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Research shows that since the mid-1990s funders of the nonprofit sector have significantly increased the sophistication of their reporting requirements. Funders today want agencies to demonstrate beyond outputs and report on outcomes and the impact they have on the communities they serve. Funders are monitoring community impact by requiring more complex reports from the agencies they fund. These changes have meant that agencies must become proficient in data collection, management, and analyses practices in order to accurately respond to funders’ report requests. Nonprofits, however, find these requirements difficult to conceptualize and even more difficult to attain. Managing and analyzing the data necessary to create the required reports proves a formidable task. This research shows that among many obstacles reported, a lack of communication between agency and funders about their intended goals leads to some frustration from both sides, ultimately making it exceptionally difficult to attain the ultimate goal of the new reporting requirements: to measure community-level impact. This study utilizes qualitative interviews with 8 human service nonprofit agencies and one funding agency in the greater Orlando area to investigate what agencies report are their major obstacles when trying to meet funders’ new reporting requirements and what a funder’s response to these concerns is. Agency interviews were analyzed for the most common themes and concerns reported. The interviews explore the way nonprofits are responding to the new requirements from donors and what they think could be done differently to better capture valuable data that would speak to issues at the community level.

Charitable nonprofit organizations are growing in number and scope, but the body of literature and knowledge about communication within these organizations is limited. Today, charitable organizations face a flurry of economic and environmental factors that challenge their continued survival: growing community needs, mounting funding cuts from all segments of government, increased competition for funding, a limited pool of dedicated community leaders to serve on boards, decreased charitable giving for some causes, and persistent calls for greater accountability. As nonprofits explore new ways of coping with these socioeconomic pressures---such as reorganization, consolidation, mergers, and management service organizations---there is a clear need for applied communication research on organizational change in nonprofit settings. This research explores the unique issues nonprofit organizations face when considering a specific form of consolidation---a management service organization---focusing on interorganizational communication among nonprofits and funders and the challenges faced during reorganization planning and implementation. In particular, this research explores communication processes both within and among the Neighborhood Family Center Coalition (NFCC) (a collaborative of nonprofit organizations), and the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County (JWB), a funder of these same organizations, as the members planned and developed a management service organization. Action research was the chosen methodology for this study due to the strong desire of the research participants to engage fully in planning, executing and analyzing this research. Working together, we co-generated the research questions for this study. Agreed upon areas for research included considerations and challenges in implementing the management service organization, the funder's role in guiding and assisting in the integration process, management and communication strategies implemented to mitigate the negative effects of this type of organizational change and/or to contribute to successful implementation of this type of integration model, and lessons learned that may benefit future JWB efforts, as well as funders and service providers in communities throughout the United States. The research team worked together to identify and develop appropriate research methods and protocols that included interactive interviews and ethnographic observation. Interviews were conducted with all members of the NFCC and key management staff from the JWB. The applicability of this research is of great importance to funding institutions, many which are taking on a more active role to stabilize or strengthen their funded programs, and more often today, through encouragement to consolidate. Results of this study also may lay the groundwork to support and engage nonprofit leaders considering consolidation as an option for their organizations.

Magister Legum - LLM (Mercantile and Labour Law) / The decision by countries to relax the common law doctrines of maintenance and champerty to accommodate Third Party Funding (TPF) in dispute resolution has sparked a worldwide debate. The controversial practice of funding disputes in exchange for a share of a successful outcome or settlement has left courts and administering institutions in a compromising position. South Africa joined the debate in 2004 after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) relaxed the application of the doctrines in favour of TPF. The SCA found that domestic courts have the necessary mechanisms to protect themselves against any repercussions of TPF without the assistance of the doctrines. The SCA limited their search to the abilities of the courts and did not consider the effect TPF could have on other dispute resolution processes such as arbitration. This study seeks to discover whether arbitration can protect itself against the repercussions of TPF. It further questions the possibility of adopting regulations to aid in the protection of arbitration should the current mechanisms be insufficient.

Seemingly unscrupulous entities, referred to as “predatory” journals, have appeared in scholarly publishing over the past decade. Predatory journals have been characterized as using questionable publishing practices and consequently, as publishing questionable research. At the outset of this thesis, such assertions were based on little evidence, making it difficult to understand how to identify a predatory journal and judge the extent of the potential problem they present. This thesis sought to: (1) determine how the apparent operations of predatory journals differ from their presumed legitimate counterparts; (2) to characterize the epidemiology and reporting of biomedical research published in predatory journals; and (3) to determine what, if any, guidance health research funders provide about selecting journals in which to publish funded research. Predatory journals appear to be distinct from presumed legitimate journals in several ways. For example, they lack descriptions of their editorial processes, ethical policies, and content preservation arrangements more often than presumed legitimate journals. Researchers, globally, have published clinical and preclinical studies reporting on millions of research subjects in predatory journals. Such content is poorly reported against established reporting guidelines; some of it originates from high profile institutions and is supported by well-known biomedical research funders. Most major funders propose journal publication as one way of achieving open access, yet few provide guidance on how to select a journal for this purpose. These thesis findings suggest that some features encountered on journals’ websites may signal potentially questionable journal practices. These features should be further evaluated to determine their accuracy in detecting predatory journals. Additionally, researchers may be sending research to predatory journals which may be of low quality, low priority, or unacceptable in legitimate journals. This is problematic because genuine research efforts/participant contributions may go undetected and never contribute to future knowledge generation. Future research ought to be done to determine why and how researchers, globally, choose where to publish. Research funders ought to agree on guidance and policies to ensure funded research can be found by others and is published in journals indicating basic standards for facilitating this.

Recent debates about decolonising research suggest that researchers should reframe how they think of research participants in the Global South: not as data points, but as partners who are involved from research design to dissemination. However, the findings of development research are rarely shared with participants or other non-decision-maker audiences in the Global South.This study explores the structural factors that have led a research funder, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) (formerly Department for International Development (DFID)), to focus its research communication efforts almost exclusively on policy audiences, and how this has shifted in the years since DFID was first established in 1997.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the key success factors in the digital marketing approach used for campaigns done on crowdfunding platforms, and how it will change influence the decisions of the crowd to invest in a project. Regarding the structure of this thesis, we will firstly explain in details what are the roots of the crowdfunding, describe the different type of platforms and in which context they are used. In the second and third part, we will see how crowdfunding represent a boost for the entrepreneurial initiative and how digital marketing is influencing the process of a raising fund campaign. Finally, thanks a research that has been conducted on 46 respondents, we will analyze the behavior of the crowd regarding the marketing approach used by crowdfunders. As findings, we can state that a crowdfunder must establish a project with a substantial quality content that will pull the crowd toward the project, and choose the right approach in selecting an adapted crowdfunding platforms and rewards.

Large resources are invested in healthcare research, but despite this there is a wide gap between research knowledge and healthcare practice. Implementation researchers have addressed this gap, focusing mostly on the role of healthcare practitioners. However, a narrow focus on implementation does not take into consideration the preceding stages and the roles of different actors during the whole innovation process, which starts from research and ends with implementation. The aim of this thesis is to examine the behaviors of three key actors during an innovation process and to explore the influence of selected contextual factors on their behavior. Study I (n=10 funders) identifies several facilitative roles for funders and suggests that implementation risks becoming no one’s responsibility as the funders identify six different actors responsible for implementation, the majority of whom embody a collective or an organization. Study II finds that the implementation knowledge of Swedish funding managers (n=18) is mostly based on experience-based knowledge. The majority of the funding managers define implementation as a process and express limited knowledge of implementation. The findings of Study III (n=4 innovation cases) show that the roles and involvement of academic inventors and ISAs (innovation-supporting actors) are more connected to intellectual property (IP) nature than to intellectual property rights (IPR) ownership. Study IV (n=4 innovation cases) identifies three different logics that influence the behavior of academic inventors: market, academic and care logics. A pattern emerges where the behavior of academic inventors is guided by a unique logic and there is no interaction between logics, despite the existence of multiple logics. The individual strategies to handle multiple logics coincide with the influence of logics. In addition, IP nature, distinguishing between high-tech and low-tech innovations, is connected to the influence of institutional logics: low-tech connected to the care logic and high-tech connected to the market logic. This thesis has three main theoretical and practical implications relevant for practitioners, policymakers and researchers. First, implementation responsibility is an important issue to study and discuss, because without clearly defined responsibilities and management of responsibilities, responsibility might become no one’s responsibility. Second, the finding that experience-based implementation knowledge contributes heavily to policymakers’ knowledge encourages further studies and discussions regarding this relatively neglected issue. Third, the importance of IP nature in shaping innovation processes should be considered and further examined, not only as a factor influencing inventors and ISAs’ roles and involvement, but also as influencing the prevalence of different institutional logics. Further, the relevance of a distinction between low-tech and high-tech IP should be reflected on.

"Technology has been a key element in the changing creative possibilities available to filmmakers, but deep down the questions of staging, point of view, pace, suspense, time and psychology faced by filmmakers as they walk onto the set in the morning have remained remarkably consistent". Cousins, 2004, s13. Sättet att göra film på har ständigt förändrats och fortsätter att förändras men som citatet syftar till så verkar inställningen till film stå sig lika genom tiderna. I grund och botten handlar det om att berätta en historia som berör publiken. En historia berättad utifrån filmskaparnas olika stilar. Tack vare teknikutvecklingen har många effekter i film, både digitala och fysiska blivit möjliga och vem vet vad den tekniska, och kanske framförallt den digitala utvecklingen, kommer att leda till för effekter i film i framtiden? Vi är trots allt bara i början av den digitala eran. Samtidigt som det nya introduceras kanske de gamla beprövade fysiska effekterna etsar sig fast som klassiska och erkända arbetsmetoder. Vad vi behandlar i den här uppsatsen är hur digitala och fysiska tekniker att skapa effekter används och nyttjas i den svenska filmbranschen. Hur ser beslutsfattare i branschen på effekter som filmskapande och varför ser användandet ut som det gör idag? Vi har också undersökt vad det är som styr användandet av effekter inom filmskapande utifrån ekonomiska, tekniska och konstnärliga överväganden. Vi har samlat in information genom kvalitativa, djupgående intervjuer med tre produktionsbolagsföreträdare och tre finansiärer. Vi har även samlat in information kring begreppen fysiska effekter och digitala effekter bland sex stycken filmarbetare som aktivt arbetar med effektskapande på olika sätt. Det har visat sig att det råder meningsskiljaktigheter när det kommer till definition av begreppen kring digitala effekter och fysiska effekter mellan de bolagsföreträdare och finansiärer vi har intervjuat och de aktiva effektmakare som vi har bett definiera begreppen. För att underlätta framtida kommunikation kommer vi i den här uppsatsen definiera dessa begrepp utifrån våra resultat. Våra resultat tyder på att det finns en vilja inom filmbranschen att arbeta med effekter inom film men att det samtidigt saknas resurser och kompetens idag. Samtidigt tycker vi oss utläsa en okunskap kring effekter vilket ställer till det för dem som vill arbeta med effekter. Exempelvis gällande Guldbaggegalan, där kategorin "Bästa Visuella Effekter" togs bort efter bara några år efter införandet för att det ansågs vara för svårt att utläsa vad som var effekter och inte i en film. Utifrån det vi kan utläsa från våra resultat finner vi det motsägelsefullt att vilja utveckla branschen och arbetet med effekter och samtidigt inte utveckla kunnandet kring det, när man istället för att plocka bort en kategori på grund av okunskap istället borde lära sig mer om det. / "Technology has been a key element in the changing creative possibilities available to filmmakers, but deep down the questions of staging, point of view, pace, suspense, time and psychology faced by filmmakers as they walk onto the set in the morning have remained remarkably consistent." Cousins, 2004, s13. The way of filmmaking has always been changing and it continues to change but as the quote leads up to it seems like the attitude stays the same. It is essentially about telling a story, which affects the audience. To tell a story with the different approaches the creators favors. Thanks to the technical development, many of these effects, both physical and digital have become practicable and who knows what the technique and digital progress will lead to in the future of filmmaking. After all, we are only in the beginning of the digital era. In the same time, the old and proven effect making techniques might inculcate as both classic and recognizable working methods. In this essay, we will talk about how the techniques of digital and practical effects are being used in the Swedish film industry. What does the decision makers in the business think about using effects in filmmaking and why are effects being used the way they are in todays film industry? We also wanted to examine what regulates he use of effects based on economical, technical and artistic considerations. We have collected our data from interviews with three representatives from production companies and three film financiers. We have also collected information considering the definitions of visual effects and special effects from six filmmakers who that works with effect making on a daily basis. It has become apparent that there are some confusion considering the definitions of the concepts of visual effects and special effects between the producers and financiers and the filmmakers. In order to ease future communication, we will in this essay define these concepts out of our results. Our result suggests that there is a will in the Swedish film industry to work with effects in filmmaking but in the same time parts of the industry lacks of resources and capability. Simultaneously, we can note that the ignorance around the concept of effects causes communication problems for digital artists and prop makers. For instance, on the Swedish film gala "Guldbaggegalan" they added a new category only a few years back and this year they took it away because of the problems of recognizing what's visual effects and what's not. It is interesting that there is an interest in developing effects in filmmaking and at the same time takes away the award. Instead of taking it away, they should focus on educating people about effects.

Abstracts in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa / Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important and growing role within the global economy and towards public good. Given the escalating economic and social significance of NGOs, the practical importance of being able to demonstrate their accountability in a robust and comprehensive manner is increasingly being recognised. Perhaps surprisingly, the ability to demonstrate their non-financial accountability is also becoming increasingly important. However, various institutional logics have shaped the face of NGOs’ work, as well as their reporting and their accountability mechanisms. This study therefore examined annual reports of sampled NGOs within Namibia and analysed various institutional accountability logics that shape accountability and reporting in the sector. Extending the literature on accountability logics of NGOs to include local regulations logics, financial and non-financial logic and integrated reporting logic, the study adopted a qualitative illustrative case study of the HIV and AIDS sector in Namibia. To this end, it used 13 purposively selected NGOs, subjecting their documents to analysis and through the conducting of interviews to build both theory and practice. The data were then analysed using content analysis to theme the findings towards the novel contribution it was intended to make. The findings of the study are analysed and interpreted through the lens of the institutional logics theory. The findings indicated that, currently, NGOs do not disclose decision-useful information suitable for all major groups of stakeholders. It is clear from the study that funder and local context regulation logics are the dominant logics in shaping the accountability mechanisms of NGOs in Namibia. The results have an implication for understanding the reporting systems of NGOs, particularly in developing countries such as Namibia. It is argued that extended accountability logics, such as local accountability, financial and non-financial and integrated reporting, are emerging in the NGO sector. / Nie-regeringsorganisasies (NROs) speel 'n belangrike en groeiende rol in die globale ekonomie en in openbare belang. Gegewe die toenemende ekonomiese en sosiale rol van NROs, word hul praktiese belang en aanspreeklikheid meer prominent. Hul vermoë om nie-finansiële aanspreeklikheid te demonstreer, word ook toenemend belangrik. Institusionele logika het die werking, verslagdoening en aanspreeklikheidsmeganismes van NROs gevorm. Hierdie studie het die jaarverslae van NRO's in Namibië ondersoek en die institusionele logika wat aanspreeklikheid en verslagdoening in die sektor vorm, ontleed. 'n Kwalitatiewe illustrerende gevallestudie van die HIV en Vigs-sektor in Namibië bestaande uit 13 geselekteerde NROs is ingesluit om plaaslike regulasie-, finansiële- en nie-finansiële logika met verslagdoeningslogika in NROs te integreer. ‘n Ontleding en interpretasie, deur gebruikmaking van institusionele logika-teorie, het bevind dat NROs tans nie beslissingsinligting bekendmaak wat vir alle hoofgroep belanghebbers geskik is nie. Dit is duidelik uit die studie dat befondsings- en plaaslike konteksregulasie-logika die dominante invloede is wat die aanspreeklikheidsmeganismes van NROs in Namibië gevorm het. Die resultate het 'n invloed op die verstaan van verslagdoeningstelsels van NROs, veral in ontwikkelende lande soos Namibië. Die studie bevind dat uitgebreide aanspreekliksheidslogika, wat plaaslike aanspreeklikheid, finansiële en nie-finansiële asook geïntegreerde verslagdoening insluit, in die NRO-sektor na vore kom. / Zwiimiswa zwine zwa sa vhe zwa muvhuso (dzi NGO) dzi shuma mushumo wa ndeme na wa nyaluwo kha ikonomi ya ḽifhasi kha vhuḓi ha tshitshavha. Ho ṋetshedzwa u gonya ha ikonomi na ndeme ya matshilisano ya dzi NGO, ndeme ya nyito ya u kona u sumbedza vhuḓifhinduleli hadzo nga nḓila yo khwaṱhaho yo fhelelaho i khou engedzea na u dzhielwa nṱha. Ṱhaṅwe tshine tsha mangadza, vhukoni ha u sumbedza vhuḓifhinduleli hadzo hu si ha masheleni na hone ho engedza ndeme. Naho zwo ralo, zwiitisi zwo fhambanaho zwa zwiimiswa zwo fhaṱa mbonalo ya mushumo wa dzi NGO, na nḓila dzadzo dzou vhiga na vhuḓifhinduleli hadzo. Ṱhoḓisiso heyi nga zwenezwo yo ṱola mivhigo ya ṅwaha nga ṅwaha ya tsumbo dza dzi NGO kha ḽa Namibia na u saukanya zwiitisi zwo fhambanaho zwa vhuḓifhinduleli ha zwiimiswa zwine zwa fhaṱa vhuḓifhinduleli na kuvhigele kha sekithara. U engedza maṅwalwa nga ha zwiitisi zwa vhuḓifhinduleli ha dzi NGO u katela zwiitisi zwa ndaulo dzapo, zwiitisi zwa masheleni na zwi si zwa masheleni na tshiitisi tsha u vhiga ho ṱanganelaho, ṱhoḓisiso yo shumisa ngudo ya tsumbo ya khwaḽithethivi ya sekhithara ya HIV na AIDS kha ḽa Namibia. U swika zwino, yo shumisa dzi NGO dza 13 dzo nangwaho ho sedzwa vhukoni, u ṱana maṅwalo avho kha u saukanya na kha u ita inthaviwu u fhaṱa vhuvhili hazwo thyeori na nyito. Data yo ḓo saukanya nga murahu hu tshi khou shumiswa u saukanya zwi re ngomu kha u wana thero zwi tshi ḓa kha u bveledza phambano ine ya fanela u bveledzwa. Mawanwa a ngudo a saukanya na u ṱalutshedzwa nga kha kuvhonele kwa vhushaka ha tshiimiswa, maitele a matshilisano na zwine ha tendwa khazwo. Mawanwa o sumbedzisa zwauri, zwazwino, dzi NGO a dzi bviseli khagala mafhungo a tsheo a ndeme o teaho zwigwada zwoṱhe zwihulwane zwa vhadzhiamukovhe. Zwi tou vha khagala u bva kha ngudo uri vhalambedzi na zwiitisi zwa ndaulo ya nyimele yapo ndi zwiitisi zwihulwane kha u fhaṱa kuitele kwa vhuḓifhinduleli kha dzi NGO kha ḽa Namibia. Mvelelo dzo baḓekanywa na u pfesesa sisiṱeme dza kuvhigele kwa dzi NGO kha ḽa Namibia, nga maanḓa kha mashango ane a kha ḓi bvelela a nga ho sa Namibia. Ho rerwa nga ha u pfi zwiitisi nyengedzedzwa zwa vhuḓifhinduleli, zwi ngaho sa vhuḓifhinduleli hapo, u vhiga ho ṱanganelaho hu si ha masheleni na ha masheleni, hu bveledzwa kha sekhithara ya NGO. / Financial Accounting / D. Phil. (Accounting Science: Financial Accounting)