<p>Abstract</p><p>The landscape of socially oriented NGOs – a study of how they are created and established in</p><p>a local Swedish context.</p><p>This thesis is an inquiry into local, socially oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs)</p><p>in Swedish municipalities. Previous research has indicated that changes in the monitoring and</p><p>steering of financial support during the 1990s altered the conditions for and practices of</p><p>NGOs. The inquiry – based on archival material and interviews with organization</p><p>representatives from the twelve NGOs receiving financial support from the social welfare</p><p>board in Växjö municipality – showed instead that the organizations were unaffected by the</p><p>changes, and that the set of recipient organizations had been stable over time. A comparison</p><p>with four other communities reveals that the same pattern is repeated in other municipalities</p><p>of similar size. The purpose of the thesis is to develop a theoretical framework to account for</p><p>stability in sets of recipient organizations. It is argued that set stability is explained by</p><p>affiliations with well-known national organizations, in conjunction with the boundary-work of</p><p>the local organizations.</p>

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Utrecht, 2007. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 463-479).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract Bachelor’s thesis, Enterprising and Business Development, Linnaeus University School of Business and Economics, 2EB00E, VT 2015 Authors: Jesper Gunnarsson and Mathias Holst Tutor: Maria Persdotter Isaksson Title: ”They get breakfast and transportation. What else could they need?”. An exploratory study of how to improve ethical labour standards in Sri Lankan companies. Background: The globalization has led to an increase in movement of goods and capital across national borders. This has contributed to an increase in overseas manufacturing in low-wage countries, meaning a decrease in costs and improved profits for western companies. Since the ethical standards generally are lower in developing countries numerous NGOs have launched awareness campaigns for CSR. In Sri Lanka there are issues regarding ethical labour. There is a concern that the government are not committing enough towards the improvement of these standards. The improvement of ethical standards has the potential to improve the quality of life and the entire economy which makes it interesting to see how the government in cooperation with other stakeholders can improve the situation. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to explore how ethical labour standards can be improved in Sri Lankan companies. Method: The study uses a general inductive approach where two main themes are extracted from seven interviews with representatives from the Sri Lankan government, Labour Department, ILO and employers. The study is of a qualitative character and its hermeneutic approach allows the subjective opinions of the respondents to affect the direction of the study. Conclusions: Through this study it has been explored that ethical labour standards in Sri Lankan companies can be improved through two categories: 1) The role of the government and through 2) communication and cooperation. The most prominent conclusions are that the Sri Lankan government have to increase their commitment in the ethical labour discussion and the social dialogue, that promotes the interests of all the stakeholders within the debate, is required. Through a stronger ethical labour legislation further social initiatives can have better conditions through out the Sri Lankan society and through ICT-implementations the monitoring of ethical labour can increase in efficiency, hence increase the ethical labour standards in Sri Lankan companies.

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The increasing environmental threat because of unsustainable pollution levelshave forced E.U. to take further actions by enforcing directives in the electricity sector. The E.U. directives, enforced in 2002, aim to increase the level of electricity produced from renewable sources. In order to fulfill their received national target of green electricity, the E.U. members have, in most cases, either adopted a feed-in tariff or tradable green certificates. Since it is in a government’sinterest to minimize expenditure while still maximizing incentives when adopting a policy, this study has evaluated the cost-efficiency differences of a FIT and aTGC from a governmental perspective. This has been done by using two different models, one which measures total governmental expenditures in the energy sector and one which only measures the subsidies in the energy sector. The findings suggest that a TGC can be up to 159% more cost-efficient than a FIT, depending on how it is measured. The total expenditure model could establish the costefficiency differences with a significance of 5%, while the subsidy model could not establish the differences on a satisfying significance level

The present study investigates the instructional and organizational strategies used by participatory action research (PAR) facilitators at the Summer Youth Research Institute of the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut (US), a six-week program that engages urban multi-ethnic teenagers in youth participatory action research (YPAR) for social change. During the last three decades, PAR has proven to be a very effective methodology for creating sustainable solutions to social problems by involving community members in the process of identifying, investigating, and collectively resolving them. In particular, YPAR provides young people with the opportunity to study social problems that affect themselves and their communities. Through experiential learning, YPAR allows youth to understand that structural injustices are produced, not natural, and can be challenged. Youth discover spaces for hope and resistance and become agents of change for their own communities. While recent years have witnessed an increased effort from researchers and practitioners alike to apply PAR approaches to various fields within community and international development, little has been written addressing educators about the designing and implementation process of a curriculum in PAR methodology. The present exploratory ethnographic study aims to address the theory-practice gap of PAR literature, which offers only a limited number of case study analyses of the facilitation and implementation process of PAR projects, and offer advice for PAR facilitators which is currently lacking.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Government and Public Administration

There is an on-going discussion in public relation scholarship surrounding the implication of critical theory on the study of activists’ utilization of public relations tools. One side believes that the mainstream theoretical models are sufficient for explaining the situation in which conflicts and negotiations between activists and corporations are happening, the other believes that critical theory needs to be applied. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an example that sheds light on this type of situation. It will study the 2014 conflict between Greenpeace and LEGO to see if orthodox theories are applicable, or if not, how and why critical theory should get more attention from public relations scholars.   The aim of the thesis is to solve the conflict through studying a case. To solve the dispute two research questions are aiming to scrutinize the negotiation situation between LEGO and Greenpeace. The questions are asking what images of the Greenpeace campaign was most frequently used by the media, and how these frame LEGO. A method triangulation was applied to answer these questions. First, a quantitative study identified what images that were most frequently used by the media to cover the story. Later a qualitative text analysis in the form of semiotics was used to analyse how these images framed LEGO. The result shows that almost 90% of the images used by mass media was directly illustrating Greenpeace’s campaign. The messages in these images framed LEGO on one hand, as a passive player that would stand by and watch as their business partner polluted both the earth and kids’ imaginations.  On the other hand the company was portrayed as an almighty institution that would not take stakeholders wishes and opinions into consideration.   The study serves as an example on the negotiation situation between activists and corporations. The conclusion relates the thesis back to the problem definition. The public relation communication utilized by Greenpeace, and studied in this thesis, is evidence that the scholarship needs broaden the intellectual domain by incorporating activism and critical theory into the academic field.