The idea of sustainability is widespread, but it often remains unclear how the idea travelled and how it is translated into practice. In this thesis it is analysed how public organizations translate sustainability into action through Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP). First, an overview of translation theory and previous research on SPP is given. Basing on an empirical analysis, two cases of public organizations in Sweden and Germany that integrated SPP in their strategies are described and analysed. It is revealed that translation theory applies to the two cases and that the theory is useful to explain how the concept of sustainability is acted upon. Characteristics of processes of translation can be observed in both cases, indicating that the translation of the same idea can result in different practices and outcomes. It is found that although both public organizations use the same term, the way SPP is implemented and practiced differs highly. The thesis includes reflections on this different outcome and considers the importance of local contexts and actors.

This thesis innovates on existing literature on the Transition movement by relinquishing stock academic definitions of its ends and means, which purportedly spell out what Transition 'is'. In its stead, it approaches Transition as phenomenon, namely as an evolving socio-material formation that proliferates a cultural repertoire to sustain a growing range of concerted everyday activities. This is the difference between an instrumental focus, whereby Transition is reduced to a strategy which is oriented towards an unchanging programmatic definition, and an orientational one; the latter attuned to the contingent process by which a movement expresses form and orientation in emergent fashion. The monograph and the introductory chapter contribute to this task in different ways. Everything Gardens and Other Stories undertakes a rich description of various practical realms of Transition and, to capture the coming into being of a phenomenon, it pays particular attention to its developmental trajectory. This entails focusing on the generative movement of the culture of Transition, as it emerges from the attempt to address embodied disquiets originally elicited by information about peak oil and climate change. That initial focus, however, forms merely a station along a path in which new sources of anxiety find validation and prompt further cultural production. The monograph also describes the tensions arising in the process, as a growing body of discursive and material resources have to negotiate an accommodation, in order to become reciprocally recognisable as participant parts enfolded in a common cultural milieu. The introductory chapter supports this account by fleshing out a methodological paradigm that helps direct attention to the unfolding of a socio-material phenomenon in its dilemmatic moments and continual negotiations. For this purpose, starting from canonical sources in phenomenology, it goes on to situate the 'unfolding' of a phenomenon in the proliferation of entanglements between actors, human and nonhuman. In the 'mattering' of a phenomenon so understood, dilemmatic moments call forth an ethical questioning and an ontological politics immanent to the very process of cultural production. This, it is submitted, is precisely how an orientational focus allows to access Transition as phenomenon, beyond the bounds of academic definitions.

With the growing awareness and urgency of sustainable business behavior, conducting environmental impact assessments is an important tool for companies to evaluate their impacts. However, the assessment tool has received critique over the last years, and seems not to accomplish its goal to assure a sustainable development and use of the environment. In this thesis, the possibility of integrating the concept of ecosystem services in an environmental impact assessment is investigated. The aim of this study was to create a theoretical framework that facilitates the decision making process of impact assessments with the dimension of ecosystem services. This research is based on an empirical analysis surrounding the environmental assessment of the Bunge Area on Gotland, Sweden by the Finnish mining company Nordkalk AB, together with the legal decision making process that derived from it. The theoretical framework was tested upon applicability, and resulted into providing information concerning the integration of ecosystem services on the environmental impact assessment.

This dissertation studies meetings from a process perspective. Such an approach, which can be labelled ‘process organisation studies’ is promising in that it directs attention to social processes continuously in the making. The thesis builds on the current development in process organisation studies in two ways. The first centres on an elaboration on key assumptions of approaching organisational life from a process perspective. I here bridge process organisation studies with Bakhtin’s work on dialogue into a dialogical becoming perspective. This perspective calls for a distinct way of understanding processes of becoming which makes it possible to explore meeting practices as situated, emerging and relational world-making activities. The second is a comprehensive processual account based on a collaborative field study with two owner families. Organised meetings held in a family that owns a business (or several) has proved to be of importance for family business longevity in that the family members can help to develop strong family relations and a healthy business. In this setting, where people are dealing with that which is often most important to them in life, such as their identity, work, family relationships and future wealth, a process approach is useful since it helps to understand the emotionally loaded, complex and intertwined issues at stake.What emerges as central in understanding movement and flow is the need to understand the here and now moments in meetings. I refer to these moments as ‘living moments’ as a reminder of the once-occurring, unique and momentary transformation that can take place between people in such encounters. Thus, the living moment is the moment of movement.

Les études urbaines (Urban Studies) et organisationnelles (Organization Studies) sur la ville durable ont focalisé leur attention sur la question de la gouvernance, en particulier sur la participation des citoyens et des stakeholders. Très peu de travaux ont étudié, en revanche, la naissance des projets urbains durables sous l'angle de la conception et de son pilotage. La conception de la ville durable ou de morceaux de ville (les quartiers durables) pose pourtant des questions multiples. La première touche à la naissance et à l'évolution de nouveaux objets de conception associés à de nouvelles fonctions (mixité sociale, mixité fonctionnelle, fonctions écologiques et écosystémiques). Tracer la transformation successive des objets intermédiaires de conception (programme, plans masse, réception du quartier ou des bâtiments, vie en marche) qui jalonnent et cristallisent ce processus de création collective dans le cadre de projets innovants constitue un premier objectif de la thèse. Ce travail permet de mettre en évidence les ruptures et les discontinuités dans les processus de conception qui tiennent aux différentes modélisations de ces objets. La deuxième question est relative aux instruments et aux langages (ingénieriques, comme l'écoconception, économiques et juridiques) qui constituent des supports cognitifs pour l'action des concepteurs. Ainsi nous caractérisons les nouveaux instruments et langages mobilisés dans le cadre de ces projets urbains innovants et analysons la façon dont ils permettent de doter les concepteurs de nouvelles capacités de conception. Enfin, nous abordons la question des conditions d'une cohésion au sein des collectifs d'acteurs engagés dans les projets urbains durables. L'émiettement et l'hétérogénéité des acteurs des projets urbains rendent, en effet, cette recherche de cohésion particulièrement difficile à obtenir. Dans cette perspective, nous avons identifié des situations innovantes où émerge un rôle collectif de conception qui dépasse les intérêts et les identités professionnelles particuliers des acteurs. Cette découverte ouvre un nouveau champ d'interaction à l'interface entre Organization Studies, Urban Studies et le Pragmatism. / Experiments on sustainable city or neighborhood accompanied by the search for new modes of design, governance, management and plan-ning of the city. The thesis proposes to study the emergence of an innovation based on so-called 'sustainable' from the tools and instruments which will equip participants to manage these new situations. Four types of instrumentation are considered in the thesis: legal (contracts between the parties); Economic and Financial (financial engineering development projects / ACG), governance and management (repositories, project management and process) design and evaluation performance of the district or area con-sidered (these tools and templates that can be quantitative and qualitative). This systematic analysis has not yet been carried out in the literature. It is therefore a theoretical issue. It is also an empirical issue because design patterns are planning to conceive, a synoptic view is a key issue for actors, public or private, who wish to contribute to this new integrative function. For this, the thesis is based on two approaches: - A historical perspective of the logic of development to show the changes brought about by sustainability issues and challenges of this new feature; - An empirical analysis and comparative depth of experience innova-tive in France and abroad. Our goal is to answer two research questions: What are the instruments, collective reasoning and collective experiments that support in-novantes current in terms of sustainable management? What are the attributes of the function of sustainable (parallel with the 'innovation function')?

This thesis aims to explore the challenges of translation of after-action reviews (AARs) from theory and best practices into real-life. Furthermore, the purpose was to explore if existing theories can be translated to another context and how. This is examined on the case of extreme action teams, more concretely firefighters in Sweden. In extreme action teams there is a high importance on learning and improvement. After-action reviews as a learning tool can be a very suitable approach to foster constant development and enhance extreme action teams’ resilience and effectiveness.  From the literature findings it is apparent that there are several frameworks for after-action reviews. However, these are mainly based on a specific organizational context, namely the U.S. Army’s. Practitioners and researchers should be aware of the fact that this process has been developed with the military in mind, a fact which may adversely affect the implementation in organizations with a different background. Translating an after-action review from one specific context to another and more generally from theory to practice comes with challenges that will be explored in this study.  This thesis was conducted using qualitative research to examine how after-action reviews are conducted in real-life. Data were mainly collected through semi-structured interviews with firefighters and team leaders from different teams in the case organization. The interviews helped us to understand how the after-action reviews were perceived by the interviewees. Based on the literature best practices for the implementation and conduction of after-action reviews were identified which were compared to the empirical results.  We identified two main challenges of translating after-action reviews which are that (1) it is not in all contexts possible to strictly follow the theory and (2) it is not clear to what extent the AAR frameworks and best practices are suited to the specific needs and capabilities of teams. We emphasize the importance of context and identify that when translating an after-action review based on the military context to the firefighting context, there are significant differences between the theoretical after-action review and the after-action review utilized in real life.  We developed two main recommendations for extreme action teams based on the context in which they operate. Firstly, after-action review frameworks and best practices should be deviated from if they are not realistic or if they are too constraining. Secondly, we would encourage that extreme action teams to change and adapt the theory according to their own needs, to make the after-action review as effective as possible for them.

This thesis presents a study on different school actors’ narratives about how they have experienced a participation in a school development collaboration called PBS, problem based school development. A school development and research project based at Karlstad University. The analysis is inspired by a narrative approach and a critical perspective on policy, were policy is understood as both text and discourse. The aim of the study is to show how the carrying through of this new policy (PBS) is received and reconstructed in three Swedish municipal settings. In the analysis the participant’s narratives are also related to the reconstructions of the field of education politics that has been carried out the last decades, here in Sweden as well as in other countries around the world. In this study 46 interviews were carried out. Official texts from each of the three school organizations have also been studied. As analytical tools parts of a model called the zoom-model and three different concepts, taken from the field of organization studies have been used. The overall result shows that those who work in schools today are engaged in a large amount of development works, claims and ways of working that they themselves choose to enact. The results also show how the interviewees receive and charge these ideas with their own previous experiences and how this is done in discursive contexts that shape what is considered normal and evident. One conclusion is that further attention ought to be made to the significance of the local context when it comes to carry through a new idea on development and change. A conclusion drawn from how interpretations and reconstructions of both development models prior to PBS and of the national steering model came to play important roles in how PBS was received and reconstructed in the studied municipalities. But different interpretations of the PBS model also led to tensions within and between the different areas of the organizations. Tensions that can be described as dilemmas, implicated by an ongoing cacophony of policy voices, whose prescriptions pull on different directions. When the PBS-policy arrives in this discursive room the results show how this policy can become a tool in line with new discursive narratives of education, regardless the intensions formulated in the context of policy text construction. / PBS-Problembaserad skolutveckling

A gestao escolar democratica e tida como elemento imprescindivel a qualidade do ensino por varios autores e profissionais da educacao. Entretanto, ha tambem por parte deles o reconhecimento da enorme distancia entre um ideal democratico de administracao escolar e a realidade, especialmente neste caso, a brasileira. Tendo em vista a notoria relevância desse tema para o cenario nacional de educacao e ensino, este estudo teve por objetivo analisar essa dimensao da qualidade a partir do estudo de caso na Escola Municipal de Educacao Basica Alfredo Naime, do municipio de Bebedouro, a qual passou pelos processos de avaliacao propostos no INDIQUE (2009), elaborados pela parceria entre: Acao Educativa, UNICEF, PNUD, INEP e MEC, os quais correspondiam cientifica e metodologicamente aos anseios desta pesquisa. Para a analise foram utilizadas informacoes do Plano Gestor da escola e principalmente do relatorio gerado pelo processo do INDIQUE na escola. Tambem foram feitos acompanhamentos de atividades escolares assim como entrevistas semi-estruturadas e nao-estruturadas a todos os principais atores da instituicao de ensino (alunos, pais, professores, gestores e funcionarios) a fim de colher opinioes e perspectivas dos entrevistados sobre o tema. Concluiu-se que, apesar de restricoes principalmente externas, mas tambem internas, a uma gestao escolar democratica, os atores escolares da EMEB Alfredo Naime mostraram que rumam a uma gestao democratizante. A outra principal conclusao diz respeito ao INDIQUE, que se mostrou um rico instrumento de avaliacao coletiva efetivamente democratico e contribuidor para a escola em diversas dimensoes educacionais. / The democratic school management is seen as an indispensable element of educational quality by several authors and education professionals. However, they also recognize the enormous gap between a democratic ideal and the reality of school administration, especially in this case, the Brazilian situation. Given the evident importance of this issue to the national arena of education and teaching, this study aimed to analyze this dimension of quality from the case study at the Municipal School of Basic Education Alfredo Naime, from the city of Bebedouro, which has passed by the assessment procedures proposed in the INDIQUE (2009), prepared by the partnership: Educational Action, UNICEF, UNDP, INEP and MEC, which corresponded to the scientifically and methodologically perspectives of this research. For the analysis were used information of the Plan Manager of the school and especially the report generated by the Educational Quality Indicators process in the school. Were also made follow-school activities as well as semi-structured and unstructured interviews to all major actors from the school (students, parents, teachers, managers and employees) in order to collect opinions and perspectives of those interviewed on the subject. It was concluded that, despite restrictions mainly external, but internal too, to a democratic school management, the school actors of Municipal School Alfredo Naime showed that tend to a democratizing management. The other main finding relates to Educational Quality Indicators, that proved to be a rich collective assessment tool, effectively democratic and contributor to the school in various dimensions of education.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:51:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 166830.pdf.jpg: 14969 bytes, checksum: 9e02b47f84c4976d1ff126454914749f (MD5) 166830.pdf: 610068 bytes, checksum: 4ad0ef49c4becd87273c9a4ac1a12e7d (MD5) 166830.pdf.txt: 210590 bytes, checksum: a22a7a12875e4c88e0f13fec2f71b339 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-04T00:00:00Z / The sociology of organizations is still made based on analytical schemas which are free of time (CLARK, 1985; HASSARD, 2000; GIDDENS, 2003). However, temporal concerns permeate every organization, what makes the concept of time extremely important to the organization studies. Based on this idea, this research had the ambition to approach the temporal dimension of work in the organizations; from the perspective of the individuals. Considering that the middle managers live a double tension inside organizations, which are originated from the top managers and the operational workers, we decided to investigate the way that the middle managers experience time at work. To review the temporal experience of the middle managers, twenty people, who work on organizations located at São Paulo, were interviewed and the content of the interviews analyzed. The content analyses methodology was used to analyze the material, which was colleted via semi-structured interviews. The interview analysis suggests that even though the time at work is, by the majority of professionals interviewed, defined as an economic resource, whose utilization must be maximally optimized, the temporal experience of the middle managers is not homogeneous. Environmental elements, common to all workers, tend to approximate the temporal experiences of middle managers. These elements, which are compression of time, sense of urgency, new technologies, characteristics related to the role of manager and organization or disorganization of workers and institutions, are associated to the economical and social scenario under which organizations function. However, personal characteristics, related to age, gender, personal values and experiences, besides the field in which the company functions also impact the way the middle managers experience time and deal with the temporal pressures. In conclusion, despite the fact that environmental elements are shared, with emphasis to the growing compression of time, the human nature and the impermanence of the social phenomenons reveal the complexity of the temporal experience of the middle managers at work. The homogeneity, objectivity and linearity represented by the clock, image of the time in the contemporary societies, is then confronted with the heterogeneous, subjective and cyclic aspects that are part of the temporal experience of the workers. / A sociologia das organizações ainda é realizada sob a construção de esquemas analíticos livres de tempo (CLARK, 1985; HASSARD, 2000; GIDDENS, 2003). No entanto, questões temporais permeiam toda e qualquer organização, o que torna o conceito de tempo de central importância para os estudos organizacionais. Com base nisso, esta pesquisa teve a ambição de abordar a dimensão temporal do trabalho nas organizações; sob a perspectiva dos indivíduos. E, dado que os gerentes médios vivenciam um duplo foco de pressão: originado da alta gerência e do nível operacional da organização, decidiu-se investigar como os gerentes médios experimentam o tempo no trabalho. Para desvendar a experiência temporal dos gerentes médios, foram analisadas, com a metodologia de análise de conteúdo, entrevistas com 20 profissionais de média gerência que trabalham em empresas que operam na cidade de São Paulo. A coleta do material de pesquisa ocorreu com entrevistas em profundidade semi-estruturadas. A análise das entrevistas sugere que embora o tempo no trabalho seja, por todos os profissionais entrevistados, definido como um recurso econômico, cuja utilização dever ser otimizada ao máximo, a experiência temporal entre os gerentes médios não é homogênea. Há fatores ambientais comuns a todos os entrevistados, que tendem a aproximar as experiências temporais dos mesmos. Tais fatores, que são a compressão do tempo, o sentido de urgência, as novas tecnologias, características intrínsecas ao papel de gerente e a organização de si próprios, das empresas e colaboradores, estão associados ao cenário econômico e social contemporâneo. No entanto, características relacionadas à idade, gênero, valores e experiências pessoais, além do segmento de atuação da empresa também impactam a experiência temporal dos gerentes médios e contribuem para a diversificação da maneira como os gerentes médios experimentam e lidam com as pressões temporais. Em síntese, a despeito dos fatores ambientais compartilhados, com destaque para a crescente compressão do tempo, a natureza humana e a impermanência dos fenômenos sociais desnudam a complexidade da experiência temporal dos gerentes médios no trabalho. E revelam que – apesar da homogeneidade, objetividade e linearidade representadas pelo relógio, ícone do tempo nas sociedades ocidentais contemporâneas – heterogeneidade, subjetividade e ciclicidade fazem parte da experiência temporal dos trabalhadores.

O tema de pesquisa desta investigação é a expansão do ensino superior público. O estudo analisou de que modo a adesão ao Sistema UAB fragiliza os princípios da administração pública e de autonomia de uma IFES. A investigação baseou-se no referencial teórico da teoria da contingência estrutural e seus conceitos-chave: estrutura organizacional, diferenciação estrutural e fator contingencial. A pesquisa buscou, ainda, elementos teóricos para caracterizar o caráter público e autônomo de uma IFES para contrastar com a configuração demandada pelo Estado Gerencial. Como estratégia de pesquisa, utilizou-se o estudo do caso de adesão ao Sistema UAB pela UFRGS e seus cursos PNAP. Os dados foram coletados em documentos e entrevistas e analisados sob a perspectiva da análise interpretativa. Nesta pesquisa, constatou-se que o MEC adotou o contrato como estratégia para expansão de vagas na modalidade EaD, configurando um ambiente de dependência de recursos para o ensino a distância. Com efeito, a UFRGS foi forçada a adotar a estratégia de captação de recursos, empreendida pela ação de adesão ao Sistema UAB, que resultou na ampliação significativa do seu número de vagas no ensino de graduação e de especializações lato sensu. Essa expansão organizacional foi viabilizada pela intensificação do trabalho dos seus servidores e pelas contratações temporárias de vínculo precário, visto que houve um número pouco significativo de vagas de provimento efetivo por meio de concurso público. Os cursos do Sistema UAB são ofertados pela UFRGS em regime de alternância de períodos, divergindo do seu ensino ofertado regular e continuamente nos semestres letivos. O contrato fez emergir na UFRGS características das organizações sociais, conforme idealizava a proposta gerencial de Reforma do Aparelho do Estado, fragilizando os princípios da administração pública. Ao mesmo tempo, foi possível observar que o Sistema UAB pode ter efeitos positivos para a UFRGS e para a sociedade por duas razões principais: por incentivar a oferta de educação a distância – com potencial para atender comunidades longínquas – e devido à gratuidade de cursos em todos os níveis de ensino, especialmente nas pósgraduações lato sensu cuja prática vem se rarefazendo. Não obstante, observa-se também que, em razão do modo pelo qual vem se implantando nas IFES, o Estado passou de uma condição de mantenedor para uma condição de formulador dos objetivos, os quais são concebidos fora dos espaços institucionais da Universidade, fragilizando, desse modo, o princípio da autonomia. / The research topic of this research is the expansion of public higher education. The study analyzed the way of the adherence to Sistema UAB weakens the principles of public administration and autonomy from a IFES. The research was based on the theoretical framework of structural contingency theory and its key concepts: organizational structure, structural differentiation and contingency factor. The survey also brought to characterize the theoretical elements and autonomous public character of an IFES to contrast with the configuration demanded by the Managerial State. As a research strategy, we used the case study of adherence to Sistema UAB by the UFRGS and their courses PNAP. Data were collected from documents and interviews and analyzed from the perspective of interpretive analysis. In this research, it was found that the MEC has adopted the contract as a strategy to increase in enrollment in distance education mode by configuring an environment of resource dependence for distance learning. Indeed, UFRGS was forced to adopt the strategy of fundraising undertaken by the action of joining the Sistema UAB, which resulted in significant expansion of its number of seats in undergraduate courses and specializations lato sensu. This organizational expansion was made possible by intensifying work of its employees and the temporary hiring of precarious work, since there was not a substantial number of vacancies effective provision through public tender. The courses are offered by the UFRGS at Sistema UAB under the alternation of periods, diverging from their regular teaching and continually offered in semesters. The contract did emerge at UFRGS features of social organizations, as idealized managerial proposal for Reforming the State, undermining the principles of public administration. At the same time, was observed that the Sistema UAB can have positive effects for the UFRGS and society in general for two main reasons: to encourage the provision of distance education - with the potential to serve remote communities - and gratuitousness of courses at all levels of education, especially in postgraduate courses broad sense in which this practice has been thinning. Nevertheless, it is also observed that, because of the way has been deploying the IFES, the state passed a condition maintainer for a condition formulator of objectives, which are designed outside the institutional spaces of the University, weakening thereby the principle of autonomy.