Domination in the software application industry has been an issue since its early years. But how do these situations of market domination come into existence? This thesis discusses conventional approaches towards understanding market domination and their inherent weaknesses. As a result a new understanding, based on Actor-Network-Theory and Capital Theory unfolds, which achieves the uncovering of a much deeper complexity on how market domination comes into existence.

Abstract The present environmental anthropological study explores the premises and views of forest owners regarding different stages of forest management and factors affecting forest management by interviewing 24 owners of forest in the Northern Ostrobothnia region during 2005-2007. In addition, the views of forestry professionals were examined, mainly by using interviews from the ”Forest Professionals During Forestry’s Period of Transition” project collected during 1999-2002. The collected qualitative data was mostly employed in order to examine processes of reasoning in connection to both periodic- and continuous-cover silviculture. The views of the forest owners were compared to the Forestry Development Centre Tapio’s Forest Management Practice Recommendations. The research source materials also included the official documents from four cases involving forest regeneration and forest harvest sites in different parts of Finland during 2004-2008. The analysis in this study employs three perspectives, namely those of political ecology, cognitive anthropology and actor-network theory. When exploring the views of forest owners from the perspective of political ecology, these perspectives were examined as a part of the historical development of forestry and the discussion on forests in Finland. By applying the concept of cultural models from cognitive anthropology, two generalising models of thought were recognised in the interview material: an established model of forest management and an alternative model of forest management. The established model of forest management followed the management policy presented in the Forest Management Practice Recommendations. The alternative model of forest management diverged from the recommendations, but only in part. Views regarding what is natural, the implementation of different stages of forest management and how financial profitability is achieved from the forest owners’ point of view were, to some extent, different in these two models. However, it was not possible to identify the views of the interviewees as belonging entirely to one of the models only. The actor-network theory was particularly efficient in analysing court case documents in which the different views on forest management that were found in the cultural models become established. Based on the criticism presented in the source materials, it can be said that the differing views and needs of forest owners should be acknowledged in forest administration with greater versatility than is done at present. / Tiivistelmä Tässä ympäristöantropologisessa tutkimuksessa selvitettiin metsänomistajien perusteluita ja käsityksiä metsänhoidon vaiheista ja metsänhoitoon vaikuttavista tekijöistä haastattelemalla 24 Pohjois-Pohjanmaalla metsää omistavaa metsänomistajaa vuosina 2005–2007. Myös metsäalan ammattilaisten käsityksiä selvitettiin käyttäen aineistona lähinnä vuosina 1999–2002 kerättyjä ”Metsäammatit metsätalouden murroksessa” -hankkeen haastatteluita. Laadullisen aineiston avulla selvitettiin erityisesti jaksolliseen ja jatkuvaan metsänkasvatukseen liittyvää päättelyä. Metsänomistajien käsityksiä verrattiin Metsätalouden kehittämiskeskus Tapion hyvän metsänhoidon suosituksiin. Aineistona olivat myös neljän eri puolilla Suomea tapahtuneen metsänuudistamista ja hakkuita koskeneen oikeustapauksen asiakirja-aineistot vuosilta 2004–2008. Analyysissä hyödynnettiin kolmea näkökulmaa: poliittista ekologiaa, kognitiivista antropologiaa ja toimijaverkkoteoriaa. Poliittisen ekologian näkökulmassa metsänomistajien käsityksiä tarkasteltiin osana Suomen metsätalouden ja metsäkeskustelun historiallista kehitystä. Kognitiivisen antropologian kulttuuristen mallien käsitettä käyttäen haastatteluaineistosta nostettiin esiin kaksi yleistävää ajattelumallia: vaihtoehtoisen metsänhoidon malli ja vakiintuneen metsänhoidon malli. Vakiintuneen metsänhoidon malli mukaili Hyvän metsänhoidon suosituksissa esitettyä metsänhoidon linjaa. Vaihtoehtoisen metsänhoidon malli erosi suosituksista osittain. Käsitykset metsänhoidon luonnonmukaisuudesta, metsänhoidon vaiheiden toteutuksesta ja taloudellisen kannattavuuden muodostumisesta metsänomistajien kannalta poikkesivat näissä malleissa toisistaan joiltakin osin. Haastateltujen käsityksiä ei voinut jaotella aina kaikilta osiltaan vain toiseen malliin kuuluvaksi. Toimijaverkkoteoria jäsensi erityisesti oikeustapausaineistoja, joissa tiivistyivät kulttuurisissa malleissa esiintyneet käsitykset metsänhoidosta. Aineistossa esitetyn kritiikin pohjalta metsähallinnoinnissa olisi huomioitava metsänomistajien vaihtelevat käsitykset ja tarpeet entistä monipuolisemmin.

Abstract The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the process of change in management accounting in public-sector health care. The change is examined through the implementation of a nationally homogeneous Diagnosis Related Grouping (DRG) system. The DRG system is used to classify health-care diagnoses into groups for service productisation and pricing. The system has been proposed as a solution for cost accounting and budgeting. The practical motivation of the dissertation is to analyse the embedding of change in organisations´ practises. The theoretical motivation of the dissertation is to extend the investigation of change by analysing the process of implementation of a nationally homogeneous system. The research data comprise 39 interviews conducted between 2006 and 2011 with hospital district representatives, the representatives of the company managing the DRG system, the DRG system supplier, and the representatives of the National Institute for Health and Welfare and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities. In addition to interviews, the data consists of participative observations, telephone inquiries, and newspaper articles. This dissertation consists of four essays that analyse the data through the lens of two theories: the Actor Network (ANT) and Institutional theory (NIS). The results indicate how the use of multiple theories (ANT ja NIS) as a methodology enriches and extends the insight into the change process in management accounting. For instance, the analysis of the homogeneous use of the DRG system, without investigating the practices of actors by making use of the ANT, the results could have been different in this respect. Especially, this dissertation indicates how important it is that actors’ actions are also examined in the processes of change in the implementation of public-sector management accounting systems. The idea for the DRG system was introduced to Finland almost twenty years ago. However, the results indicate that it has spread very slowly. According to earlier research, an institutional environment is considered to exercise pressure on organisations in order to make them adopt new practices that are homogeneous with other institutional practices. There is indirect pressure in decentralised health care in Finland, though its power for change is weak. This dissertation shows how the decentralisation of responsibilities in large-scale institutions, such as the health-care system in Finland, also slows down and decentralises reforms. As institutional power becomes weaker, the power of organisations to promote things seems to grow stronger, however. / Tiivistelmä Tämän väitöskirjatyön tarkoituksena on analysoida johdon laskentatoimen muutosprosessia julkisen sektorin terveydenhoidossa. Muutosta tarkastellaan kansallisesti yhtenäisen diagnoosiperustaisen ryhmittelyjärjestelmän (Diagnosis Related Grouping, DRG) käyttöönottoprosessin kautta. DRG on järjestelmä, jossa luokitellaan terveydenhoidon diagnoosit ryhmiin palvelujen tuotteistusta ja hinnoittelua varten. Järjestelmää on esitetty ratkaisuna kustannuslaskentaan ja budjetointiin. Väitöskirjatyön käytännön motivaationa on analysoida muutoksen asettumista organisaatioiden käytäntöihin. Väitöskirjatyön teoreettisena motivaationa on laajentaa muutostutkimusta tarkastelemalla kansallisesti yhtenäisen järjestelmän käyttöönottoa. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu 39 haastattelusta, joita on kerätty vuosien 2006 ja 2011 välillä. Tutkimuksessa on haastateltu sairaanhoitopiirien henkilökuntaa, DRG-järjestelmän hallinnoiman yhtiön edustajia, järjestelmän toimittajaa, Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitoksen sekä Kuntaliiton edustajia. Aineisto sisältää haastattelujen lisäksi osallistuvaa havainnointia, puhelinkyselyjä sekä lehtiartikkeleita. Tämä väitöskirjatyö koostuu neljästä esseestä, joissa analysoidaan aineistoa kahden eri teorian, toimijaverkostoteorian (ANT) ja institutionaalisen teorian (NIS), avulla. Tulokset tuovat esille, kuinka kahden teorian (ANT ja NIS) metodologinen käyttö rikastuttaa ja laajentaa näkemystä johdon laskentatoimen muutosprosessista. Esimerkiksi analysoitaessa DRG-järjestelmän yhtenäistä käyttöä tutkimatta toimijoiden toimintaa toimijaverkostoteoriaa hyödyntäen, tulokset voisivat tältä osin olla erilaiset. Erityisesti tämä väitöskirjatyö osoittaa, kuinka tärkeää julkisen sektorin johdon laskentajärjestelmien käyttöönoton muutosprosessia tutkittaessa on tutkia myös toimijoiden toimintaa. Idea DRG-järjestelmästä esitettiin Suomessa melkein kaksikymmentä vuotta sitten. Tulokset osoittavat kuitenkin, että sen leviäminen on ollut hyvin hidasta. Aikaisempien tutkimusten mukaan institutionaalisen ympäristön katsotaan painostavan organisaatioita, jotta ne ottaisivat käyttöön uusia menetelmiä, jotka ovat yhdenmukaiset muiden institutionaalisten käytänteiden kanssa. Suomen hajautetussa terveydenhoidossa esitetään epäsuoraa painetta, mutta sen voima muutokseen ei ole vahva. Väitöskirjatyö tuo esille miten suurien instituutioiden, kuten Suomen terveydenhoidon, vastuun hajautuessa myös reformit hidastuvat ja hajautuvat. Institutionaalisten voimien heikentyessä organisaatioiden voima ajaa asioita näyttää kuitenkin vahvistuvan.

This study presents an analysis of the processes of representation and translation involved in the practice of the Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience (VAE), or Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning, in a French University. This analysis is based on a qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with VAE candidates, advisers and academic staff, and recorded interactions between candidates and their advisers, and the validation juries. The research was at first influenced by the life history and educational biographies perspective (Josso 2001; Dominicé 2002; Pineau 2002), which privileged a dialogic approach. This has led to the decision to let the candidates tell their story of ordering struggle, where the resistance, dissidence and controversies circulate within and around the VAE ‘object’. This study is interested in the ordering modes enacted through the VAE and their relational effects with subjectivities. The analysis draws on Callon’s (1986) four moments of translation, as a way to give an initial frame of reference for the research. It presents the actors’ voices in a sequence of accounts, disrupted by the researcher’s running commentaries. It also focusses on the role the portfolio plays in ‘ordering’ the heterogeneous elements of the candidates’ lives, subjecting them to a form of ‘disciplinary writing’ through ‘technologies of the self’, whereby subjectivities are mobilised into specific modes of ordering. It analyses how the VAE becomes a stabilized network (Star 1991), insisting on speaking with a unitary voice, erasing the multiplicity of selves and the messy realities of the candidates’ lives, until the heterogeneous elements of the network escape again. Finally the study seeks to investigate further the recognition of heterogeneity, the possibility of multiplicity of cultures and agencies, multiple identities.

Les raves sont des événements festifs gagnant en popularité chez des jeunes adultes qui y consomment des drogues pour un usage récréatif. Cette consommation chez des jeunes qui sont généralement en bonne santé engendre une morbidité et une mortalité évitables. Des recherches menées depuis les 20 dernières années suggèrent de déployer des interventions de réduction des méfaits dans les raves, sans toutefois élaborer les conditions de l’environnement qui sont favorables à une telle pratique. Le but de cette recherche est de décrire l’environnement physique et social de raves publiques de grande envergure afin d’identifier des repères pouvant contribuer à l’introduction d’une pratique infirmière de proximité de réduction des méfaits dans un tel milieu. Cette recherche exploratoire de type qualitatif descriptif interprétatif (Thorne, 2016) s’appuie sur des repères théoriques du cadre socio-écologique de Bronfenbrenner (1979) et sur la Théorie de l’Acteur-réseau. Située dans un champ épistémologique constructiviste pragmatiste, cette étude comporte une entrée progressive sur le terrain de trois raves publiques de type festival de musique électronique dans la grande région de Montréal, Canada en 2016-2017, et un processus itératif de collecte et d’analyse de données. Le constat principal de la recherche est que l’environnement physique et social du type de rave étudié comporte une dynamique de plaisir surveillé au travers de laquelle les divers acteurs en interaction poursuivent des intérêts différents qui se traduisent par des méfaits potentiels ou réels à réduire. Ainsi, pour concevoir une pratique infirmière de proximité de réduction des méfaits qui soit viable, il s’agirait d’en assurer la contextualisation par l’analyse attentive des interactions qui lient les acteurs et leurs usages d’objets matériaux ou symboliques dans l’espace physique de la rave. Comprendre le rôle, l’identité, la position sociale et les atouts de chaque acteur permettrait de se situer à l’interface de divers intérêts et méfaits à réduire. La pratique infirmière de proximité de réduction des méfaits dans une rave serait ainsi celle d’un acteur stratégique à l’interface d’un complexe de méfaits à réduire dans l’optique de création de nouvelles ententes de collaboration. Partant de l’idée que l’environnement est constitutif de la pratique infirmière, cette recherche répond au besoin de développer des connaissances sur le concept d’Environnement dans la discipline. / Raves are festive events that are increasingly popular among young adults. Recreational drug use among young adults that are otherwise known as healthy, has been associated with avoidable morbidity and mortality. Research conducted over the last 20 years suggests the implementation of harm reduction initiatives in raves. However, little is known as to how this particular environment could be conducive to such interventions. The purpose of this research is to describe the physical and social environment of large-scale public raves in order to identify conditions that could be favourable to the introduction of a harm reduction nursing outreach practice in this setting. An interpretive and descriptive qualitative research design (Thorne, 2016) based on Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological framework (1979), Actor-Network Theory concepts and pragmatic constructivist epistemology, was conducted in the greater Montreal area, Canada, in 2016-2017. Gradual entry into the three public raves that qualify as “electronic music festivals” was combined with an iterative process of data collection and analysis. The main finding of this exploratory study is that the physical and social environment of large-scale public raves comprises a dynamic coupling of pleasure and surveillance interactions through which diverse actors each pursue different interests. These interests convey, respectively, different kinds of potential or actual harms to reduce. Thus, a viable harm reduction nursing outreach practice would require careful analysis of the interactions that connect actors with the material or symbolic objects that they use in the physical confines of the rave to ensure its contextualisation in this particular environment. Close attention to the role, identity, social position, and potential assets of each actor could help nurses to situate themselves at the interface of various interests and harms to reduce. A rave located harm reduction nursing outreach practice would then appear as strategic action, at the interface of a nexus of harms to reduce, that attempts to build collaborative arrangements. Taking on the idea that environments are constitutive of nursing practice, this study recognises the need to further develop disciplinary knowledge about the concept of Environment in nursing.

The subject of this diploma thesis is Dialogical acting with the inner partner, which understands itself as psychosomatic introspective and self-developing discipline founded by Ivan Vyskočil. I approach dialogical acting through three conceptualizations of objects - as networks, fluid objects and fire objects. With these I explore different ways in which dialogical acting holds its shape as a discipline. I focus on the creation and continuous re-enactment of dialogical acting and its ambiguous relation to its founder Ivan Vyskočil. I analyze the stability and fluidity of rules that shape and define boundaries of the discipline and describe dialogical acting as a set of relations of changing entities and realities that are present and absent, and as passages that are enacted by the rearrangements of multiple specificities. I try to capture tensions that constitute the discipline. Dialogical acting aims at being an open discipline without rules. As rules re-emerge and tend to stabilize, the discipline develops strategies in the process of transferring knowledge that seek to destabilize the rules. Findings and conclusions of this thesis are based on participative observation of dialogical acting in the courses that take place on The Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, on...

The purpose of this thesis is to identify practices that constitute plastic surgery in current Republic of Korea with emphasis put on relationships between participating human beings, materials and technologies. It focuses on practices proceeding inside and outside the clinic of plastic surgery. In accordance with M. Lock's concept of local biology this thesis introduces Korean plastic surgery as a set of practices shaped by mutual interaction of local technologies and Korean bodies. The actor network theory approach (ANT), which emphasizes relational open-ended forming of entities, is applied to examining various aspects of plastic surgery. This approach also provides new ways of exploring how the entities and practices described in the medical anthropology as medicalization, medical tourism or local biology are produced. Key words plastic surgery; Republic of Korea; Actor - Network Theory (ANT); bodily practices; local biology; beauty ideal; medicalization.

There is a general recognition within the social sciences that extensive mobility challenges how we perceive the notion of home. With this idea as its starting point, this thesis explores how situations of hardship impact the ways in which mobile professionals negotiate and construct their homes. The actor-network theory (ANT) has been used as the means to explore the interactions between the people who inform this study and the multidimensional characteristics of the hardship setting. Through individual, open-ended interviews, the research draws upon the experiences of five international civil servants from the United Nations (UN) system of organizations who are assigned to hardship duty stations. Applying ANT to the empirical material drew the attention to the identification of five principal entities (or actors) that come into play in the negotiation of home construction, namely the civil servant, [in]security, mobility, ownership and social relations. The influence of the various nonhuman actors on home construction varied according to the individual and their transnational ties and professional status – those with family nuclei tended to situate their homes in terms of territoriality, whereas for others, factors such as privacy, materiality and social interaction weighed more heavily in the act of creating home.

Kollaborativ konsumtion och bildelningstjänster är två fenomen som under de senaste åren blivit allt mer populära som ett sätt att bemöta hållbarhetskrisen. Bildelningstjänster är en form av kollaborativ konsumtion och är ofta drivna av kommersiella krafter. Syftet med tjänsterna är att erbjuda kunder moderna och hållbarhetsdrivna lösningar som ett alternativ till det privata bilägandet. I användandet av bildelningstjänster uppstår interaktioner mellan olika aktörer, mänskliga såväl som icke-mänskliga, både direkt- och indirekt. I användningen av bildelningstjänster och i dessa interaktioner, skapas en upplevelse för användarna. Genom en enkät och nio semistrukturerade intervjuer med användare av bildelningstjänster, studerar vi i denna studie, dessa upplevelser. Användarupplevelsemål och delade användarupplevelser, samt aktör-nätverksteori används som teoretiska ramverk för att analysera och diskutera den insamlade datan. I denna studie drar vi slutsatsen att användandet av bildelningstjänster inte enbart handlar om användarens individuella upplevelse av att använda bilen och mobilapplikationen. Användandet av bildelningstjänster består av flera samverkande faktorer som påverkarvarandra och som tillsammans påverkar användarupplevelsen. Slutligen ger studien ytterligare insikter i hur aktörer påverkar förarens användarupplevelse av bildelningstjänster. Med kunskapen om hur förarens upplevelse, i användandet av bildelningstjänster, påverkas av både mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer. Dessa aktörer utgörs för omfånget av denna studie den mobila applikationen, bilen, kundtjänsten, den tidigare föraren och passagerarna. / Collaborative consumption, shared mobility, and car sharing services are three modern phenomena that in recent years have become a popular way to respond to the sustainability crisis. Carsharing services are a subcategory of collaborative consumption and are often driven by commercial forces. The aim of the services is to offer modern and sustainably-driven solutions to users as an alternative to private car ownership. In the use of carsharing services, an interaction occurs between different actors, human as well as non-human actors, both direct- and indirect. These interactions generate a user experience which this thesis aims to study through a survey and nine semistructured interviews with users of carsharing services. User experience goals, shared user experience, as well as Actor-network theory, is used as theoretical frameworks to analyze and discuss the collected data. Through this study, we conclude that the act of using car sharing services isn’t solely an individual experience between the users and the artifacts such as the car or the mobile application. Instead, the use of carsharing services often consists of several collaborating actors who influence each other and together affect the user experience. Lastly, the study contributes further insights into how actors affect the driver's user experience of carsharing services. With the knowledge of how the driver's experiences in the use of carsharing services are affected by both human and non-human actors. These actors consist of the mobile application, the car, previous users, customer service, and passengers.

[pt] Esta dissertação busca olhar para o espaço das redes transnacionais religiosas sob a perspectiva da Sociologia Política Internacional. Através do caso paradigmático da construção da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) como ator transnacional e sua transnacionalização para a África, procuro oferecer elementos para entender o lugar dessas redes na política mundial. Muitos estudiosos pensaram que a importância da religião desapareceria da política com o advento da modernização. No entanto, as tradições religiosas se adaptaram aos novos tempos, ressignificando o espaço da religião na sociedade. As redes transnacionais religiosas são resultado desse processo de adaptação. No Brasil, o movimento de transnacionalização religiosa que mais teve destaque foi o das redes neopentecostais, como o da IURD, que se intensificaram a partir da década de 1980. Em uma abordagem de redes de religião como fenômenos transnacionais, vemos que elas produzem efeitos na política mundial que nos permitem modificar a forma como se pode olhar para as relações políticas e sociais, e, por vezes, desafiar o próprio sistema de estados. / [en] This dissertation seeks to look at the space of transnational religious networks from the perspective of International Political Sociology. Through the paradigmatic case of the construction of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) as a transnational actor and its transnationalization for Africa, I try to offer elements to understand the place of these networks in world politics. Many scholars thought that the importance of religion would disappear from politics with the advent of modernization. However, religious traditions have adapted to new times, giving new meaning to the space of religion in society. Transnational religious networks are the result of this adaptation process. In Brazil, the movement of religious transnationalization that stood out the most was that of neopentecostal networks, such as that of the IURD, which intensified from the 1980s onwards. In an approach of religious networks as transnational phenomena, we see that they produce effects on world politics that allow us to modify the way we can look at political and social relations, and sometimes to challenge the state system itself.