Early motion pictures resembled theatre productions on film. Decades would pass before the techniques of special effects and editing evolved to provide the type of movie often shown today. Similarly, early television looked like a radio show where the audience could observe the speakers. Ford's Model T, a "horse-less" carriage. seemed to be designed for a harness. In these examples, successful companies learned how to harness and exploit the power of new technologies--others companies became victims. Companies of the current economy must recognize they face a similar watershed. According to Tom Stewart, the economy effectively transitioned into the Information Age during 1991. "That year, spending for production technology was $107 billion and information technology spending was $112 billion. Call that year one of the information age. Ever since, companies have spent more money on equipment that gathers, processes, analyzes, and distributes information than on machines that stamp, cut, assemble, lift, and otherwise manipulate the physical world." The burgeoning role of the Internet compounds the formal advent of the Information Age. These phenomena beg a critical, well-reasoned response. Whether beginning a new venture or charting a course for an established entity, executives must plan their path with the knowledge of technology shifi occurring.

Even though it is prescribed by law in Sweden that children in elementary school must fulfil a compulsory education, a significant number of students are absent. The aim of this thesis is therefore to analyse two municipalities’, Halmstad and Borås, efforts to improve student attendance in elementary school. The two municipalities are of middle size with approximately the same number of citizens and elementary schools. Both municipalities, that have large autonomy, have recently developed new policies regarding how schools should manage absence in elementary school. By studying these policies and interviewing responsible authorities, principals and representatives from student health care, the goal is to find out what governance models characterize the municipalities’ efforts to promote attendance in school. The methods used are of a qualitative character and the interviews semi-structured. The theoretical framework concentrates on organization theory, such as management models, instrumental, mythical and culture perspectives and evaluation.   The results found show that the management model is strongly dominating the governance within the educational system. However, the practical methods used to promote school attendance depend in wide measures on experience and values among the actors working with the students, indicating a cultural perspective. Since the management model is dominating the governance of the school system, and this model highlights public servants’ acting space, the actors’ values and interpretations become important factors for the outcome.

Den här uppsatsen handlar om organisationsteorier, konflikthantering och kommunikation, i syfte på att upprätthålla så bra miljö som möjligt i organisationen. Under studiens gång kommer vi att fokusera på personalen vid psykiatriska kliniken och kommer i samband med detta att utesluta patienternas yttranden. Trots att vi kommer att avstå från att ta initiativ kring patienternas uttalanden, kommer vi genom personalens yttranden få en inblick i de anställdas och patienternas välmående på verksamheten. Uppsatsen kommer att omfatta sex respondenters intervjusamtal, vilka kommer att framläggas under presentationen av materialet.     Tack vare de intervjuer som vi har genomfört tillsammans med de anställda vid de olika avdelningarna på psykiatriska kliniken, har vi på ett indirekt sätt kunnat måla upp en bild av hur patienter påverkas av personalens välmående på jobbet. Via dessa ovannämnda intervjuer och annat litteraturmässigt material, har vi kunnat komma med förslag till hur man genom aktiviteter och terapeutiska metoder skall kunna frambringa bättre relationer och genom dessa skapa bra social miljö för både personal och patienter.      Kvalitativ metodgranskning och hermeneutik har här varit de principiella förhållningssätten inför dessa iakttagelser av att finna lämpligt material. Det vi under undersökningens gång kommit fram till är bland annat att kommunikation och olika terapeutiska samtalsmetoder är ett redskap för personalen och dess utveckling i arbetet inom vården. / This paper deals with organizational theories, conflict management and communication, in order to maintain the best environment as possible in the organization. During the study we will focus on the staff of the psychiatric clinic and in this context to exclude patients' opinions. Although we will refrain from taking the initiative on patients' statements, we will by staff opinions get an insight into the employees' and patients' well-being in the business. The essay will include six professionals respondent interviews, which will be presented during the presentation of the material.     Thanks to the interviews we have conducted together with the staff of the various departments at psychiatric clinic, we have in an indirect way could paint a picture of how patients are affected by the staff well-being at work. Through the above-mentioned interviews and other literature in terms of materials, we have been able to come up with proposals for how the activities and therapeutic methods to produce better relationships and through them to create good social environment for both staff and patients.     Qualitative examination method and hermeneutics have been the basic approaches here to these observation by finding appropriate materials. The course of the investigation we concluded that include communication therapy sessions and various methods are a tool for staff and their development in the work of care.

abstract: The biohacker movement is an important and modern form of activism. This study broadly examines how positive-activist-oriented biohackers emerge, organize, and respond to social crises. Despite growing public awareness, few studies have examined biohacking's influence on prevailing notions of organizing and medicine in-context. Therefore, this study examines biohacking in the context of the 2016 EpiPen price-gouging crisis, and explores how biohackers communicatively attempted to constitute counter-narratives and counter-logics about medical access and price through do-it-yourself (DIY) medical device alternatives. Discourse tracing and critical case study analysis are useful methodological frameworks for mapping the historical discursive and material logics that led to the EpiPen pricing crisis, including the medicalization of allergy, the advancement of drug-device combination technologies, and role of public health policy, and pharmaceutical marketing tactics. Findings suggest two new interpretations for how non-traditional forms of organizing facilitate new modes of resistance in times of institutional crisis. First, the study considers the concept of "pop-up maktivism" to conceptualize activism as a type of connective activity rather than collective organizing. Second, findings illustrate how activities such as participation and co-production can function as meaningful forms of institutional resistance within dominant discourses. This study proposes “mirrored materiality” to describe how biohackers deploy certain dominant logics to contest others. Lastly, implications for contributions to the conceptual frameworks of biopower, sociomateriality, and alternative organizing are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2019

<p>Den här uppsatsen handlar om organisationsteorier, konflikthantering och kommunikation, i syfte på att upprätthålla så bra miljö som möjligt i organisationen. Under studiens gång kommer vi att fokusera på personalen vid psykiatriska kliniken och kommer i samband med detta att utesluta patienternas yttranden. Trots att vi kommer att avstå från att ta initiativ kring patienternas uttalanden, kommer vi genom personalens yttranden få en inblick i de anställdas och patienternas välmående på verksamheten. Uppsatsen kommer att omfatta sex respondenters intervjusamtal, vilka kommer att framläggas under presentationen av materialet.</p><p>    Tack vare de intervjuer som vi har genomfört tillsammans med de anställda vid de olika avdelningarna på psykiatriska kliniken, har vi på ett indirekt sätt kunnat måla upp en bild av hur patienter påverkas av personalens välmående på jobbet.</p><p>Via dessa ovannämnda intervjuer och annat litteraturmässigt material, har vi kunnat komma med förslag till hur man genom aktiviteter och terapeutiska metoder skall kunna frambringa bättre relationer och genom dessa skapa bra social miljö för både personal och patienter. </p><p>    Kvalitativ metodgranskning och hermeneutik har här varit de principiella förhållningssätten inför dessa iakttagelser av att finna lämpligt material. Det vi under undersökningens gång kommit fram till är bland annat att kommunikation och olika terapeutiska samtalsmetoder är ett redskap för personalen och dess utveckling i arbetet inom vården.</p> / <p>This paper deals with organizational theories, conflict management and communication, in order to maintain the best environment as possible in the organization. During the study we will focus on the staff of the psychiatric clinic and in this context to exclude patients' opinions. Although we will refrain from taking the initiative on patients' statements, we will by staff opinions get an insight into the employees' and patients' well-being in the business. The essay will include six professionals respondent interviews, which will be presented during the presentation of the material.</p><p>    Thanks to the interviews we have conducted together with the staff of the various departments at psychiatric clinic, we have in an indirect way could paint a picture of how patients are affected by the staff well-being at work.</p><p>Through the above-mentioned interviews and other literature in terms of materials, we have been able to come up with proposals for how the activities and therapeutic methods to produce better relationships and through them to create good social environment for both staff and patients.</p><p>    Qualitative examination method and hermeneutics have been the basic approaches here to these observation by finding appropriate materials. The course of the investigation we concluded that include communication therapy sessions and various methods are a tool for staff and their development in the work of care.</p>

<p><strong>Objective:</strong> In this thesis, we assume that the organizations' interests are governing their behavior/positions. It seems possible to draw conclusions about organizations'interests on the basis of the behavior / positions that will appear in the givenopinions on Swedish Public Investigations. The purpose of this thesis is toidentify self-interests of the studied organizations as they appear in their givenopinions.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> The authors have made a qualitative and quantitative study of the opinions.</p><p><strong>Theoretical perspective:</strong> The basis of the study is the organization theories that focus the self-interest oforganizations.</p><p><strong>Empiric:</strong> Information is taken from four Swedish Public Investigations: the New Company Act, International Accounting for Swedish companies, Abolition of the audit requirement for small and medium sized enterprise and Simplified accounting. Altogether 310 opinions have been given on these, out of which we have studied 59. Furthermore, we have collected information on tasks, activities and objectives from the websites of the opinion giving organizations.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> In the literature, we found, as mentioned, that organizations havet hree self- interests which we define as general self-interests. They are the interest in survival, resources and power. We have found - what we believe – an additional general self-interest of organizations, namely the interest to avoid accountability and transparency. It was possible to divide the organizations intogroups with high community of interest within each group while the community between the groups was low. This provides an empirical support to Dimaggio’s and Powell’s theory which says that organizations in specific areas are similar. This means that it is possible to study the interest of organizations, without studying the individuals in an organization. We found that the owner's interests expressed in tasks, activities and objectives of the organization are important factors affecting the organization's interest structure. We also found indications - however unclear - that the public interest has an impact on the organizations' self interests. We also found an interest to protect its own market which can be related to the general interest of resource influx under Pfeffers and Salanciks theories of resource dependence.</p>

This dissertation consists of three essays on regulation. In the first essay, "Firm Reputation and Screening at the Patent Office", we assert that the patent office is an important regulator, exerting influence on firm outcomes. Prior research argues that powerful groups such as top innovators are able to capture their regulators, gaining favorable treatment in return for either monetary contributions to legislators' political committees or hoped-for future employment of regulators in the firms they regulate or in the firms of their legal representatives. It is also argued that regulators face many audiences and attempt to maximize their legitimacy to political entities, legal entities, the general public and the firms affected by their regulation. This can introduce a lack of consistency in decision-making. Given the considerable power of many regulators, this has implications for both policy and firm strategy. / The patent office, in particular, faces considerable uncertainty about the value of the patent rights it provides. Further, patent examiners are under pressure to grant patents quickly and have no way of permanently disposing of an application other than by granting it. We argue that patent examiners tend to look for certain signals in attempting to determine the quality of the application. We assert that the patent office's focus on helping its clients obtain intellectual property rights make their clients' prior reputations most salient. Therefore examiners tend to rely on the prominence of the applicant in the prior patent art. This can grant either a positive or negative reputation depending upon the general reputation of that field in prior patent art. / We utilize a dataset of all patents granted from 2001--2003. We use examiner-added citations to prior patent art, controlling for applicant-added citations as a measure of examiner screening. We find that firm reputation for patenting influences the level of scrutiny to which a patent application is subjected. In the conclusion we discuss the implications of these findings. / In the second essay, "Which drugs obtain the Pediatric Exclusivity Provision" we examine the pediatric exclusivity regulation provision. Pediatric exclusivity is designed to reward companies for conducting pediatric trials for dosage and safety with 6 months' extra monopoly on their drug. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996--2007 and drug data from the FDA, we find that companies appear to base the decision to conduct pediatric trials almost solely on the basis of current sales (and hence presumably future projected revenue). We find the threshold for a sharply increased probability of obtaining pediatric exclusivity is annual sales of $260 million in the prior year. We estimate, very conservatively, that the total liability to consumers is US$ 21 billion as of end 2007. / We also find, in accordance with prior criticism, that, (barring ADHD drugs, which are marketed primarily to minors) even after controlling for the total sales, the proportion of sales to minors does not affect the probability of obtaining pediatric exclusivity. This is in concordance with regulatory capture theory which would suggest that a powerful group (i.e., brand-name drug manufacturers) influenced Congress to pass this legislation to procure a benefit for themselves with a not-easily perceived cost to the much more diffuse group of pharmaceutical customers who pay brand-name prices for 6 more months as a result of delayed generic entry. / In the third essay "Pediatric Exclusivity - Are the intended benefits being realized?" we examine the underlying rationale for the pediatric exclusivity and test whether the intended benefits of pediatric exclusivity are being realized. The pediatric exclusivity rule is intended to provide benefits to pediatric patients by providing clinicians with label information regarding safety and dosage in pediatric populations. We test whether valuable and important information is being produced and disseminated by the clinical trials that are undertaken to gain pediatric exclusivity. We do this by examining the patterns of publication of clinical trials before and after pediatric exclusivity is obtained and by examining the patterns of prescriptions to minor patients before and after pediatric exclusivity is obtained. / We find no evidence of greater dissemination of pediatric information in the peer-reviewed literature after obtaining pediatric exclusivity. We also find no evidence of changing patterns of prescriptions to minor patients after pediatric exclusivity is obtained. This leads us to question the value of the information being provided and conclude that the intended benefits of pediatric exclusivity provision are not being realized. We conclude that pediatric exclusivity legislation is an example of regulatory capture, designed primarily to increase monopoly protection of the sales of brand-name drugs without producing many tangible benefits.

Boken handlar om hur vi föreställer oss organisationer och om vad det är som gör att vi förknippar vissa föreställningar med vissa organisationer, men inte med andra. Mer specifikt handlar den om privatiserade organisationer, definierat som offentliga organisationer som fått privata ägare. Analysen sker med utgångspunkt i empiriska studier av tre privatiserade organisationer: ett byggföretag, en vårdcentral och en auktionsfirma. I boken diskuteras hur "generaliserade andra", "offentligheten" och "specifika andra" fungerade som referenspunkter vid konstruktionen av de privatiserade organisationerna. En huvudslutsats är att privatiserade organisationer konstrueras genom sex konstruktionsmetoder: anonymisering, ideologisering, avveckling, utveckling, fjärmande och närmande. Konstruktionerna visade sig vidare vara mångsidiga i sin karaktär. En andra huvudslutsats är att privatiserade organisationer är multimetodkonstruktioner. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 1999. Författaren har publicerat sin avhandling under namnet Karin Svedberg Nilsson. Sammanfattning på engelska med titeln: From public service to private business? : on the construction of privatised organisations</p><p> </p>

Categories are semantic objects that create order in markets. By categorization, market actors and products become comparable and understandable to various audiences. This thesis examines the construction of the product category of public relations (PR) consultancy in Sweden; a market that has arisen, become economically successful and gained  recognition over the past thirty years, but which still lacks the legitimacy and clarity normally thought of as basic criteria of market categories. Using a semiotic framework and a mixed-method approach, I explore category construction 1) over time, and 2) in practice. In generalized terms, my findings suggest that market categorization processes cannot be understood without taking into account the characteristics of the product being categorized. Whereas ambiguity around labels, denotations and connotations is normally regarded as incompatible with categorization, such fuzziness should be expected to be intrinsic in markets for professional service products like PR consultancy, where the product itself is often thriving on, as well as continuously creating, ambiguity. For instance, the lack of clarity and lack of legitimacy in the Swedish PR consultancy market are found to be both logical outcomes, and enablers, of visibilization and amalgamation, referring to PR consultants’ conscientious management of visibility, and tendency to span boundaries in constructing their services, respectively. Categorization in the traditional sense is further hampered by the dominant label of “PR consultancy” being stigmatized, i.e. suffering from “sticky” negative connotations. In the cultural context of Sweden, the emergence of a PR consultancy market has al-so meant commodification, i.e. the introduction of something hitherto not sold into a sphere of exchangeable things. In this process, PR consultancy seems to have gotten “stuck” between the sphere of salable and unsalable things, as the product is widely sold but continues to be contested across various audiences. Again, my analysis puts this difficulty of PR consultancy finding legitimacy in relation to the product category’s actual content, i.e. rendering legitimacy to others. Finally, I argue that the emergence of PR consultancy, by providing a market place for corporate legitimacy, might be under-stood as a case of a cognitive-cultural market logic on the rise, characterized by struggles for organizational visibility and semiotic sophistication.

Affärssystem har blivit allt vanligare i organisationer och framhålls av systemleverantörer som ett verktyg för att öka organisationers flexibilitet. Forskning tyder dock på att affärssystem både kan öka och minska flexibiliteten för organisationer. Få empiriska studier har genomförts vad gäller affärssystems påverkan på organisationers flexibilitet och forskningen är splittrad vad gäller affärssystems påverkan på flexibiliteten för organisationer. Syftet med denna uppsats är att illustrera och förklara hur ett affärssystem påverkar flexibilitet i en organisation. För att besvara syftet skapas en analysmodell som syntetiserar tidigare forskning om flexibilitet med en organisatorisk förändringsmodell. En fallstudie utförs genom att anställda intervjuas på Posten Norden AB där affärssystemet SAP används. Uppsatsens undersökning, analys och slutsatser indikerar på att: (1) det arbetsflöde Postens affärssystem tillhandahåller är oflexibelt, (2) affärssystemet möjliggör flexibilitet i kommunikationen (3) affärssystemet hämmar flexibiliteten för vissa arbetsuppgifter på Posten, och (4) affärssystem har en komplex påverkan på flexibilitet i organisationer.