakeholder participation, and related power dynamics, indicates that partnership can both promote and embody social progress when participation is carefully facilitated by ‘partnership brokers’; embedded in sociohistoric contexts, and based upon open-ended dialogue processes that seek to comprehend different points of view rather than change them. In order to explore this potential more fully, as well as continued research into particular partnership experiences and possible alternatives, more imaginative exchanges of knowledge about working in this way are recommended.

The forward march of biobanking creates the need for an alternative approach to biobank governance. Biobanking encourages medical advancement by making the conduct of health-related research more efficient, by minimising physical harms to participants, and by facilitating personalised medicine and greater understandings of disease. Nonetheless, its characteristics that distinguish it from general health-related research often give rise to many ethical and social issues. For example, multiple and unexpected uses of biobank resources can render conventional informed consent inadequate for safeguarding participants and maintaining public trust and confidence. Also, because the size of a biobank cohort is normally large, biobanking usually requires considerable management resources and this can mean that biobanks can likely be financially dependent upon for-profit entities. This dependency can cause concern among participants and publics about commercial exploitation. These issues suggest that a new approach to biobank governance is required to address them. Indeed, their complexity and the sheer longevity of biobanking itself also suggest that it is relatively feasible and coherent to address them by focusing on a relationship between participants and biobankers. This involves many aspects of interaction and reflects an element of continuity, which is crucial to biobanking success, as opposed to one-off measures. Consequently, with the aim of addressing issues that arise from biobanking, this thesis offers an analysis of the participant-biobanker relationship that can deal with these issues. Such a relationship constitutes an authentic research relationship in biobanking (“ARR”). Based on this premise, the main research question of my thesis is to ask: What form of research relationship is appropriate for effective and ethical biobanking practices? Three sub-questions are raised to solve this top-level research question. They start with a normative question of why the ARR proposed in this thesis is desirable for biobanking. The next sub-question asks what this ARR should look like from a conceptual perspective. For a practical respect on my proposals, the last sub-question concerns the ways in which the ARR can be fostered in practice. To address these research questions, my thesis first establishes the main characteristics of the proposed ARR as the fundamental notion thereof. These main characteristics are used to answer the first sub-question. For the second sub-question, the thesis suggests that the ARR should be based on the concept of partnership, as opposed to solidarity, mainly because partnership can exhibit the main characteristics of the ARR – as argued – and can also be prescribed in a governance manner. The thesis then uses partnership as a basis for proposing the key features of the ARR, which are deemed to be a conceptual framework for the ARR. To answer the last sub-question, the thesis uses this conceptual framework to propose a partnership model for biobank governance that can be used to develop the ARR in practice. My original contribution is to propose a novel approach to an ARR, and this ARR is based on the concept of partnership. In other words, my thesis argues that the pursuit of the ARR, which looks like a partnership relationship, is an important element of biobanking success. In this respect, my thesis is about a sociologically informed role for partnership in biobank governance. It also provides a nuanced epistemological grounding for a participant-biobanker relationship in both conceptual and practical ways. From a philosophical perspective, my thesis proposes an ethical framework for biobank governance that perceives partnership as a virtuous trait for biobankers and provides rules for acquiring this trait through biobanking practices. Notably, it is argued that this partnership is not – nor need it be – the legal paradigm of partnership, which fundamentally refers to for-profit business association. While law might have a role to play in facilitating the development of the ARR, it cannot prescribe the ARR nor should it attempt to do so.