It seems that for many people, spaces on the web are an integral part of their lives. This may include seeking out learning opportunities in online communities. There is plenty of buzz about these cyberspaces whether they are part of new social media configurations or commercialized product-related spaces cultivated by enterprises. It is important to explore how online spaces mayor may notcreate new locations of educational possibilities for workers. The subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, fusion of these technologies into work-learning practices warrants attention. This research project focuses on online communities as sites of learning, with an over-arching question of: How do self-employed workers experience informal work-related learning in an online community? Community can describe a gathering of people online that is organic and driven by a shared interest. These online spaces may also be purposefully nurtured by professional associations, workplaces, or businesses. This research project focuses on these spacesoutside the auspices of formal online courses. I draw on Actor Network Theory (ANT) to explore how work-learning is enacted in online communities and the implications of the intertwining of people and objects in multiple, fluid and distributed actor-networks. I also use the notion of legitimate peripheral participation from Situated Learning theory to explore how different possibilities for learning are shaped by locations and trajectories within a work practice and larger community of practitioners. Data was collected by interviewing 11 self-employed workers and then following the actors as objects of interest surfaced. This dissertation is a collection of five papers as well as introduction and conclusion chapters and a background chapter on ANT. Findings explore notions of online collectives shifting to more networked configurations, the complexity of work-learning practices unfolding in multiple spaces, contradictions between Web2.0 rhetoric and practices as different associations with knowledge and novel ways of knowing are enacted, and questions about the politics of technology that emerge from uncertainties around delegation, invisible practices, and necessary literacies. Given the need to pull objects out of the background and into critical inquiry, I also explored how a researcher interviews technology objects as participants in a study. / Adult Education

The Norwegian system for depositing and recycling of PET bottles (Resirk/PET system)started in May 2000, and is based on Norsk Resirk's mission of improving cost- and environmental efficiency of this system. Has this been achieved? What can explain the changes that occurred in the system during recent years? I have found that the eco-efficiency of the Resirk/PET system increased considerably every year between 2000 and 2003. The net greenhouse gas (GHG emission was improved from -562 kg CO2e (562 kg CO2 equivalents avoided generated) for waste management of one tonne consumed bottles in 2000 to -1442 kg CO2e per tonne in 2003, while the net cost was reduced from 4062 €/tonne in 2000 to 2683 €/tonne in 2003. This eco-efficiency improvement was very much driven by the increased volume and return rate of PET bottles during this period. The environmental performance of the Resirk/PET system was high compared to other waste management systems for PET bottles, while the economical performance was considerably lower. The interactive development of the bottled non-carbonated mineral water Imsdal contributed significantly to the increase of the Resirk/PET system’s volume and return rate and hence the system’s improved eco-efficiency. A white spirit sabotage on Imsdal in August 2002 contributed to the development of Imsdal as well as the Resirk/PET system’s change of the design and material specification for participating PET bottles. By combining the quantitative eco efficiency framework with the qualitative framework of interactive resourced development, information about how much eco-efficiency of a defined system has changed, as well as an understanding of reasons for changes within the system, has been acquired. Such a combination should be possible to apply for analysis of other systems as well, and may be a valuable contribution to the field of industrial ecology since the methods complement each other in a fruitful way. The eco-efficiency of the Resirk/PET system can be improved further by: - Regarding used PET bottles as a resource to be applied for production - Reducing packaging tax for PET bottles - Increasing the bottle deposit - Keeping the PET specification updated - Improving collection efficiency - Improving cost efficiency of marketing and information - Increasing compaction and filling degree of reverse vending machines - Considering automatic sorting - Keeping focus on producing high quality PET flakes. In addition to having showed that the approaches of eco-efficiency and interactive resource development can be combined, this thesis may have implications on how ecoefficiency can be quantified in waste management systems, and how the concepts of adaptation and friction in resource structures are dealt with.

Programmes and policies to support ecological sustainable development and the practice of implementation is a question of innovation rather than known and taken for granted procedure. This thesis argues a priori models concerning stability in the social sciences, and human geography especially, are less able to help us understand this practice and planning in such unstable situations. Problematic in common understandings of planning and policy implementation concerning sustainability are the dualisms between physical-social spaces and between rationality-contingency. The first dualism makes it hard to grasp the interaction between humans and nonhumans. The second dualism concerns the problem of how to capture change without resorting to reductionism and explanaining the evolving projects as either technically, economically, or culturally rational. The scope of the thesis is to test resources from actor-network theory as a means of resolving these dualisms. The case is the Stockholm Local Investment Programme and the new district of Hammarby Sjöstad. The programme’s objective was to support the implemention of new technologies and systems, energy efficiency and reduced resource-use as well as eco-cycling measures. The case-study follows how the work with the programme unfolded and how administrators’ efforts to reach satisfactory results was approached. In doing this, the actors had to be far more creative than models of implementation and traditional technology diffusion seem to suggest. The recommendation is to take the instrumentalisation framing the plasticity of a project in planning seriously – as innovativeness is not a special but the general case. Hence, to broaden our tools and understanding of planning a human geography of planning projects is pertinent.

Den vanligaste rekryteringsvägen är genom informella kontakter och spontanbesök är den näst vanligaste vägen. Arbetsförmedlingen (AF) som rekryteringsväg minskar ständigt och sociala medier används allt mer som rekryteringsverktyg. Många företag har svårt att rekrytera personal med rätt kompetens. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur och vilka sociala medier som används i rekryteringssammanhang. Forskningsstrategin är en fallstudie av Länsförsäkringar Bergslagens rekryteringsprocess. Det empiriska materialet består bland annat av interna dokument och intervjuer med personalchefen. Resultatet visar att nuvarande rekryteringsprocess genomgår 13 olika steg och att målet är att få fler att lämna intresseanmälan på hemsidan. Sociala medier definieras som webbrelaterade tjänster där människor bland annat kan konversera, ta del av och utbyta information och knyta kontakter. Arbetsmarknaden har förändrats och anställningarna är inte lika stabila som tidigare. Arbetsrelaterad teknik överensstämde tidigare med en individs hela karriärutveckling. Idag förändras arbetet, organisationen och den tekniska utvecklingen betydligt snabbare, vilket innebär att en tjänst kan förändras radikalt på bara fem år. Detta innebär att urvalsprocesser och verktyg behöver uppdateras. Arbetsgivare utnyttjar flera olika verktyg för urval och rekrytering men informationen om användningen är begränsad. / The most common recruitment route is through informal connections, and spontaneous visits are the second most common route. The use of the Employment Service (AF) as recruitment channel is consistently reduced and social media is increasingly used as recruiting tool. Many companies have difficulties recruiting staff with appropriate skills. The purpose of this paperis to examine how, and what social media is used in the recruitment context. The research strategy is a case study of the recruitment process at Länsförsäkringar Bergslagen. The empirical evidence includes internal documents and interviews with the personnel manager.The results show that the current recruitment process consists of 13 different steps and the goal is to get more individuals to leave their applications of interest on the homepage. Social media is defined as Web-related services where people can converse, receive and exchange information and establish contacts. The labour market has changed and jobs are not as stable as they used to be. Before, work-related technologies were consistent with an individual'sentire career. Today, work, organization and technological progress are changing much faster, which means a service can radically change in only five years. This means the selection processes and tools needs to be updated. Employers use a variety of tools for the selection and recruitment, but the information on their use is limited.

This study uses Actor – Network Theory as a lens to present a case study of the process by which Indiska Magasinet, a large Swedish retailer, has defined and developed its conceptualization of Corporate Social Responsibility. Actor – Network Theory offers a valuable tool to examine the inter-actor negotiations that precede a conceptualization of Corporate Social Responsibility. The study results are primarily based on interviews with two prominent Indiska personnel in decision-making positions. At the instigation of the writers, the Indiska personnel told stories about the company’s way of working with Corporate Social Responsibility. In doing so, they described four principle examples of how inter-actor negotiations resulted in significant developments in Indiska’s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility. Their stories also highlighted shared values and legitimacy as the main reasons that Indiska allows other actors to influence its conceptualization of Corporate Social Responsibility.

The thesis provides an analysis of the different ways the Occupy Wall Street was presented by OccupyWallSt.org ( the movement’s own media source), and The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today from July 2011 up to the end of June 2012. This was done by using Entman’ theory of media framing together with Castells’ network theory of power. The former provided a way of addressing the different types of frames that mainstream media utilize, while the latter offered an understanding of how power is built through the media processes. Additionally, Castells’ theory described another type of media frame which is mostly used by alternative media, the counter frame, which could successfully be applied to study the content that the social movement decided to provide about itself.The study first employs a quantitative approach by using Crawdad, a centering resonance analysis (CRA) software. This provides a reliable pool of data that was then analyzed by using the above theories. Additionally, in order to check the reliability of the qualitative conclusions, a statistical test was done for the overall top centers resulting from the CRA.

Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) are becoming standard tools in healthcare, lauded for improving patient access and outcomes. However, the healthcare professionals who work with, around, and despite these technologies in their daily practices often regard EPRs as troublesome. In order to investigate how EPRs can prompt such opposing opinions, this project examines the EPR as a collection of communication genres set in complex contexts. In this project, I investigate an EPR as it was used on the Nephrology ward at a large, Canadian, urban, paediatric teaching hospital. In this setting, this study investigates EPR-use in relation to the following aspects of context: (a) the visual rhetoric of the EPR's user-interface design; (b) the varied social contexts in which the EPR was used, including a diversity of professional collaborators who had varying levels of professional experience; (c) the span of social actions involved in EPR use; and (d) the other genres used in coordination with the EPR. <br /><br /> This qualitative study was conducted in two simultaneous stages, over the course of 8 months. Stage one consisted of a visual rhetorical analysis of a set of genres (including the EPR) employed by participants during a specific work activity. Stage two involved an elaborated, qualitative case study consisting of non-participant observations and semi-structured interviews. Stage two used a constructivist grounded theory methodology. A combination of theoretical perspectives -- Visual Rhetoric, Rhetorical Genre Studies, Activity Theory, and Actor-Network Theory -- supported the analysis of study data. This research reveals that participants routinely transformed EPR-based information into paper documents when the EPR's visual designs did not support the professional goals and activities of the participants. <br /><br /> Results indicate that healthcare professionals work around EPR-based patient information when that genre's visual organization is incompatible with professional activities. This study suggests that visual rhetorical analysis, complemented with observation and interview data, can provide useful insights into a genre's social actions. This research also examines the effects of such EPR-to-paper genre transformations. Although at one level of analysis, the EPR-to-paper-genre transformation may be considered inefficient for participants and so should be automated, at another level of analysis, the same transformation activity can be seen as beneficially supporting the detailed reviewing of patient information by healthcare professionals. <br /><br /> To account for this function in the transformation dysfunction, my research suggests that many contextual factors need to be considered during data analysis in order to construct a sufficiently nuanced understanding of a genre's social actions. To accomplish such an analysis, I develop a five-step approach to data analysis called 'context mapping. ' Context mapping examines genres in relation to the varied social contexts in which they are used, the span of social actions in which they are involved, and a range of genres with which they are coordinated. To conduct this analysis, context mapping relies heavily on theories of "genre ecologies" (Spinuzzi, 2003a, 2003b; Spinuzzi, Hart-Davidson & Zachry, 2004; Spinuzzi & Zachry, 2000) and "Knotworking" (Engestrom, Engestrom & Vahaaho, 1999). Context mapping's first three steps compile study data into results that accommodate a wide range of contextual analysis considerations. These three steps involve the use of a composite scenario of observation data, genre ecologies and the description of a starting point for analysis. The final two steps of this approach analyse results using the theory of Knotworking and investigate some of the implications of the patterns of genre use on the ward. <br /><br /> Through context mapping analysis, this study demonstrates that EPR-based innovations created by a study participant could result in the generation of other improvisations, in a range of genres, by the original participant and/or by other collaborators. These genre modifications had ramifications across multiple social contexts and involved a wide range of genres and associated social actions. Context mapping analysis demonstrates how the effects of participant-made EPR-based variations can be considered as having both beneficial and detrimental effects in the research site depending on the social perspective adopted. Contributions from this work are directed towards the fields of Rhetorical Genre Studies, Activity Theory research, and Health Informatics research, as well as to the research site itself. This study demonstrates that context mapping can support text-in-context style research in complex settings as a means for evaluating the effects of genre uses.

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Information systems (IS) are widely acknowledged to be central for contemporary organizations. Along with the increasing importance of new IS in organizations, a school of thought has developed over the last few years that claims that IS and organizations mutually shape each other. While new IS shape organizational structure and behavior, the actual role and importance of IS in organizations is largely dependent on the organizational setting. However, questions of how IS and organizations mutually shape each other have remained largely unexplored.    The purpose of this thesis is to create better understanding of the design and use of IS in an organizational context. Actor-network theory (ANT) is used as a theoretical perspective to gain an understanding of how IS and organization influence each other. An interpretive case study approach was used for data collection. The case study was conducted in the municipal organization of Umeå, Sweden, over a period 36 months that covered the design process and use of a new IS. Semi-structured interviews, participant observations and document analysis were used as data collection techniques.    The findings indicate that the municipal organization became intertwined with technology by mobilizing a significant amount of allies in the IS adaption process. It was also found that the character of the IS in the organization was multi-faceted, and there were different versions of the application available for different actors. A new organizational behavior was established as a result of the design and use of the IS. While the new IS contributed to making more available the complicated financial aspects of the municipality, it also contributed in reinforcing a certain view on decision-making that was focused on organizational resources rather than on organizational objectives. The organizational changes that took place were of a constant nature, and there was no closure of the change processes as new issues continuously surfaced that needed attention.    The concept of evolving multi-purpose networks is coined to describe and analyze the character of the technology dependent organization. The concept of negotiation loop is coined to describe and analyze the processes of IS adaption, where the role and meaning of the IS changes as new actors are enrolled to the network. An evolving multipurpose network is changeful as negotiation loops continue after the IS is established in the organization. The notation of evolving multipurpose networks is meant to stimulate reflection both for researchers and practitioners, underscoring the negotiated character of IS in organizations. It is meant to allow a better understanding for how the design and use of IS in an organizational context is a process of mutual influence between the IS and organization. / digitalisering@umu

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