The introduction of new information technology (IT) in an organisation is one way of changing the conditions for how tasks and work processes can be designed and performed, as well as how people in the organisation interact with each other. Today, many Swedish workers rely completely on IT to be able to perform their jobs, while experiencing a combination of continuous and intermittent IT-related changes that affect this ability. The introduction of new or updated IT systems in an organisation is an example of what is referred to as an IT-related change process in this thesis. Because IT has become such an integral part of modern organisations, many change processes in organisations are simultaneously enabled and constrained by the IT systems involved in a change process. In this thesis, I introduce the concept of inertia in sociotechnical systems to analyse IT-related change processes in organisations, and how achieving the goals of these processes is complicated by organisational, social, and physical aspects in addition to technology. The context of this thesis is the Swedish public sector domains of health-care and higher education, and the result of research studies and experiences from four action research projects in these settings. The contribution of this thesis adds to the contributions of the included papers through the definition of inertia in sociotechnical systems and its subsequent application. The thesis shows that the concept of inertia in sociotechnical systems can be used to understand IT-related change processes as changes to the characteristics of a sociotechnical system, and, in the context of organisations, how these processes affect and are affected by an organisation’s characteristics. This is illustrated in the thesis through the application of the concept on examples of IT-related change processes from the included papers and research projects. In addition, the thesis shows that the use of vision seminar methods can benefit Swedish organisations, since new IT is often introduced without clearly defined, expressed, understood, and accepted goals.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Candyce S. Russell / Despite multiple interventions and the increase of consumer spending on weight management, weight loss maintenance continues to allude most people. This study explores women’s narratives and the ways they made meaning of their weight loss and weight loss maintenance experiences. Examining the processes occurring within the individual and the family context, this study investigated the potential differences between weight loss and weight loss maintenance processes. A grounded theory approach guided the study design, transcription coding, and data analysis. The results revealed four categories (cycles and patterns, fluctuations and thresholds, defining self, and contextual connections) emerging from the research participants’ narratives describing their weight loss and weight loss maintenance experiences. An analytical framework, consisting of the examination of clustered categories using a multifocal lens and a toggling procedure, facilitated the development of multidimensional descriptions of the women’s experiences and guided the process of analysis. The process of analysis was isomorphic to the process the women used to formulate their narratives. The women incorporated multiple dimensions of their experiences to create narratives that described and informed their weight loss and weight loss maintenance efforts. The analysis also revealed that weight loss and weight loss maintenance are multi-dimensional processes. The dimensions reflect both similarities and differences between the processes. Some women used heroic while others used integrative efforts to lose weight. Their efforts impacted the amount of overlap they experienced between the weight loss and weight loss maintenance processes. Implications for further studies are presented for using the analytical framework to understand the meaning-making processes occurring with weight loss and weight loss maintenance. Potential clinical implications for addressing weight loss and weight loss maintenance within family and relational contexts are explained.

This research is guided by the assertion that, as American society journeys through the post-modern transition, many established churches are struggling to respond adequately to cultural change within a fragmented generational context. It further is argued that the resulting ineffectiveness of many of these churches in transmitting the Christian tradition to Gen Xers, the first post-modern generation, threatens the ability of these churches to sustain their witness through this period. This project advances the hypothesis that, if established churches are to sustain their witness through the post-modern transition, they must engage in a process of missional renewal that encompasses Generation X. When considered from both a sociological and a theological perspective, this process must be seen as entailing a commitment to intergenerational reconciliation and justice. Chapter one provides an introduction to this study and explains how it is situated within the discipline of Practical Theology. Following Heitink (1999:6), Practical Theology is defined as “the mediation of the Christian faith in the praxis of modern society.” Chapter two offers additional theoretical foundations through an exploration of the intergenerational praxis of the church within the intergenerational praxis of society. In chapter three, essential historical background is provided through an exploration of the influence of modernity in shaping the praxis of American society, as well as the influence of the Christendom paradigm in guiding the church’s praxis. This chapter also explores the emergence of institutional structures that have fostered distance between the generations, as well as the impact of these changes upon the intergenerational praxis of the church. Chapter four examines the complexities associated with the post-modern paradigm shift. Generation X is introduced as a generation whose formative years most closely approximate this period. Generation X is shown to be a misunderstood and maligned generation possessing discontinuous cultural values. In chapter five, the “marriage” of Christendom and modernity is shown to limit the ability of established churches to respond faithfully to the post-modern turn. The intergenerational dynamics of these churches also are shown to hinder their response. This chapter demonstrates that the resulting absence of the first post-modern generation from these churches places their continued viability at risk. Chapter six explores the need for these churches to experience missional renewal. A case is made for the participation of Generation X as a crucial consideration in this pursuit. The issue of “process” is shown to be important in helping churches negotiate the challenges of missional renewal. Chapter seven advances the assertion that, from both theological and sociological perspectives, intergenerational reconciliation and justice must be seen as integral dimensions of the missional renewal process. In chapter eight, the argument developed in the preceding chapters is subjected to empirical evaluation. The results of a survey conducted among churches from five denominations lend credibility to this study’s hypothesis. The final chapter (nine) introduces the “Missional Change Model” as one strategic framework through which established churches might be guided in pursuing missional renewal. This chapter also demonstrates how this model might help to facilitate intergenerational reconciliation and justice. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The term ‘epidemic’ is often used to describe the obesity phenomenon and indicate that overweight or obesity is a worldwide phenomenon. While the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been increasing, reviews on overweight and obesity studies indicate a clear need for further effectiveness studies of innovative and cost-effective strategies to improve the long-term outcomes of weight loss and weight maintenance programmes in large populations. Current weight loss interventions, while successful in the short term, are often not cost effective enough to deliver on a large scale because they are labour and time intensive. Most importantly, they do not cover large populations. Despite some individual successful weight loss in these interventions programmes, individuals still need to self- manage their weight following intervention. It is unrealistic to expect health professionals and clinicians to provide timely and long-term ongoing support for 2.1 billions overweight and obesity populations around the world (OECD Health Statics, 2014).Therefore, the solutions for weight control may be more effective if grounded within the online community, that is, design long-term solutions that build and draw on social capital to support weight maintenance and are scaled to cope with large populations. Understanding the individual weight loss experiences through informal online social support and utilising the advantages of computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be a timely and cost-effective way to help people self-manage their weight. A three-month online longitudinal phenomenological interview of 17 informants recruited from an online community forum was applied to explore the weight loss experiences with assistance of informal online social support. Four weight loss threads selected by the informants during their weight loss process were also interpreted to map out the key roles of informal online social support and the interaction process that takes place in an online community forum. This research describes the lived experiences of individuals’ self-help weight loss process and maps out the critical moments and differential experiences involved in the Stages of Change (SoC) to explain the individual differences during different weight loss stages. This research also identifies the interrelationships of Processes of Change (PoC) for facilitating behaviour change. The findings of this research contribute to demonstrate the interaction process between community members and the process of providing and receiving social support at different individual members’ weight loss stages, which helped them to continue to lose weight or maintain their weight. The informal online social support could meet different self-help weight loss individual’s needs during different weight loss stages, which is difficult to be provided by the healthcare providers. The findings also contribute to social marketing as a way of offering a cost-effective and efficient way to assist the self-help individual to self- manage their weight in the long term. It may also be a viable way of addressing the issues of costs and labour intensity found in the current weight loss interventions that want to serve large populations.

<p></p><p></p><p>Land use alteration and climate change are major contributors to the hydrological cycle within watersheds. They can influence the quantity and quality of water resources, the ecosystem and environmental sustainability. Urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by a noticeable increase in energy and water use. Such changes in land use have many implications for humans to meet the increasing share of the planet’s resources and water issues. Hence, distinguishing the effects of land use change from concurrent climate variability is a particular challenge for studies on operational management processes. In this work, some shortcomings related to climate variability and land use change have been addressed, as applied to land surface temperature (LST) and groundwater resources. Thus, the main goal of this study is to evaluate the impacts of land use change on surface temperature and the impact of urbanization and climate variation on hydrology. The research methodology included modeling approaches that were used to estimate the land surface temperature and the responses of hydrology to climate change and urbanization.</p> <p>Land use maps derived from Landsat datasets were analyzed using several classification techniques to evaluate the intensity and pattern of urbanization and land surface temperature in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR), Egypt. Accuracy of Landsat derived land use data were relatively high and up to 96.5%. Findings indicated that the GCR land use alteration was dynamic and that vegetation loss was the main contributor to urban expansion in the GCR. Consequently, this led to increased LST and modified urban microclimate. The results showed that vegetation cover decreased by 7.73% within a 26-year timespan (1990-2016).</p> <p>Land use alteration impacted not only land surface temperature, but also, combined with variation in climate, affected watershed hydrology, specifically streamflow and baseflow. Changes in streamflow and filtered baseflow in three watersheds: Little Eagle Creek (LEC), Upper West Branch DuPage River (UWBDR) and Walzem Creek watershed, from 1980 to 2017, caused by climate alteration and land use change were separated and accessed using the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model. Results showed that SWAT performed well in capturing the streamflow and baseflow in urban catchments. SWAT model calibration and validation was within acceptable levels for streamflow and baseflow. About 30%, 30% and 12% of the LEC, UWBDR and Walzem Creek watershed areas changed from agricultural to urban areas. Findings for the LEC watershed indicated that the variability in the baseflow and streamflow appeared to be heavily driven by the response to climate change in comparison to the variability due to altered land use. The contribution of both land use alteration and climate variability on the flow variation was higher in the UWBDR watershed. In Walzem Creek, the alteration in streamflow and baseflow appeared to be driven by the effect of climate variability more than that of urbanization.</p> <p>Finally, the impacts of basin lithology and physical properties on baseflow were examined using multiple regression models. Results suggest that the baseflow index (BFI) can be predicted using the basin’s physical and geological characteristics. This included different land uses and climate variables with high accuracy and low relative errors. BFI was found to be highly driven by precipitation and fractional areas of different lithologies in the basins in various regions. These could be estimated with a high accuracy, as opposed to evapotranspiration that caused lower model accuracy.</p> <p>Information gleaned from these outputs can help in understanding the dynamics of land use change and climate variation, in order to help policy-makers predict and plan for future expansion in developing countries and across the globe, in achieving long-term sustainability of soil and water resources and their impact on climate change. Increasing efforts to prevent further urbanization and vegetation loss should be regarded as a practical management strategy and are of vital significance to many communities. In addition, the regression models developed in this study can be easily exploited in other areas with poor hydrological data quality and ungauged sites in order to estimate the amount of groundwater discharge.</p><p></p><p></p>

Background: Research in digital transformation has previously focused on understanding top management and operational roles but the role of middle management has rarely been examined. This despite several studies showing that the middle manager has a central role in change processes. A few studies have shed light on how the middle manager influence and contribute to digital transformation, however, there are few empirical studies that examine how the middle manager works to drive change in digital transformation. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to create a deeper understanding about middle management’s role in digital transformation.  Methodology: This is a qualitative case study of a company in household services. It is based on five semi-structured interviews and a literature review. The study has adopted an abductive approach. Conclusion: The study shows that the middle manager acts as a connecting link between management and operational level. The results show that middle managers drive change in digital transformation by identifying problems and business opportunities, initiating change, interpreting and translating management language for employees, promoting and raising ideas from the operational activities and following up and modifying change processes to achieve better results. They have the opportunity to do this because of their intermediate position in the organization. / Bakgrund: Forskningen inom digital transformation har tidigare fokuserat på att förstå lednings- och operativa roller, men till stor grad negligerat mellanchefsperspektivet. Detta trots att flera studier belyst att mellanchefen har en central roll i förändringsarbete. Ett fåtal studier har undersökt hur mellanchefen influerar och bidrar till digital transformation. Däremot finns det få empiriska studier som undersöker hur mellanchefen faktiskt arbetar för att driva förändring inom digital transformation. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att skapa djupare förståelse för mellanchefens roll i digital transformation. Genomförande: Detta är en kvalitativ fallstudie av ett företag inom hushållsnära tjänster. Den utgår från fem semistrukturerade intervjuer samt en litteratur genomgång. Studien har antagit en abduktiv ansats. Slutsats: Studien visar att mellanchefen fungerar som en förbindelselänk mellan ledning och operativ nivå. Resultaten visar att mellanchefer driver förändring i digital transformation genom att identifiera problem och affärsmöjligheter, initiera förändring, tolka och översätta ledningens språk för medarbetare, främja och lyfta idéer från den operativa verksamheten och följer upp och modifierar förändringsprocesser för att uppnå bättre resultat. De har möjligheten att göra detta på grund av deras mellanliggande position i organisationen.

The fresh idea of including men in feminist campaigning might be a reaction to a postfeminist context with much uncertainty towards the feminist movement and arises a never-ending complex and contested issue within the feminist theory. This research aims at understanding the rise of feminist communication on social media, particularly on Instagram, with a special focus on men’s representation and involvement. Therefore, this paper will study men’s engagement in feminist digital campaigning on Instagram; and their representation and participation in this type of activism without ostracizing women. In recent years, social media have gained an increasing number of users, transforming these platforms into daily communication tools. Notably, Instagram has achieved considerable success with a growing use in e-commerce campaigns and social activism. In this context, this report will reduce its scope to Instagram feminist accounts in Spain and will consider the potential of social media for change by conducting surveys to feminist organisations and social media users and analysing the contents published by feminist influencers. All in all, this study responds to existing debates on how (or if) men should be included in the feminist movement. The clear conclusion to this DP is that there is not a simple answer to this matter.

Digital Transformation is changing the ICT industry and companies must act with speed to stay in the race. In order to be a credible business transformation partner, responding to industry changes and customer demands faster, companies today are transforming themselves and embarking on their digital journey and digitalization is high on every company’s agenda.   Most of these transformation initiatives fail or are progressing slowly and one major reason for this is organizational barriers to transformations. These barriers are challenging as organizations and employees react differently to change. Hence in this paper, I will study the transformation process and try to identify and understand the barriers and the most challenging stage of the transformation by interviewing eleven executives from across companies which are in various stages of their Digital Transformation journey. Even though significant number of barriers were identified in the Initiation and the Transition phases, the results indicate that each phase is equally important and is an outcome of the previous phase. By addressing barriers in the first two phases and taking concrete actions, the resistance can be reduced, and organizations can smoothly transition and transform ensuring that the organization and staff embrace the changes.   Several barriers to change and transformation were identified ‐ Unclear Company Vision and Goal of the Transformation; Top Management, Leaders and their Leadership style; Project group, Organizational set‐ up and Agility; Change and Middle managers lacking expertise; Lack of Rewards and Incentives; Unclear Measurement systems, Lack of HR involvement and a strong Learning culture missing.   In this work with executives working across a variety of industries, the findings suggest that by putting people first and by running change management programs with more people‐centric approaches can lead to dynamic results. The study revealed the need for top leaders and executives to present a united front, provide more autonomy, increase collaboration and transparency across project functions and structures. Middle managers and HR need to work together bettersupporting and coaching the employee’sindividual development plans, tracking changes, creating an atmosphere that engages and energizes employees and by rewarding or incentivizing employees ensure that the changed behaviours stick and quickly spread throughout the organization. Siloed organizational structures were further identified as making the organizations obsolete and the transformation journey must begin by putting together diverse project teams encompassing the right capabilities and skills with a clear driver of change.

Recent years were marked by a major transformation in human and social communication, owing to the advances in ICT and thus social media technologies. Social media have introduced new communication practices, provided newfound interaction patterns, created new forms of expressions, stimulated a wide civic participation, and so forth. They are rapidly evolving and their significance is increasing while their role is changing in social and political processes. Moreover, they are increasingly becoming an instrumental approach to, and power for, social change due to their potential in bringing new dynamics to its underlying processes such as public mobilization. Indeed, more recently, they played an important role in what has come to be known as the Arab Spring. Particularly, in the recent Egyptian revolt, social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, have been transformed into effective means to fuel revolt and bring about political transformation. This marked a victory for social media and corroborates that they are an enduring resource for the successful mobilization of bottom-up, grassroots movements and leaderless collective actions. This, in turn, has stimulated discussions about their impact on political change, giving rise to a new discourse, what might be identified as ‘social media for social change’. This discourse is gaining an increased attention in the media and the academia: many journalists and authors talk and write about it. Particularly, research and publications by journalists emphasize the fundamental role the online media play in the reproduction of the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution and political change. The aim of this study is to establish, by means of a discourse analysis, how and with what purpose in mind, the online media report on – represent – the relationship between social media and the Egyptian uprising and political transformation, a social relationship that seems to be overstated and constructed in various ways by different journalists. This critical reading reveals what is undervalued, overvalued and excluded, as well as the intersection between the media discourse, subjects and ideology. To achieve this aim, the discourse analysis approach was used to examine the set of selected media texts. The media representation is deterministic as to the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution and political transformation, i.e. it exaggeratedly depicts the power of social media by describing the Egyptian revolution as a Facebook revolution. It also tends to be rhetorical and exclusionary. The event of the revolution and the reality of political change in Egypt are far more complicated than how it is reconstructed by most journalists. Further, it plays a role in constructing a positive image of different corporate players, namely Facebook, Twitter and media companies, as well as in constituting their identities. A great highlight is given to represent these actors. In addition, the media representation does ideological work. It sustains and serves corporate power as well as advances ideological claims. This discursive research enhances the current understanding of the phenomenon of social media in relation to revolution and political change, although the findings may not be generalizable.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:15:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 61070100611.pdf: 844754 bytes, checksum: 3b9f50710eaf7ac36ed163b18c947fba (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-01T00:00:00Z / O distanciamento identificado entre as teorias do campo de estratégia e organização e a prática das empresas motivou o desenvolvimento de uma abordagem de pesquisa comumente denominada 'estratégia como prática'. Neste trabalho buscamos contribuir com essa nova abordagem explorando a prática de planejamento estratégico. A pesquisa se baseou num estudo de caso único exploratório em uma empresa organizada por projetos que identificou os processos de mudança na prática de planejamento estratégico do caso. Esses processos foram analisados por meio uma abordagem inspirada na teoria da estruturação de Giddens (1984), indicando que o nível adequado de formalização da prática de planejamento estratégico deve ser dado por sua estruturação na dinâmica social da organização que, por sua vez, é permeada por 'lutas' entre indivíduos pela definição da noção de planejamento estratégico na empresa e, no caso estudado, sofreu a influência de dois fatores principais: (i) adoção de um discurso da 'excelência', e (ii) o papel de práticas e procedimentos de planejamento em uso. / A gap identified between the theories created in field of strategy and organization and the practice of the enterprises motivated the development of a research approach commonly called 'strategy-as-practice'. The present work seeks to contribute with this new approach exploring the practice of strategic planning. Our research is based on an exploratory single case study in a project-based organization in which we identified the change processes in the practice of strategic planning. These processes were analyzed through an approach inspired by structuration theory (GIDDENS, 1984) which indicated that the adequate level of strategic planning formalization is given by the organizational social dynamics which is permeated by 'struggles' between the individuals for the organizational definition of strategic planning and was influenced in our case by two key factors: (i) the adoption of a discourse of 'excellence', and (ii) the role of planning practices and procedures in use.