During the last decades organizations have made large investments in Information Technology (IT). The effects of these investments have been studied in business and academic communities over the years. A large amount of research has been conducted on the relation between the investments in IT and productivity growth. Productivity is a central measure of national and organizational success and is often considered in economic decisionmaking. Researchers have however found it difficult to present a clear-cut answer to the effect of IT investments on productivity growth; an inability defined as the productivity paradox. Within the Impact of IT on Productivity (ITOP) research program the relevance of the productivity measure as an indicator of the value of IT is questionned. IT has over the years replaced physical interfaces with digital and in this way enabled new ways to process information. A retrospective research approach is therefore applied where the effects of digitized information flows are studied within specific organizational settings. In this thesis the effects of digitized information flows within Swedish grocery distribution are studied. A comprehensive presentation of the development is first conducted and three focal areas are thereafter presented. These describe supply chain information flows including order information, information on new items and analysis of point-of-sales information. The presentation of the focal areas identifies a number of effects from the digitization of information flows. The effects are analyzed according to a predefined analytical framework. The effects are divided into five categories and are thereafter evaluated when it comes to potential for generating value. The study shows that the digitization of information flows has generated numerous, multifaceted effects. Automational, informational, transformational, consumer surplus and other effects are observed. They are difficult to evaluate using a single ndicator. Specific indicators that are closely related to the effects can however be defined. The study also concludes that the productivity measure does not capture all positive effects generated by digitized information flows. / <p>ISRN/Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:39</p>

The IT and productivity paradox has been the subject of considerable research in recent decades. Many previous studies, based mainly on macroeconomic statistics or on aggregated company data, have reached disparate conclusions. Consequently, the question whether IT investments contribute to productivity growth is still heavily debated. More recent research, however, has indicated that IT contributes positively to economic development but that this contribution is not fully revealed when only productivity is measured. To explore the issue of IT and productivity further, the ITOP (Impact of IT On Productivity) research program was launched in 2003. An alternative research approach is developed with the emphasis on the microeconomic level and information flows in processes in specific industry segments. In the empirical study, the development of information flows is tracked over several decades. Effects of digitized information flows are hereby identified and quantified in order to determine their importance in terms of productivity. The purpose of this study is to explore effects of information technology by studying digitized information flows in key processes in the logging industry. The research shows that several information flows in the logging process have been digitized leading to new ways to capture, use, spread, process, refine and access information throughout the logging process. A large variety of effects have also been identified from this development. The results show that only a minor part of the effects identified have a direct impact on productivity and thus that a large number of significant effects do not. Effects with a major direct impact on productivity include increased efficiency in timber measurement registration, lower costs of timber accounting and increased utilization of harvesters and forest resources. Other significant effects with no direct impact on productivity are related to a more open timber market, increased timber customization, control, decision-making and access to information, as well as skill levels and innovation. The results thus demonstrate that it is questionable whether conventional productivity measures are sufficient for measuring the impact of IT. / <p>ISRN/Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:40</p>

This thesis examines how IT and the digitization of information have transformed processes of the graphic industry. The aim is to show how critical production processes have changed when information in these processes have been digitized. Furthermore it considers if this has influenced changes in productivity while also identifying other significant benefits that have occurred as a result of the digitization. The debate concerning the productivity paradox is one important starting point for the thesis. Previous research on this phenomenon has mainly used different types of statistical databases as empirical sources. In this thesis though, the graphic industry is instead studied from a mainly qualitative and historical process perspective. The empirical study shows that digitization of information flows in the graphic industry began in the 1970s, but the start of the development and use of digitized information happened in the early 1980s. Today almost all types of materials in the industry, for example text and pictures, have developed into a digital form and the information flows are hereby more or less totally digitized. A common demand in the industry is that information produced should be adaptable to the different channels in which it may be presented. The consequences from use of IT and the digitization of information flows are identified in this thesis as different outcomes, effects, and benefits. The outcomes are identified directly from the empirical material, whilst the resulting effects are generated based on theories about IT and business value. The benefits are in turn generated from a summarization of the identified effects. Identified effects caused by IT and digitization of information include integration and merging of processes; vanishing professions; reduced number of operators involved; decreased production time; increased production capacity; increased amount and quality of communication; and increased quality in produced originals. One conclusion drawn from the analysis is that investments and use of IT have positively influenced changes in productivity. The conclusion is based on the appearance of different automational effects, which in turn have had a positive influence on factors that may be a part of a productivity index. In addition to productivity other benefits, based on mainly informational effects, are identified. These benefits include increased capacity to handle and produce information, increased integration of customers in the production processes, increased physical quality in produced products, and options for management improvements in the production processes. The conclusions indicate that it is not always the most obvious benefit, such as productivity, that is of greatest significance when IT is implemented in an industry. / <p>ISRN/Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:38</p>

Technological innovations and advancements are helping people gain an increasingly comfortable life, as well as expand their social capital through online networks by offering individual's new opportunities to share personal information. By collecting vast amounts of data a whole new range of services can be offered, information can be collected and compared, and a new level of individualization can be reached. However, with these new technical capacities comes the omnipresence of various devices gathering data, potential threats to privacy, and individuals' increasing concern over data privacy. This paper aims to shed light on the 'privacy paradox' phenomenon, the dichotomy between privacy attitude, concern, and behavior, by examining previous literature as well as using an online survey (N=463). The findings indicate that there is a difference between attitude, concern, and actual behavior. While individuals' value their data privacy and are concerned about information collected on them, few take action to protect it and actions rarely align with expressed concerns. However, the 'privacy paradox' is a complex phenomenon and it requires further research, especially with the implications of a data driven society and when introducing emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. / Tekniska innovationer och framsteg har bidragit till att människor kan erbjudas en alltmer bekväm livsstil. Genom insamling av stora mängder data kan individer erbjudas ett helt nytt utbud av tjänster, information kan samlas in och jämföras, och en helt ny nivå av Individualisering kan uppnås. Dock innebär dessa innovationer enallt större närvaro av datainsamlandeenheter, potentiella hot mot privatliv, samt individers ökade oro kring dataintegritet. Denna uppsats undersöker "the privacy paradox", skillnaden mellan attityd och beteende kring datasäkerhet, och dess konsekvenser i ett datastyrt samhälle i och med att ny teknik introduceras. Undersökningen har skett genom en litteraturstudie samt en enkätundersökning (N=463) och resultaten visar på ett det finns en skillnad mellan attityd och beteende. Individer värderar datasäkerhet och är oroliga kring vilken mängd information som samlas in, dock är det få som agerar för att inte dela information och attityd går sällan i linje med faktiskt beteende. "The privacy paradox" är ett komplext fenomen och mer forskning krävs, speciellt i och med introduktion av ny teknik så som Artificiell intelligens och Internet of Things.

Introduction: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is seen as an important part of an organization, where communication functions as creating relationships between the organization and social actors. CSR is about the company's social responsibility for how they affect society from an economic, environmental, and social perspective. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to account for communicators' views on CSR communication and how they deal with the possible opportunities, challenges and risks they experience in communicating CSR. The purpose is also to discern the similarities and differences that the communicators have regarding the view of CSR communication, in order to gain a greater understanding of the prerequisites of CSR communication. Method/material: The data for our study have been collected by semi-structured interviews with four communicators with knowledge in CSR communication. These have then been analyzed through a thematic analysis. Theory: The study contains theories related to the subject, such as theoretical concepts about CSR and CSR communication, the stakeholder theory and greenwashing. These have set the knowledge and structure of the interviews and helped us understand the results. Result: The results of the study show us that communicators have different prerequisites for communicating CSR. Based on, for example, industry standards and different stakeholders which therefore have different expectations. Common to them are demands for transparency and authenticity in the communicators' work. This is supposed to reduce the risk of being met with suspicion and skepticism. Possibilities such as appearing as legitimate and credible as a company can be discerned.

The Paradox Basin is a northwest-southeast trending intracratonic basin that formed in southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah and adjacent parts of Arizona and New Mexico during the late Paleozoic Era. During rise of the adjacent Uncompahgre Uplift (Ancestral Rocky Mountains), the rapidly subsiding basin was filled with over 2000 m of Permo-Pennsylvanian sediments that reflect a complex interplay of changing tectonic, paleoecological, and climatic conditions that resulted in cyclic packages of mixed lowstand and non-marine siliciclastics and highstand shallow-platform carbonates. The 150 m-thick Honaker Trail formation straddles the transition from mostly marine carbonates to mostly non-marine siliciclastics on the southwest shelf of the Paradox Basin during late Moscovian to early Gzhelian (late Desmoinesian to early Virgilian) time. The carbonate-dominated lower 70 m of the formation were divided into two 4th-order sequences and thirteen 5th-order cycles by Goldhammer et al. (1991). We subdivide the remaining overlying 80 m of the Honaker Trail Formation, up to the top of the Shafer Limestone into an additional five 4th-order sequences named, from lowest to highest, the Raplee Limestone (named herein as a replacement for "unnamed limestone" of previous literature), Little Loop Limestone, W"“130 Limestone, Mendenhall Sandstone, and Shafer Limestone sequences and provide a detailed sequence stratigraphic framework of the Raplee, Little Loop, and W-130 sequences. In addition, we provide a conodont sequence biostratigraphic framework for the southwestern (carbonate) shelf of the Paradox Basin to correlate these sequences to Midcontinent (eastern Kansas) cycles using Idiognathodus and Streptognathodus-dominated conodont faunas. From the conodont fauna described herein, the Raplee Limestone sequence likely correlates with the Dennis major cycle of the Midcontinent, and suggests a correlation between the Little Loop Sequence and the minor Hogshooter cyclothem. We also propose the extension of these species' biostratigraphic zones within the Paradox Basin: I. swadei, I. papulatus, I. eccentricus, and I. sulciferus; all of which have been defined by Barrick and Rosscoe (2013) and others as extinct in the Midcontinent Basin at the end of the Swope cyclothem.

I takt med att samhället har digitaliserats har detaljhandeln utsatts för betydande förändring. I Sverige har de obemannade butikerna ökat och spås bli fler framöver. Framväxten av tekniker som digitala betalnings- och identifieringsmetoder ligger till grund för detta. Samtidigt har totala antalet butiker minskat i gles- och landsbygdsområden. Ett sätt att bryta denna trend är genom obemannade butiker. En framgångsrik etablering av obemannade butiker på marknaden beror på hur konsumenterna mottar affärsmodellen. Forskning i området har funnit ett flertal faktorer som påverkar konsumenternas inställning. Däremot saknas djupgående inblick i konsumenters motivationer och perspektiv. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra till en djupare förståelse av konsumenters inställning vilket kan ge värdefulla insikter kring obemannade butikers för- och nackdelar samt identifiera eventuella förbättringsområden. Studien har utfört sex semistrukturerade intervjuer vars intervjufrågor förankrats i Technology Acceptance Model(TAM) och Technology Readiness (TR). Det empiriska materialet analyserades tematiskt enligt en teoretisk top-down strategi. Den valda teoretiska utgångspunkten var Mick &amp; Fournier (1998) åtta centrala teknologiska paradoxer. Under analysen identifierades fyra paradoxer i respondenternas inställningar: kompetens/inkompetens, effektivitet/ineffektivitet, skapa/uppfylla nya behov och assimilering/isolering. Studiens resultat kan användas för att skapa en bättre kundupplevelse samt integrera tekniken på ett sätt som motsvarar konsumentens förväntningar. Samtidigt står framtidens obemannade butiker inför flera utmaningar, däribland att lösa den upplevda bristen på hjälp och avsaknaden av interaktion.

Syftet med föreliggande kvalitativa studie är att fördjupa kunskapen i hur svensklärare i grundskolans senare år resonerar kring och bemöter paradoxen i att öka elevers läslust vid läsning av skönlitteratur i en kravfylld skolkontext. Mot bakgrund av forskning, och den sociokulturella teorin analyseras elva semistrukturerade intervjuer med legitimerade svensklärare. Studien visar att lärare upplever alstrandet av läslust i dagens kravfyllda skolkontext som problematisk, då bedömning och betygssättning riskerar att hämma elevers lustfyllda lärande. Samtidigt framhålls textsamtal, bokval och formativ bedömning som undervisningspraktiker för att överbrygga paradoxen mellan att alstra läslust och att praktisera bedömning.

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