No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This paper is a contribution to the long-standing interest of geographers in the contingent, but the focus is on the politics of contingency (and the contingency of politics).

Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka hur ett företags interna kommunikation används som styrmedel inför en ekonomisk kris, för att i sin tur främja medarbetarnas engagemang, tillhörighet, medvetenhet och förståelse. Ett teoretiskt ramverk utifrån Contingency theory, intern kommunikation och intern kriskommunikation har legat till grund för att genomföra studien. Därefter har empiriska data insamlats från två huvudsakliga perspektiv inom ett företag. Studien tar avstamp i en kvalitativ metod med intervjuer på lednings- och skiftledarnivå. Därefter utformades en enkätundersökning på medarbetarnivå för att se hur ledningens vision och implementering uppfattas i praktiken. Resultatet visade att medarbetarna generellt sett är nöjda med hur företaget fungerar och presterar, och känner en känsla av trygghet, tillhörighet och engagemang. Det finns dock tendenser till informationsasymmetri, det kan leda till minskad medvetenhet och förståelse, vilket påverkar den interna kommunikationen negativt. I slutändan påverkar detta medvetenhet och förståelse negativt genom en begränsad information. Sammanfattningsvis omfattar intern kommunikation många olika aspekter och används av ledningen som ett styrmedel för att bygga och upprätthålla relationer med medarbetarna. Det är särskilt viktig att detta är på plats innan en ekonomisk kris inträffar.

Product Costing in the Swedish Engineering Industry - a survey  This thesis is about product costing in the Swedish engineering industry. The thesis is empirical and consists of two studies, one descriptive and one explanatory study. The purpose of the descriptive study has been to make a survey of which product costing methods are used, which elements of product costing that are considered to be problematic and what companies spend time on related to product costing. The purpose of the explanatory study has been to compare and analyze the correspondence between literature and practice regarding design aspects of product costing, by using a contingency theoretical approach. The research method that has been used to collect data has been an e-mail survey. In the 90s, a dissertation was written by Urban Ask and Christian Ax in the area, but since then no major survey has been made either in Sweden or in any other country. Since the 1990s, the production environment has been developed and new production strategies have been implemented, which has contributed to new perspectives on product costing. The results of the descriptive study show that the recommendations given in "Enhetliga principer för självkostnadsberäkningar" (EP) in 1936 still have a large impact on Swedish product costing practices. On the other hand, a trend can be noted which indicates that companies choose to work with new product costing systems such as target costing, activity based costing, value stream costing and kaizen costing. With regard to the allocation of indirect costs, the results show that the companies focus on ensuring that the allocation takes place in an appropriate manner. The outcome of the results shows that the distribution of indirect costs is differentiated, in the majority of cases a number of allocation bases, overhead components and cost centers are used. The product costing elements that are perceived to be most problematic to perform in practice are to: determine causal relationships, determine what deviations from standards are due to and calculate costs for future products. Overall the findings in the descriptive study indicate on a technically speaking well-developed Swedish costing practice. The explanatory study lends support to the hypotheses that the design of cost systems depends on contingency factors. Strongest support for the hypotheses was found between two factors (production strategies and company size) and cost system aspects. Weaker support was found between six other factors (manufacturing complexity, number of products, kind of product, the degree of automation, high- vs low-tech companies and the degree of competition) and cost system aspects. Overall the findings in the explanatory study indicate that companies do not shape their product costing according to the recommendations made in the literature.

Clinical Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) practices seek to make improvements in embryo quality and resultant procedural success rates. There is a significant variance in live birth rates among clinics nationwide. The goal of this thesis is make comparisons of embryo quality among clinics and understand these differences. This analysis focuses on the stage between egg retrieval and embryo transfer. Because the currently accepted embryo scoring methods are not directly proportional to performance, a new scoring methodology is proposed and applied. Data provided by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) consisting of 36,836 patient cycles from 40 anonymous clinics nationwide is considered. After necessary reductions are made, the data is anatomized to link each embryo transferred to an implantation probability. A score is generated for each morphology grouping based on the average implantation rate of that group. This score is used as the basis for clinic comparisons. Top-performing clinics (in terms of live birth rates in patients agedold) are then shown to both produce embryos of higher score and achieve better results from embryos of identical morphology.

No description available.

Der Begriff Kontingenz avancierte seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre zu einer Art Leitbegriff der Sozialwissenschaften und erreichte vor allem in Form der postmarxistischen These von der „Grundlosigkeit des Sozialen“ axiomatischen Status in linker Politik- und Sozialtheorie. Dass es vor allem mal explizit, mal latent dezisionistische Theorieprogramme waren, die dem Kontingenzbegriff zu erneuter Popularität verhalfen, ist die ideenhistorische Grundsituation, die im vorliegenden Beitrag als Problem gestellt wird und folgende Frage provozierte: sind die historisch gleichzeitigen Renaissancen von Kontingenz- und Dezisionsbegriff zufällig oder verweisen die Begriffe von Grund auf aufeinander und bilden ein notwendiges Verhältnis? Zunächst soll hierfür augezeigt werden, dass die Semantik des Kontingenzbegriffs durchaus vielschichtig ist und je nach theoretischem Kontext variiert. Zwei Extremformen werden dabei separiert. Eine dieser Extremformen des Begriffs, die gegenwärtig häufig gebrauchte, wird in einem zweiten Schritt als dem Dezisionismus entsprechende Kontingenz ausgewiesen. Zu guter Letzt wird diskutiert, warum dezisionistische Argumentationsketten für Theorien mit progressivem Anspruch überhaupt problematisch sind. / From the mid-1990’s on, contingency developed into one of the leading key concepts of the social science and achieved an axiomatic status in leftist political and social theory, first and foremost through the central postmarxist thesis of the “Lack of Foundations in the Social”. That the Renaissance of contingency is embedded in the historical parallel rise of decisionistic theories, which helped make the concept popular again, is the historical situation from where the argument in the article starts and which provoked the following research question: are the historical parallel renaissances of contingency and decision based theories coincidental or is their logical relation necessary? The goal of the first chapter is to outline the semantic complexity of contingency andits context-dependent varieties. Two extremes of the concept will be separated from each other. One of those extremes, today’s popular one, will be identified as decisionisms corresponding contingency. The discussion of why decisionistic arguments are a problem within theories with progressive intentions, will conclude the article.

Coronapandemin medförde stora förändringar för svenska mikrobryggeriers verksamheteroch resulterade i stora konsekvenser, främst i att krog- och restaurangbranschen i principslogs ut. Den här studien syftar till att undersöka om, och isåfall hur, mikrobryggeriersförsäljningsstrategier förändrades i samband med krisen. Det med utgång i teorier somförklarar två huvudsakliga faktorer - vikten av att reagera och anpassa sig efter omgivningensamt strategier under kriser. För att samla in ett underlag har en kvalitativ metod använts,inkluderandes åtta medverkande bryggerier - med syftet att samla in relevant material för attkunna besvara studiens frågeställning. Resultatet visar att de flesta bryggerier tog till nyatyper av åtgärder för att anpassa sig efter de förändrade omständigheterna, men också attvarje aktör påverkades i olika hög grad - främst på grund av hur verksamheten såg ut innankrisen bröt ut.