With the financial crisis, many firms suffered from liquidity shortages and needed to quickly change their way of working to release capital from the operations. Scholars argue that firms should handle immediate crisis with short-term measures first, and then change the underlying organizational routines to prevent recurrence. The management of working capital has received increased attention amongst corporate managers as a result of the crisis, whereby it is interesting to understand how firms can reduce their working capital in a sustainable way. By using the problem-finding and problem-solving approach, this study explores how successful firms have found and solved problems to make them sustainable. To answer the research question a multiple-case study is performed, where five firms are explored through interviews with key respondents. The study indicates that urgency is the main driver for both introducing and increasing the focus on working capital management. Different strategies for obtaining sustainable working capital management are found, where focus and commitment from the top management is suggested to be the glue that makes it last. It is furthermore suggested that managers have two main tools for creating and sustaining desired routines and practices; communication and control.

The study challenges current literature, which views the notion of problem-finding as the initial identification of a problem to be solved. The concept of problem-finding in this study is that problem-finding continues throughout the problem-solving process and is not distinct from it. This thesis aims to develop a better understanding of problem-finding by examining high school students using problem-finding to solve industrial design problems. The study seeks to find out what types of problem-finding exist and what roles they play in solving design problems. To explore problem-finding, this study uses a Think Aloud methodology to examine the thinking of three high school industrial design students and one high school industrial design teacher solving an authentic industrial design problem. Protocol data was gathered from the subjects and then transcribed, segmented and analysed in three ways, each of which became progressively more specific: Firstly, a macroscopic examination which identified problem-finding episodes occurring throughout the design process; secondly, a microscopic examination which identified four categories of problem-finding; and lastly, a microscopic examination which looked at the role played by the different problem-finding categories in solving design problems. The findings of this study are fourfold. Firstly, problem-finding was found to be used throughout the entire design process. Secondly, there were four categories of problemfinding. Thirdly, each category played an important role predominantly through interaction with other categories. Lastly, the more experienced a person was, the more able they were to use problem-finding effectively to solve design problems. Many current practices use trial and error methods to solve design problems. The importance of this study is that through a better understanding of problem-finding, designers may be able to use metacognitive strategies more efficiently in the process. Similarly, in educational practice, high school design students may be able to learn to think about the methods they use to solve design problems, and this may result in more creative designs.

Effektivare offentliga upphandlingar kan enligt tidigare forskning innebära stora möjligheter till besparingar för det svenska samhället. Upphandling av läkemedel till slutenvården är ett område som många aktörer identifierat som problematiskt. Syftet med studien är därför att identifiera problem och potentiella lösningar med upphandling av läkemedel. Tillvägagångssättet var att analysera allmänt påtalade problem och lösningar med upphandling samt empiriska resultat från intervjuer och en enkät utifrån problem finding and problem solving metoden. De empiriska resultaten var fyra huvudsakliga problem: (1) olikformighet i kravspecifikationer, (2) bristande dialog mellan aktörer, (3) för kort tid mellan tilldelningsbeslut och avtalsstart samt (4) omfattande dokumenthantering. Alternativa lösningar ställdes upp för varje problem där sedan slutsatser drogs kring vilka potentiella lösningar som var bäst lämpade för läkemedelsupphandlingar.

本研究先藉由文獻分析法瞭解擴散性思考、數學問題發現與數學學業成就三者的內涵，繼而依據它們的內涵並佐以學習、問題解決的角度，建立起三者間關係的假設，並透過實證調查研究法來驗證這些假設。本研究之研究對象為台北縣市五所國中的318位國三學生，研究工具為「新編創造思考測驗」、「數學問題發現測驗」、「第一次數學科基本學力測驗」，並以次數統計、集群分析、相關分析、變異數分析、逐步迴歸分析進行資料分析。本研究主要的研究結果如下： 一、學生能夠發現各種思考產物類型與數學類型的問題。其中，關係性問題與發現性問題最多人提出，而單位性、類別性與驗證性問題則較少人提出。 二、學生的數學問題發現型態有個別差異。 三、擴散性思考與數學問題發現間為顯著中低度相關。 四、擴散性思考與數學學業成就多為顯著中低度相關。 五、數學問題發現與數學學業成就間為顯著中低度相關。 六、能問大量且層次高數學問題的學生其數學學業成就比較不會問數學問題的學生為佳。 七、擴散性思考之流暢力、數學學業成就、擴散性思考之變通力可以有效預測數學問題發現之問題數。 八、擴散性思考之流暢力、數學學業成就、擴散性思考之變通力可以有效預測數學問題發現之問題獨特性。 九、數學學業成就與擴散性思考之流暢力可以有效預測數學問題發現之問題品質。 十、數學問題發現之問題品質、數學問題發現之問題數可以有效預測數學學業成就。 本研究最後針對數學教育以及未來研究提出若干具體建議。 / First, this study probed into the contents of divergent thinking, mathematical problem finding, and mathematical achievement by literature review. Then the researcher made hypotheses of the relationships between divergent thinking, mathematical problem finding, and mathematical achievement based on the contents of them and the views of learning and problem solving, and designed survey research to examine these hypotheses. The subjects were 318 9th grade students from five junior high schools in Taipei county and Taipei city. The data- collection instruments included：(a) New Creativity Test; (b) Mathematical Problem Finding Test; (c) Basic Educational Indicator Tests of Mathematics. After utilizing frequency, cluster analysis, correlation analysis, ANOVA, and stepwise regression, the main results of this investigation are：(a) Students can find problems of all kinds of intellectual products and mathematics. Among them, problems of relations and problems to find were found most and problems of units and classes and problems to prove were found least ; (b) There are individual differences between mathematical problem finding styles; (c) The correlations between divergent thinking and mathematical problem finding are significantly positive; (d) Most of the correlations between divergent thinking and mathematical achievement are significantly positive; (e) The correlations between mathematical problem finding and mathematical achievement are significantly positive; (f) Students who can finds many high-level problems have higher mathematical achievement than those who can not; (g) Fluency of divergent thinking, mathematical achievement, and flexibility of divergent thinking can be used to predict the number of problems of mathematical problem finding effectively; (h) Fluency of divergent thinking, mathematical achievement, and flexibility of divergent thinking can be used to predict the rarity of problems of mathematical problem finding effectively; (i) Mathematical achievement and fluency of divergent thinking can be used to predict the quality of problems of mathematical problem finding effectively; (j) The quality of problems and the number of problems can be used to predict mathematical achievement effectively. Finally, the researcher brings up some suggestions on mathematical education and the future research.

This licentiate thesis aims to understand how infection preventionists (IPs) continuously find problems and implement solutions related to health care-associated infections (HAIs) in hospital settings. HAIs are infections acquired by patients during the process of care and are among the main causes of deaths worldwide. Recently, practices for HAIs prevention and control have challenged IPs due to pandemics (e.g. COVID-19), antimicrobial resistance, population aging and limited resources in health care facilities. Such challenges demand actions to find, solve problems and implement solutions. However, IPs often fail to address these problems. The reasons stem from their inability to timely identify valuable problems and implement new solutions. Although the literature on infection prevention and control is well developed, previous studies have largely investigated how IPs implement preconceived practices to solve given problems as a single event, rather than on how to continuously find problems and implement solutions.  This licentiate thesis comprises two empirical papers. Paper I investigates how infection prevention and control teams find problems with HAIs, and is based on a multiple case study of three infection prevention and control teams from one Swedish and two Brazilian hospitals. Paper II investigates how IPs continuously implement changes in infection prevention and control practices during pandemics, and is based on a qualitative descriptive study. The data in both papers were collected from 44 semi-structured interviews with health care professionals enrolled as IPs in Brazilian and Swedish hospitals. The key theories and literatures covered include Problem-Finding and Problem-Solving Perspective and Implementation research. This licentiate thesis contains three main contributions. First, it advances the Problem-Finding and Problem-Solving Perspective literature by providing empirical evidence on how to create valuable knowledge from ill-structured and complex problems. Second, this licentiate thesis suggests a distinction between HAI prevention and HAI control based on two modes of decision-making for finding valuable problems with HAIs. Third, the licentiate thesis describes and categorizes sets of practices that allow to continuously implement changes of infection prevention and control practices during pandemics.