This dissertation takes a sharp methodological turn from prior research on religiousness, spirituality, and culture in organizations by making advances in the study of the structure and role of workplace religio-spiritual beliefs, combining a critical review, theory building, and two empirical sections. The research is based on the premise that the study of individual psychology has yet to address the cross-cultural and domain-specific nature of religio-spiritual beliefs that come to mind naturally in everyday work situations. First, after a case is made for the study of religio-spiritual beliefs, a critical review of the literature provides a comparison of 90 content-based measurement models, and is followed by implications for improving future measurement and research. Second, a conceptual discussion recommends a way forward for a domain-specific conceptualization of religiousness and spirituality and sets a framework for improving methodology, drawing from grounded theory, integral theory, and sense-making methodology. Third, a bottom-up exploration of the religio-spiritual beliefs induced by a variety of workplace situations is conducted through interviews of informants from six major faith traditions, plus the spiritual-but-not-religious. From the analysis, workplace situations, associated beliefs, and mental modules are structured according to the four quadrants of the Workplace Integral Model, each quadrant typified by a different workplace-grounded existential dilemma. Fourth, a higher level of religio-spiritual cognition is accessed through a sense-making methodology, revealing why and how work-related thoughts, self-concepts, and experiences become imbued with religio-spiritual significance, as illustrated in eight modes arranged on a Religio-Spiritual Sense-Making Circumplex. It is hoped that these findings can help set a foundation for future progress with research methods, measurement models, and theory building focused on the religio-spiritual thoughts of a diversity of people in the workplace. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Les politiques de régulation menées en France ces dernières années conduisent l’hôpital à des transformations en profondeur pour améliorer sa performance. Les individus et les groupes doivent s'organiser pour atteindre des objectifs en commun. Disposer d’un système d’information décisionnel (SID) approprié pour mieux décider devient plus que jamais un enjeu majeur. L’appui des processus de décision de gestion est rendu possible par l’utilisation d’outils et de procédures d’aide à la décision assurant un partage et une diffusion plus importante de l’information. La compréhension de ces mécanismes appuie la thèse que l’appropriation de tels dispositifs n’est possible que par la prise en compte d’un triptyque formé de trois dimensions : la conception, l’usage et le sens. Pour illustrer ce modèle d'analyse, une étude d’un cas unique est réalisée au sein d’un hôpital pendant quatre années, et porte sur l'analyse des mécanismes d'appropriation du SID pendant la transformation de l’organisation engagée dans l’établissement. Trois résultats principaux se dégagent. Concernant l'usage, l’élargissement des parties prenantes des décisions aux pôles cliniques montre à la fois l'effet de la structure organisationnelle sur les besoins en information décisionnelle et la difficulté pour les concepteurs à gérer la pluralité des usages. Concernant la conception, l'étude met en lumière le rôle capital d’un prescripteur bien identifié, l’observatoire médico-économique, qui assigne les objectifs de création et garantie l'équilibre entre les prescriptions et les stratégies individuelles de l'ensemble des acteurs inclus dans le projet de transformation. Enfin, le résultat le plus marquant concerne le double effet de la variable « création de sens » sur les usages : effet direct à travers l'engagement des décideurs des pôles dans l’élaboration du plan stratégique de l’hôpital et indirect via le processus de conception du système coopératif d’aide à la décision. / Alongside increasing regulatory requirements in France, hospitals are conducting in-depth transformation programs in order to improve their performance. Groups and individuals need to organize themselves to achieve common goals and shared objectives. With this respect, having the right information systems to manage and steer performance has become, more than ever before, a major issue. By enabling wider information sharing and dissemination, dedicated tools and procedures are allowing hospitals making the right decisions at the right time. However, the key to an effective usage and adoption of those systems lies in a global approach that encapsulates three core dimensions: the design, the usage and the meaning. To illustrate this model, a study has been carried on a single case in a hospital for four years, focusing on the analysis of the adoption mechanisms during the transformation program conducted in the organization. Three major conclusions can be drawn. First of all, focusing on usage, the expansion of the stakeholders involved in decision-making to the clinical centers demonstrates both the impact of the organizational structure on the information needs and the challenge for designers to manage the diversity of the usage styles. About design, the study highlights the crucial role of a well-identified prescriber, the medico-economic observatory, which assigns the creation targets and ensures the balance between the requirements and the individual strategies of all actors involved in the transformation project. Finally, the most striking outcome affects the dual impact of the sense-making variable on usages: direct impact through leveraged engagement of the clinical centers directors to the strategic agenda, and indirect impact through the design process of the collaborative decision-making system itself.

Denna uppsats utgångspunkt är att undersöka intranätets möjliga påverkan på anställdas identitetsskapande där syftet är att undersöka den roll intranätet har i form av vidmakthållande och/eller upprättande av organisationsidentiteten. Detta görs genom att studera hur innehållet på intranätet genom olika kommunikationsaktiviteter och tolkningsprocesser medarbetare emellan bidrar till formningen av identiteten inom organisationen. Genom att betrakta organisationsidentitet som ett kommunikationsfenomen appliceras ett kommunikationsperspektiv på organisationer där CCO-perspektivet, genom konceptet om metakonversationer, utgör det centrala teoretiska ramverket. För denna undersökning tillämpas kvalitativa metoder. Detta görs med empiriunderlag från en fallorganisation, Försäkringskassan, där den huvudsakliga datainsamlingen består av fokusgruppsdiskussioner med medarbetare på handläggarnivå där två olika grupper undersöks. Resultaten har analyserats utifrån underliggande, kognitiva koncept och funnit att grupperna genom att agera utifrån olika synsätt på sin organisationsidentitet också väljer att ta del av olika typer av innehåll från organisationens intranät, vilket i sin tur avgör vilken roll intranätet kan anses fylla. / This thesis intends to investigate an intranet's possible impact on employee identity creation, where the aim is to study the role of the intranet in the maintenance and/or establishment of organizational identity. This is carried out by studying how published content on the intranet through various communication activities and processes of interpretation contributes to the formation of the employees’ identity within the organization. By considering organizational identity as a communication phenomenon, a communication perspective is applied to organizations where the CCO-perspective, through the concept of meta-conversations, has come to form the central theoretical framework. Qualitative methods are used for this study. The empirical findings are gathered from a case organization, Försäkringskassan, and consist of focus group discussions with administrative officials from two different groups. The results have been analyzed based on underlying cognitive concepts and indicate that the groups act based on different perceptions of their organizational identity, which have impact on what type of content they choose to take part in, something that further determines the role that the intranet can be considered to fill.

La question de la qualité des programmes de télévision est une problématique récurrente tant pour les producteurs de contenu que pour le législateur, qui en a confié le contrôle dans la loi a une institution publique, le CSA. Cependant, la notion même de qualité dans ce contexte est ambiguë, et les outils permettant de l’évaluer sont souvent réduits à la vérification du respect d’obligations contractuelles avec les diffuseurs de contenus. Le seul outil universellement utilisé reste la mesure d’audience, souvent remise en cause depuis sa première utilisation en France dans les années 80. Le téléspectateur, principal intéressé de cette démarche qualité, n’est donc considéré que dans son nombre par cette démarche statistique. Cette étude propose de changer de paradigme pour placer le téléspectateur au cœur de l’évaluation des produits audiovisuels. A partir d’une perspective aux confluents de l’énaction de Francisco Varela et de la méthode de conception relativisée de Mioara Mugur-Schächter, l’étude de l’expérience émotionnelle apporte un regard nouveau et original sur la conception de spectateur dans un cadre d’évaluation des programmes. En s’intéressant a la façon dont le téléspectateur guide sa propre perception en fonction de son histoire personnelle, de sa façon d’interpréter son environnement et de l’influence des émotions dans la construction de sa relation à l’audiovisuel, les travaux menés permettent de replacer le téléspectateur comme acteur de l’évaluation. Les entretiens réalisés démontrent ainsi l’individualité de chaque spectateur dans son approche de l’audiovisuel et la construction de critères d’évaluations qui lui sont propres, mais permettant de définir un protocole a multiples niveaux utilisable comme indicateur de la qualité de la relation à l’audiovisuel dans un contexte plus large. / The quality of television programs is a running problem for the content producers as well as the legislator in France, whom gave monitoring in the law to a public institution, the CSA. However, the very concept of quality in that context is ambiguous, and tools allowing oversight are often reduiced to the verification of owed legal duties with the content providers. The only tool universally used is the audience rating, yet often challenged since its first usage in France in the 1980s. The viewer, having a leading interest in this quality process, is only considered in its numbers by such a statistic approch. This study proposes to initiate a paradigm shift in order to place the viewer in the heart of the audiovisual product’s evaluation. Around the theories of enaction by Francisco Varela and the method of relativized conceptualization of Mioara Mugur-Schachter, the study of the emotionnal experience casts a new and original light on the conception of the viewer in a program evaluation setup. By focusing on the way the viewer guides its own perception through its personal history, its manner to interpret its environment and the influence of emotion in the construction of its relation to audiovisual products, the work exposed in this dissertation allows to place the viewer as an actor of the evaluation. The interviews carried out proove the individuality of each viewer in its personnal approach of audiovisual and the construction of criterias of its own, yet allows to define a multi-layered protocol usable as an indicator of the relation’s quality to audiovisual content in a broader context.

Redes eletrônicas e necessidades informacionais, integradas para evidenciar comportamento de busca e uso da informação e compreender o papel dessa tecnologia no ambiente universitário, são os objetivos desta tese. Dividida em três partes, enfoca primeiro o plano metodológico. A seguir, dois estudos de revisão fundamentam o trabalho: (1) rastreando a evolução de redes eletrônicas internacional e nacionalmente para sistematizar a matéria; (2) evidenciando pontos tradicionais de estudos de necessidades de informação para alcançar aqueles centrados no usuário. Na terceira parte apresenta pesquisa peculiar, em ambiente da USP cujo Instituto de Física constitui o universo de observação. Por meio do correio eletrônico é perscrutada a conduta de busca e uso da informação de 87 usuários da rede local do IFUSP, no período outubro / novembro de 1994. A abordagem metodológica utilizada é adaptada do Sense-Making de Brenda Dervin, uma abordagem alternativa ou da percepção, que tem o usuário como objeto de pesquisa. Submetidos a três tipos de análise, os resultados obtidos assim se configuram: (a) utilização das redes: tempo de experiência, freqüência, propósitos, barreiras e dificuldades, treinamentos; (b) busca e uso de informação: contexto de uso, natureza e foco das necessidades de informação, estratégias empregadas para solucionar problemas, esforço dependido para localizar respostas as necessidades, expectativa de uso da informação, recursos informacionais utilizados, completeza e satisfação com as respostas obtidas e fontes efetivas de auxílio e (c) necessidades de informação não solucionadas: contexto de uso, natureza e foco das necessidades, expectativa de uso e estratégias para solução. Ponto significativo da pesquisa foi à categorização de usuários em 4 grupos, conforme as etapas gradativas do seu desempenho no uso das redes: fase 1 descobrindo a existência das redes eletrônicas e seus benefícios; fase 2 - já utilizando as três funções básicas da rede (correio eletrônico, ftp e telnet), porém de modo restrito, apenas usufruindo mais agilmente os recursos computacionais locais; fase 3 - buscas de solução a questões imediatistas, pontuais e de caráter variado; fase 4 - uso denotando experiência, segurança nas várias funções das RE. Dessa categorização e pelas VÍ solução a questões imediatistas, pontuais e de caráter variado; fase 4 - uso denotando experiência, segurança nas várias funções das RE. \"Dessa categorização e pelas freqüências observadas em cada fase, infere-se que as redes eletrônicas têm sido utilizadas mais como um instrumento de comunicação do que real fonte de informação. Similaridades nos procedimentos de busca e uso da informação entre os grupos estudados contribuíram também para delinear o perfil de necessidades informacionais de comunidade acadêmica que utiliza redes eletrônicas. Para otimizar o uso das RE, sugere-se o desenvolvimento de estudos específicos das necessidades dos usuários; serviços pertinentes a essas necessidades; programas de capacitação de profissionais intermediários entre serviços e usuários finais, de formação em serviços e treinamento de usuários. / Electronic Networks and Information Needs are integrated in order to search information seeking behavior of the academic community and to understand the impact of this technology in the university activities. Those are the issues of this dissertation, which is presented in 3 parts. First - the methodology. Second - review studies which contain the fundamentation of this work: (1) electronic networking evolution; and (b) traditional versus oriented approach to study the user needs. Third - information seeking behavior research of the electronic networking users at the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo based in Brenda Dervin\'s Sense-Making Approach. The electronic mail was used in order to get information from 87 users of IFUSP local network. The results were submitted to three types of analysis: (a) use of the electronic network: amount of experience, frequency and purpose of use, barriers and difficulties, amount of training and context of use; (b) search and use of information: nature and entity focus, strategy used, amount of effort, resource used, user expectation and actual uses, completeness of the answers obtained, usefulness of the answers, sources that effectível y helped to find the information; (c) unsolved information needs: failure, analysis of user\'s problems when their information needs remained unsolved was performed. Users were classified in 4 groups, according their performance in networking: (1) those in discovering electronic networks benefits stage; (2) those using basic functions (email, ftp and telnet) but only locally; (3) those seeking for solutions or immediate issues; (4) expert users. From this characterization and due to the user\'s frequencies in each of these stages, an inference of IFUSP net is done: most users are just at the communication stage, not using networks as an information source. Similarities in the information seeking behavior of those IFUSPnet users contribute to outline the community user needs characterization. As suggestions in order to improve the electronic networks use, it should develop specific studies of user needs, offer users competence program and professional in service training.

政治傳播具有高度的不可確定性，傳播過程裡的訊息無時無刻地產生發出，且經常讓人感到不可捉摸，而政治則是為調和成員之間的歧異所達成約束集體決策的活動的過程。中央民意代表對於這種人與人之間的相互傳播過程尤其重視，因為這是他的日常生活與工作的情境，中央民意代表與微觀民意之關係，即是於政治傳播情境中探索人民意義認知與再現的過程，屬於政治社會化歷程。 人民除了以投票的行為表達民意之外，微觀民意，將如何成為政府治理與決策的依據呢？就本文之研究發現，微觀民意不僅具有反映公共政策且具有影響政府決策的能力，但必須仰賴訊息能有效地傳播的基礎。微觀民意如何透過政治傳播歷程形成影響公共的結果？微觀民意與中央民意代表中介者之關係？是本研究的問題意識。中央民意代表接收民意的管道來源包括大眾傳播媒體、本身與民意的互動及週遭人士所提供的訊息等，其中以公共服務所接收的民意訊息最為直接且豐沛，尤其在2008年我國中央民意代表選舉制度改為小選區制後，中央民意代表對於選區內的民意更為重視採用。 公共服務是中央民意代表與微觀民意間重要的中介工具之一，因此使用者體驗之品質評價及其關係管理，成為公共服務流程中重要的品質設計概念，敏銳的生產設計者也可能因此發現使用者的潛在需求，而發揮創新的動能，本研究在中央民意代表的公共服務中，藉由10,000小時以上傳播互動、超過2,000組個案，統計分析微觀民意樣態，以了解使用者實證經驗與評價，以實證質性研究歸納出民意需求的實質內容，整合量化之研究，提出本文之論述：中央民意代表與微觀民意之意義建構在公共服務歷程中共構，形成影響公共的政治傳播。 從微觀民意觀點，探討中央民意代表公共服務之品質，其變項由公共服務品質、信任（滿意度）、政治效能感、忠誠度及形象五個構面加以檢證，公共服務品質之因子包括便利度、可靠度、溝通度、專業度及關懷力五個子構面。研究結果與假設吻合，公共服務品質自變項與應變項各構面間具有相關性及關聯度，且信任(滿意度)為公共服務品質與政治效能感之中介變項。 此外，本研究之重要發現為，在公共服務品質中影響「政治效能感」的評價主要因素為「信任」，而「信任」的建立又奠基於公共服務之「專業度」與「關懷力」，微觀民意因此必須在具有理解的「情感認知」對話情境中，公共服務者提供具有「法理專業」素養對現行公共政策缺陷與潛在需求的「意義建構」澄題與諮商歷程，公共服務品質流程中之「關懷力」評價，對於中央民意代表之「忠誠度」具有重要影響力。 微觀民意鑲嵌公共服務與中央民意代表之政治傳播歷程將因此有新的意義建構，連結並影響巨觀體制的公共的能力，公共服務品質之管理方法論，必須建置以公共利益為軸心之流程設計概念中，注入細緻的創新元素「關懷力」及「專業度」，使人際與語意傳播之意義建構在具政治信任及政治效能感成份之公共服務流程中，微觀民意得以發揮對於巨觀的社會體制產生影響與改變的能力，使百姓與國家治理者產生有效對話機制。

<p>The focus of this dissertation is on how communication regarding work environment and work related risks can be understood from an organizational communication perspective. Based on a case study of communication about work environment and work related risks in the Swedish forest industry, the present study discusses institutional influences on organizational sense making processes. A central question has been how to understand the organizational field as a cultural and communicative arena where concepts and ideas connected with issues in the field are communicated between different actors.</p><p>The empirical data was gathered using different methods. A questionnaire aiming at screening media habits and information gathering strategies of forest machine contractors was used. Based on information from that screening, mass media content was analysed, such as daily newspapers, trade press and advertisements for forest machines. Also, interviews with actors in the field were analysed thematically with respect to how to unveil hidden key symbols and cultural valuations of forest machine work, the work environment and how to handle work related risks in forest work. The key symbols that were identified to organise conceptions about forest work and occupational risks connected with it contained information about different attitudes towards how to handle risks and other problems in the work environment. Two main types of conceptions were identified, technologically oriented conceptions and person oriented conceptions.</p><p>The analysis revealed a fragmented picture of forest work. Yet, the picture was more or less common to the organizational field as a whole. Building on institutional theory and theories of sense making, the study results in a deeper understanding of sense making in relation to work environmental issues by applying an organizational dimension to risk communication in an organizational field.</p>

The focus of this dissertation is on how communication regarding work environment and work related risks can be understood from an organizational communication perspective. Based on a case study of communication about work environment and work related risks in the Swedish forest industry, the present study discusses institutional influences on organizational sense making processes. A central question has been how to understand the organizational field as a cultural and communicative arena where concepts and ideas connected with issues in the field are communicated between different actors. The empirical data was gathered using different methods. A questionnaire aiming at screening media habits and information gathering strategies of forest machine contractors was used. Based on information from that screening, mass media content was analysed, such as daily newspapers, trade press and advertisements for forest machines. Also, interviews with actors in the field were analysed thematically with respect to how to unveil hidden key symbols and cultural valuations of forest machine work, the work environment and how to handle work related risks in forest work. The key symbols that were identified to organise conceptions about forest work and occupational risks connected with it contained information about different attitudes towards how to handle risks and other problems in the work environment. Two main types of conceptions were identified, technologically oriented conceptions and person oriented conceptions. The analysis revealed a fragmented picture of forest work. Yet, the picture was more or less common to the organizational field as a whole. Building on institutional theory and theories of sense making, the study results in a deeper understanding of sense making in relation to work environmental issues by applying an organizational dimension to risk communication in an organizational field.

This study within organization theory takes a process perspective and focuses on how the dialectic interaction between the structuring and improvisational parts of organizing is handled in construction sites. In studies of organizing where reality is seen as socially constructed with focus on the subjective source of organizations reality, the individuals understanding of the identity and the rolecan be seen as central to interpret the social processes. Depending on how the actors understand their role in the context, the acting/interacting is going to beinfluenced. In times when the different orders of organizing have contrastingcontents the understanding of the role and the context is going to challenge. The actors then have to consider and reconsider the understanding of the role.To make the identification perspective possible to study a theoretical framework is constructed where community, meetings, insecurity and sense making arehighlighted as important aspects in the identification process. The empirical partis based on narratives from ten construction clients. The narratives were initiatedby descriptions of four situations, describing four occurrences, which provide four different attitudes to how the dialectic interaction between different ordersof organizing can be handled. The analysis of the narratives is based on how theactors in there argumentation express doubt and faith. Expression of doubt andfaith is used as tools to make the identification process concrete to be possible tostudy in a fruitful way.The study points out how doubt and faith are used to create pictures of the actors understanding of the role and its context. The analysis gives three identificationpatterns. The characteristics and content of the patterns are different whichinclude a difference between the understandings of the tension in the dialecticinteraction of different organizing orders. We can therefore say that the threepatterns give different starting points for action and interaction. Finally the implications of the results from the study are discussed in relation to management accounting and organizational change. / QC 20100811

Planning maps are not only, as is often silently assumed by planners, neutral technical tools to assist them in their design and analytical tasks or to communicate their findings to others. In complex multi-stakeholder planning processes maps are also inherently coloured representations of knowledge, the outcomes a specific way of learning resulting from the activity of mapping itself, and discursive means through which norms and interests are promoted as objective truths. This thesis research explored how members of a local stakeholder group representing farm business made sense out of, and judged the data quality of planning maps in a combined highway planning and environmental impact study in southern Ontario, executed by the province’s Ministry of Transportation. More specifically it was concerned with how participants evaluated the cartographic representation issues of interest to them in the context of a mayor decision in the transportation study: the location of the highway route, in which both its existing route and new route sections through rural lands were options. The research instruments were a map review workshop and a questionnaire. This research was theoretically underpinned by a framework that integrates three fields of knowledge: cartographic theory, planning theory, and theory on knowledge and sensemaking. The framework served as a sensitizing concept for the analysis and interpretation of the observations obtained from research participants. All three fields were explored with an emphasis on social constructivist understandings which facilitated the understanding of situations characterized by complexity and ambiguity where certain and objective knowledge becomes impossible and where the perspectives and interests of multiple stakeholders come to the foreground. The spatial data on the study cartography in general was judged as correct. The big exception was the data on water-related phenomena. Here participants, although they were familiar with the area, had access to the reviewed cartography for more than two years, and were well aware of the importance of water-related issues in the decision-making process, only during the workshop became aware that the data, recently released by an official data source, were strongly outdated. The findings confirmed the usefulness for planning processes of the simple review procedure followed in the workshop. The process of sensemaking by participants focussed strongly on two areas. First, the central issue of the group: the recognition of agriculture as strong and relevant business deserving recognition equal to urban businesses. Second, on an issue that was not part of the goals of the study, the identification of needs for compensation, not only for loss of assets, but also for ongoing increases of operational costs. Participants, in contrast to the study’s thematically organized overlay analysis which resulted in a fragmented determination of impacts based on readily available public information, emphasized the need to use the farm (business) as a functional whole against which to measure impacts, considering its overall operation and viability. In the workshop it became clear that determining impacts on a complex entity like a farm is equally complex, and hard to map in a comprehensive way. Using maps not for a comprehensive analysis but for learning by illustration or example, however, offers opportunities in these cases. In practice this would require a review of what is considered as legitimate knowledge in formal decision-making. Participants attitudes towards (the representation of) nature showed to widely divergent, and attachment to place was virtually not touched upon. The emphasis on agribusiness seemed to stem not only from material interests, but was also strongly related to identity. Participants judged that the study cartography reflected a strong urban bias. They found that agriculture was underrepresented compared to urban economic and ecological interests and sometimes also misrepresented. Numerous suggestions were made to include new layers of data in the cartography, and to visually emphasize already included data related to agriculture. Although some information was found as redundant, is was above all the lack of more detailed information on agriculture and agribusiness that participants emphasized as issues they would like to see corrected. Whereas some data on some issues where emphasized as missing altogether, in other cases, notably in drainage, participants emphasized missing complementary perspectives. Information suggested by participants to be included mostly served to emphasize the importance of the agricultural sector as a whole and to spare it from impacts, but would create both technical and political difficulties if it were to be used for the comparison between different route options through rural lands. Different types of metaphors played an important role in the sensemaking process by the participants. Some participants followed more rational approaches to sensemaking that emphasized the correctness and information content of the data, while others seemed to be stronger ware of the strategic-discursive role of the maps. Many participants judged the study cartography as little explicit and highly ambiguous in many aspects, an observation for which a plausible explanation is the MTO’s needs to make decisions not only based on technical evaluations, but also taking into account strong informal political forces which required the study team to be able to review its positions if necessary and justify them largely based on the maps. Based on the research some recommendations for better public map use are suggested in order to make better use of the potential of cartography in planning to facilitate learning and mediation between multiple perspectives and interest. Future research, using anthropological methods, observing the process of creation and use of maps in planning in action is suggested as important to move beyond the limitations of perspectives that emphasize maps as representations.