Diss. Göteborg : Univ., 2002.

This study explores the development of a Western firm's subsidiary in the Ukraine and sets out to contribute to the theoretical development about the managing of subsidiaries in the Post-Soviet market. The cross-institutional approach to analyse the subsidiary has been adopted to explore influence from the institutional setting of the parent firm and from local institutions. In the theoretical framework, special attention is directed to studies analysing the challenges that Western firms encounter when operating in the Post-Soviet market. Institutional theory therefore serves as a framework for theories on market entries, networks and management transfers.The empirical study is based on a case study conducted in connection to a training project for local employees of a Western firm's subsidiary operating in the Ukraine. Besides being a source of inspiration, the training project provided good access to respondents and insights about the challenges that the subsidiary faced.The analysis shows that the introduction of the Western firm's management in the subsidiary reflects in the local employees' forming of identities. A clear pattern is that local employees' development of identities in line with the Western firm's norms is supported by socialisation in settings dominated by the Western firm. A setting dominated by conflicts between Western and local norms, in contrast, resulted in developments of conflict identities. The analysis of the subsidiary's managing of influences from the local institutional setting indicates that this concerned filtering. Striking was that the subsidiary was successful in managing influences when the filtering conditions were characterised by consonance. Looking into aspects making the filtering of external influences difficult, the analysis points out barter trade and local actors' boundary spanning towards authorities in the Ukrainian society as aspects creating dissonances and vacuum. Thus, influences characterised by dissonance and/or vacuum made it particularly difficult for the subsidiary to manage these influences.One of the major contributions of this thesis is the cross-institutional approach to analyse developments in a subsidiary in the Post-Soviet market. By applying this approach the study suggests that the managing of a cross-institutional setting concerns both internal and external boundary spanning. Of vital importance for the internal boundary spanning are issues influencing local employees' forming of a 'we' with the Western firm's representatives. The standpoint is that this concerns local employees' identity identification, which is a new perspective on management transfers towards a subsidiary in the Post-Soviet market. Concerning the managing of external boundary spanning, the study points towards the importance of observing local actors' ways of dealing with dissonances and vacuum in local networks. / digitalisering@umu

Denna uppsats avser att utreda om och i så fall varför folkhälsan i de postkommunistiska staterna Ryssland, Polen, Tjeckien och Estland har utvecklats olika sedan Sovjetunionens sammanbrott. Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och förklara skillnaden i hälsoläget efter den så kallade rubelkrisen 1998. Skillnader i hälsoutveckling ställs mot å ena sidan ekonomiska - och å andra sidan sociala faktorer. Tänkbara samband mellan bland annat förväntad livslängd och bruttonationalprodukten (BNP) per capita samt inkomstfördelning prövas. Dödlighet och förväntad livslängd undersöks i respektive land för perioden 1989-2002. Mortalitetens eventuella samband med sjukdomen levercirros samt alkoholkonsumtion över samma tidsperiod analyseras. Datamaterialet är sekundärdata och en kvantitativ komparativ metod används för analysen. Data är konstruerad främst som medelvärden för ett specifikt årtal för respektive land. Materialet består således av ett populationsurval. Två olika teoretiska utgångspunkter gör anspråk på att försöka förklara problematiken med transformationen från kommunism till demokrati. Det är den nyliberala - samt den mer socialorienterade ekonomiska teorin. Dessa ställs mot varandra i början av denna uppsats. Tidigare forskningsresultat tyder på en kraftig försämring av folkhälsan efter 1989 i främst Ryssland och Estland medan Tjeckien och Polen uppvisat en positiv hälsoutveckling. Våra resultat visar att det troligtvis är sociala och psykosociala faktorer, såsom hur en familje- och arbetssituation exempelvis kan påverka en persons hälsotillstånd, som verkar vara avgörande för förståelsen av ökad ohälsa. Analysen visar vidare att en ojämn ekonomisk fördelningspolitik tillsammans med en svag institutionell infrastruktur har en stark inverkan på ovannämnda faktorer. Ryssland presenterar ett avvikande resultat i jämförelse med de tre övriga länderna för flertalet av undersökta variabler. Vi har funnit att Tjeckien och Polen står för den mest hoppingivande förändringen beträffande dödlighet och förväntad livslängd. Estland har dragits med svårigheter att komma tillrätta med landets hälsoproblematik, men har under senare år uppvisat mer positiva siffror. Ryssland representerar däremot fortsatt negativ hälsoutveckling trots en liknande ekonomisk tillväxt. Att landet så sent som år 2002 redovisar en mycket hög dödlighetsfrekvens och låg förväntad livslängd ser vi som anmärkningsvärt. Skillnader i dödlighet och förväntad livslängd mellan könen och mellan de olika länderna visade sig vara mycket stora. Det bör noteras att denna uppsats endast är inriktad på att belysa den skillnad i förväntad livslängd och dödlighet som uppkommit sedan sammanbrottet 1989 fram till 2002.

This dissertation concerns Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (SKP) [the Swedish Communist Party] – in 1967 renamed Vänsterpartiet kommunisterna (VPK) [the Left Party – the Communists] and in 1990 renamed Vänsterpartiet (V) [the Left Party] – and the Party's process of coming to terms with history and its communist legacy. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse the SKP/VPK/V's process of coming to terms with history for the period 1956-2006, and to set out and problematise the driving forces and constraining mechanisms of this process. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Gunnar Sjöblom’s theory about party strategies of political parties in multi-party systems and Michael Freeden’s conceptual approach to ideology analysis.      During the period of study the SKP/VPK/V has, like no other political party in Sweden, been ascribed historical guilt regarding its own party history but also regarding the effects of world communism. The Party has thus found itself in a situation where it has had history as an adversary. The process of coming to terms with history has mainly revolved around three issues: independence (1956-1977), international ties (1977-1989) and a broadening beyond the communist tradition (1986-2006). The internal debate within the Party has linked these issues to calls for change aimed at ridding the party of what is considered undesirable elements of the Communist legacy. By analysing the arguments pursued in favour of these calls, it is possible to pick out a number of the driving forces behind the Party's process of coming to terms with history, namely an ambition to obtain vote maximisation, programme realisation and maximisation of parliamentary influence. The urge to distance the Party from certain aspects of its communist past has thus been related to fundamental goals that political parties in multi-party systems seek to obtain.      The results of the dissertation show that it is possible to pick out five main constraining mechanisms in the Party's process of coming to terms with history. 1) The safeguarding of Party cohesion. 2) The safeguarding of the distinctive character of the Party.  3) The need to resist external pressure. 4) The desire to avoid unfair apportioning of blame. 5) The safeguarding of the right to define the substance of one's own ideology. The existence of these constraining mechanisms help to explain why the process of coming to terms with history lingered on for several decades, and also why it seems to have been a process of such complexity for the Swedish Communist and Post-Communist Party.