The overall purpose of this study was to examine the relevance of policy factors identified by Mulvale and Bourgeault (2007) on interprofessional collaboration in PHC, by soliciting stakeholders’ perspectives. / ABSTRACT Background: Interprofessional team-based approaches to primary health care (PHC) delivery have gained support in the literature. Interprofessional primary health care (IPC) models of service delivery allow for different professionals to work together to address patients’ needs. Family Health Teams (FHTs) are a newly introduced model of IPC delivery in Ontario. A variety of factors can influence collaboration between professionals in IPC teams. Purpose/Research Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine stakeholders’ perspectives about policy factors that influence IPC team collaboration, using the example of FHTs in Ontario. Methods: This descriptive study employs semi-structured interviews with key informants from select Ontario FHTs. Directed content analysis was used to examine the Mulvale and Bourgeault (2007) framework. Interviews were conducted with FHT professionals to describe their perspectives on the influence of policy factors in shaping collaboration within their teams and whether identified policy factors acted to enhance or hinder collaboration. Findings: Key informants cited, with highest agreement, economic and regulatory factors as influencing collaboration. Factors agreed upon unanimously by all key informants included funding, provider payment/remuneration, and practice scope. Key informants identified a range of policy factors that hinder collaboration. These included provider payment/remuneration, legal accountability, and the existence of multiple governing bodies. Implications/Conclusion: A number of policy factors were reported to influence collaboration in FHTs in Ontario. Although the findings suggest that incremental reform is possible, widespread policy reform of physician incentives, a key barrier to collaboration, is unlikely. Prospects for reform of this factor may be more promising at an organizational level. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

We are two students at Malmö Högskola, writing our final essay for obtain our teacher diplomas. On our partner schools, we have been facing but little information about how to invite the parents to collaborate with the school. Our thought is that the schoolwork is favorable to the pupils if both school and home are working together side by side. Therefore, we decided to dig deeper into this matter of how one particular school is working with parental collaboration, to be able to see if their method is useful.This particular school is offering studies in a course form so called family class. Here the pupils can get extra help from remedial teachers and their parents are also invited. At these lessons the parents are helping their child side by side with the teachers. We want to look further how this school actually works, whether this way of working is favorable or has a restraining influence on the pupil's education- with focus on a teacher´s perspective. The title “Parental collaboration- how to invite” is a result of our investigation of one school´s family classes. We have been interviewing teachers that are mentors for pupils in the family class, the pupils taking the course and also the responsible remedial teachers giving the course. The purpose of this research is to make a survey of theirs ideas about the school´s method and how the school operates in the relation between home and school. Our aim of making this survey is to point out the prosperity of terms in joint action, which are favorable to pupil´s education. We have been interviewing the mentors and the remedial teachers, but also handed out questionnaires to the students and their parents taking the family class course. The results from our survey has then been compared to a study done by Eriksson (2009), in order to see how the participants are perceiving this experience and what they think about this method. All the results that we have evaluated has then been presented and analyzed, for showing what terms that stand for prosperity in joint action. Finally, in our close-up we have developed our analyses further in an over-all discussion whether this method contributes something like gained collaboration between home and school - or not

Human Robot Collaboration (HRC) allows humans to operate more efficiently by reducing their human effort. Robots can do the majority of difficult and repetitive activities with or without human input. There is a risk of accidents and crashes when people and robots operate together closely. In this area, safety is extremely important. There are various techniques to increase worker safety, and one of the ways is to use Augmented Reality (AR). AR implementation in industries is still in its early stages. The goal of this study is to see how employees' safety may be enhanced when AR is used in an HRC setting. A literature review is carried out, as well as a case study in which managers and engineers from Swedish firms are questioned about their experiences with AR-assisted safety. This is a qualitative exploratory study with the goal of gathering extensive insight into the field, since the goal is to explore approaches for AR to improve safety. Inductive qualitative analysis was used to examine the data. Visualisation, awareness, ergonomics, and communication are the most critical areas where AR may improve safety, according to the studies. When doing a task, augmented reality aids the user in visualizing instructions and information, allowing them to complete the task more quickly and without mistakes. When working near robots, AR enhances awareness and predicts mishaps, as well as worker trust in a collaborative atmosphere. When AR is utilized to engage with collaborative robots, it causes less physical and psychological challenges than when traditional approaches are employed. AR allows operators to communicate with robots without having to touch them, as well as make adjustments. As a result, accidents are avoided and safety is ensured. There is a gap between theoretical study findings and data gathered from interviews in real time. Even though AR and HRC are not new topics, and many studies are being conducted on them, there are key aspects that influence their adoption in sectors. Due to considerations such as education, experience, suitability, system complexity, time, and technology, HRC and AR are employed less for assuring safety in industries by managers in various firms. In this study, possible future solutions to these challenges are also presented.

Scrum is a widely used methodology for software development that is born of the Agile movement. In recent years DevOps has been increasing in popularity within the software industry. The purpose of this thesis is to firstly, explore the technical and social challenges a Scrum team may face when adopting DevOps. Secondly, to explore what collaboration mechanisms that can facilitate a closer cooperation between development and operations. A multiple case study was conducted using semi-structured interviews as the data collection method. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Three technical challenges and one social challenge emerged from the analysis. Additionally, four mechanisms were identified during the analysis as ways to achieve a closer collaboration between the development and operations teams. The result discussion showed that challenges of adopting DevOps when using Scrum are comparable to the findings of previous research where the scope of methodology is not limited to Scrum. Furthermore, the identified collaboration mechanisms can be used by organizations to enhance collaboration between development and operations but should not be seen as strict guidelines.

Date: 2023-05-30 Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr  Institution:  School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University  Authors:  Savannah Buhler         Tuuli Söder                (99/02/15)                   (99/03/12) Title: The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities on B2B Customer Relationships Supervisor: Edward Gillmore  Keywords: CSR activities, B2B Relationships, Collaboration, Alignment, Differentiation Research question: What effect do CSR alignment strategies and CSR differentiation strategies have on a firm's B2B relationships?  Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study how a firm aligns or differentiates its CSR strategies in a B2B context. The aim is to investigate how a firm’s CSR strategies affect customer relationships. By doing an explorative case study, this research will provide a deeper understanding of what types of CSR activities a B2B firm is doing and where those activities are used strategically. It investigates how the firm can leverage these activities to strengthen customer relationships by taking responsible and sustainable measures. Method: A qualitative single case study with an inductive approach, the data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: Strengthening B2B relationships can be done by aligning with stakeholder CSR needs. Being proactive and innovative can give a competitive advantage and help differentiate from the competition. These two strategies are used simultaneously and are interrelated. Collaboration is also key to strengthening these relationships.

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Since the 1983 report by the National Council on Excellence declared the U.S. a nation at risk, the public has focused on the effectiveness of student achievement. Research over the past twenty years has yielded valuable information about how to improve student achievement for all students. The demand by the public for accountability in public education has resulted in state initiatives. In Tennessee, the Tennessee School Improvement Planning Process (TSIPP) is the state mandated vehicle for accountability. During the Fall of 2000, the Tennessee Department of Education’s Accountability Office placed four schools in one area of Tennessee on the “heads-up” list indicating a pattern of low student performance. In September, 2001, the four schools were placed in Good Standing based on state accountability measures. Was the TSIPP instrumental in the improvement of student achievement and removal of the schools from the state’s “heads-up” list? The purpose of this study was to discover how four schools placed on the state’s “heads-up” list for low performance in 2000, improved their student achievement to be placed in good standing in September, 2001. An evaluation of teacher morale during this time was also sought. Data were collected through a series of interviews with participants at the four school sites. An analysis of the data was conducted to identify emergent themes. Additional information was collected from archival Report Cards and School Improvement Plans for each site from the 2000 and 2001 school years. Findings were presented thematically. Leadership, high expectations for students, time to collaborate and use data were found to be important factors in improving student achievement. Teacher morale was negatively impacted through the process of accountability. Teachers indicated loss of creativity in teaching necessitated by the focus on test objectives. They also indicated that accountability should be shared with parents and students. Recommendations include restructuring the school day to include collaboration time for teachers, staff development to help teachers understand the values and mores of poverty level parents and students, a reduction in the amount of paperwork associated with the Tennessee School Improvement Plan, and research into the narrowing effects of the total curriculum due to accountability.

The Internet provides a powerful medium for communication and collaboration. The ability one has to connect and interact with web-based tools from anywhere in the world makes the Internet ideal for such tasks. However, the lack of native tools can be a hindrance when deploying collaborative initiatives, as many current projects require specialized software in order to operate. This thesis demonstrates, with the comparably recent advances in browser technology and Document Object Model (DOM) implementation, a web-based collaborative annotation system can be developed that can be accessed by a user through a standards-compliant web browser. Such a system, demonstrated to work on the commonly-used web browsers constituting the vast majority of web traffic, was implemented using open-source tools and industry-recognized standards. Additionally, it accepts static copies of most standard document formats for both handwritten and typed annotations, while maintaining an archived copy of the original. The system developed for this thesis lends itself to use in a number of different process domains, as most collaborative annotation approaches can be described by a single process model. While a number of possible usage scenarios are discussed, this thesis approaches system usage only in an academic setting, focusing on applicability of the system to electronic grading and document exchange. From here, additional system usage can be easily extrapolated.