Electronic service in the public sector is a unique tool to facilitate communication between citizens and their government. These services have a lot of advantages such as making life easier for citizens, time saving, increasing reliability and reducing the cost on the government side. Delivering reliable and easy digital services is obviously a crucial demand for the satisfaction for the end user which is the Swedish citizen in this survey. When electronic services do not satisfy user needs, the cost increases and confidence against authorities decreases. This study aims to give an understanding of how authorities create their electronic services pursuing citizens’ confidence. The theoretical framework of the research aims to describe restrictions and facilities in the process of creating an electronic service. The study targeted four authorities: Arbetsförmedlingen, Försäkringskassan, Migrationsverket and Skatteverket, which all were interviewed through semi-structured interviews with open questions and answers and data has been collected. The study finds that involving users in the development process leads to increasing confidence. The theoretical framework and empirical study have resulted in a new model to identify restrictions while creating new electronic services, which are time and law- changes. / Lagändringar och krav som regeringen ställer på statliga myndigheter ger upphov till att dessa konsekvent måste digitalisera mer, arbeta effektivare och användarinvolverat. I samband med utökade digitaliseringen blir e-tjänsterna mer komplexa och därmed svåra för medborgarna att använda och lita på informationen. När e-tjänsterna inte uppfyller användarnas behov ökar kostnaderna och förtroendet för myndigheten minskar. Studien avser att ge förståelse om hur myndigheter utvecklar sina e-tjänster i strävan efter ökat förtroende. Studiens teoretiska ramverk ämnar beskriva vilka begränsningar och möjligheter myndigheterna kan identifiera i samband med skapandet av nya e-tjänster för att öka medborgarnas förtroende. Urvalet bestod av fyra statliga myndigheter som rangordnades först och sist i SOMs listan 2012-2013. Respondenterna var: Arbetsförmedlingen, Försäkringskassan, Migrationsverket och Skatteverket. Studiens empiriska data har inhämtats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. I studien utgick vi från ett abduktivt angreppssätt där öppna frågor ställdes. Studien kom fram till att användarinvolvering under utvecklingsprocessen leder till ökat förtroende. Teoretiska ramverket och studiens empiri har gett upphov till en ny modell för att identifiera begränsningar vid skapandet av nya e-tjänster, vilka är tid och lagändringar.

The purpose of the study was to describe how networking can provide competitive advantage to facilitate growth when offering consultancy services toward the public sector. The majority of companies are looking to expand their business due to different reasons. With todays intense competiton on the market it is becoming increasingly important to outperform competitors in order to maintain the current customerbase aswell as it is to gain new businesses. Companies that work toward the public sector have special laws, directives and regulations that have to be taken into account when conducting business. Involvement with networks is based on different reasons, it can be due to gaining new customers, contacts and knowledge to name a few.   The authors have performed a qualitative case study with a focus on two companies. The empirical findings is based on information collected through interviews with these companies and through a quanitative self-completion questionnaire with a sample group of 16 repondents. By analysing the empirical information the authors have concluded that networking activities are important in order to prosper growth. However, there is a lack of networking strategies among the two companies of focus which constraint the firms to get the most out of the networks.

Sammanfattning Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi Ekonomihögskolan, Linnéuniversitetet VT 16 Författare: Viktor Odenbrink, Louis Perikala, Viktor Johansson Handledare: Tom Karlsson Titel: Controllerrollen inom den offentliga sektorn Bakgrund och problem: Det existerar många studier om controllerrollen inom den privata sektorn, studier inom den privata sektorn belyser också vilka arbetsuppgifter och egenskaper som är relevanta för en controller. Däremot råder det delade meningar om controllerrollen inom den offentliga sektorn, vissa studier säger att rollen skiljer sig åt och andra forskare skriver att rollen är densamma inom båda sektorer. Vi vill med denna studie belysa vad det innebär att vara controller inom den offentliga sektorn och vilka arbetsuppgifter och egenskaper som är relevanta för rollen. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva vad det innebär att vara en controller inom den offentliga sektorn och vilka arbetsuppgifter och egenskaper som är av vikt. Detta för att skapa mer kunskap om den offentliga controllerrollen. Metod: En kvalitativ forskningsansats har legat till grund för studien. Forskningen ses som en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Empirin har inhämtats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med controllers samt med ekonomer med arbetsuppgifter likt en controller inom den offentliga sektorn. Slutsats: Den stora skillnaden i vad det innebär att vara controller inom den offentliga och privata sektorn är att en controller inom den offentliga sektorn betonar vikten av att få vara med och bidra till välfärd och samhällsnytta. Arbetsuppgifterna och egenskaperna är svåra att placera in i en specifik controllerroll och det rör sig snarare mot en hybridroll, där controllern bör ha inslag från kamrerrollen, den analytiska rollen, pedagogiska rollen och coachrollen. Nyckelord: Offentliga sektorn, controller, arbetsuppgifter, egenskaper / Abstract Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Växjö 2016 Authors: Viktor Odenbrink, Louis Perikala, Viktor Johansson Supervisor: Tom Karlsson Title: The role of a controller within the public sector Background: There are many studies on the role of controllers within the private sector, studies in the private sector focus on the work assignments and characteristics that are relevant for a controller as well. However, there are different opinions and interpretations regarding the role of controller in the public sector, some studies say that the roles differs while other researchers state that the roles are similar in both sectors. Our goal with this study is to shed light on what it means to be a controller within the public sector and the work assignments and characteristics that are relevant to the role. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe what it means to be a controller within the public sector and the work assignments and characteristics that are of importance. This is to create more knowledge about the role of a controller within the public sector. Method: A qualitative research approach has been the basis for this study. The research is seen as a qualitative interview. The empirical data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with controllers and economists with similar duties as a controller within the public sector. Conclusion: The big difference in what it means to be a controller within the public and private sector is that a controller within the public sector emphasizes the need to be involved in the contribution to the welfare and social benefits. The work assignments and characteristics are difficult to place in a specific segment and this points towards a so called hybrid role, which means that the controller should have elements from all the segments which include the role of an accountant, the analytical role, the pedagogical role and lastly the so called coaching role. Keywords: Public sector, controller, work assignments, characteristics

Background: In an increasingly globalised world, municipalities more than ever have to compete with each other. Thus, the need to create a brand image has become vital for municipalities. Place branding is the tool that has enabled municipalities to create a brand image in order to attract stakeholders such as potential visitors, residents and businesses. The sustainability phenomenon Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has recently become an attractive factor within place branding. Although, the concept of CSR is most commonly implemented within the private sector, CSR initiatives within the public sector are recognised as an integral part. Therefore, the issue of how municipalities can market and communicate their CSR-actives has arisen.  Purpose: The aim of this research is to explore how Swedish municipalities can market their CSR-activities, in order to gain competitive advantages as attractive cities. In further details, this research focuses on how municipalities can use place branding to market their CSR-activities and how they can communicate this to current and potential stakeholders. Method: In order to fulfil this purpose, an interpretivist methodology was adopted with an abductive approach. In regard to this, an exploratory design was developed. More specifically, it was conducted with a mixed method, using a quantitative content analysis and qualitative indepth interviews with knowledgeable experts within CSR from the most relevant departments in the municipalities. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the use of place branding can help municipalities with a sustainable profile to gain competitive advantages. Furthermore, it became apparent that the use of place branding strategies, such as slogan, logotypes, events and cooperation with stakeholders, could enhance the brand image of municipalities and enable them to attract potential stakeholders. In regards to the communication channels, the findings suggest municipalities to communicate their CSR-activities through websites, social media, press conferences, seminars and events.

This study explored the factors that are critical to the success of public (government) sector knowledge management initiatives and the lessons from private sector knowledge management and organizational learning that apply in the public sector. The goal was to create a concise guide, based on research-validated success factors, to aid government organizations in establishing effective knowledge management initiatives to improve organizational learning. Academic and business literature provided 91 success factors in nine categories relating to social, organizational, managerial, and technological considerations. Determining which factors will have more bearing on success can be challenging for any organization, but possibly more so for public organizations, given that most guidance derives from the private sector. Many of the few government oriented studies targeted service to the public, but effective services depend on healthy processes and practices that capture, organize, share, maintain, apply, and--when complex, turbulent environments demand novel approaches--create new knowledge to enable desired outcomes. A review of knowledge management and organizational learning literature--most of which reflected private sector initiatives--provided a set of candidate success factors. A panel of knowledge management experts with public sector experience tested a draft survey instrument and provided suggestions for improving its questions and organization. Links to the amended survey instrument were provided in online and email solicitations targeting members of online professional communities dedicated to knowledge management and organizational learning, and who had experience with public sector knowledge management initiatives. Members of these communities participated, providing insights into the factors that most affected the success of their initiatives. After responding to the survey questions, 17 participants clarified and expanded on some of their responses during follow-on interviews. Analysis and conclusions based on survey and interview findings supplemented the literature review in providing content for the guide, which has been offered to participants.

<p>This doctoral thesis focuses on translating Total Quality Management (TQM). The reason for this focus is that ideas such as TQM rarely or never contain a complete description of how the idea is to be “installed” in an organisation if it is to achieve the intended result. This often has the consequence that the result the idea is expected to produce in the organisation is only achieved in part, if at all. In Sweden there has been a great interest in working with the SIQ Model for Performance Excellence. In the thesis the model is viewed as an operationalisation of the TQM concept.</p><p>The theoretical perspective of sensemaking is applied to understand what happens when organisations begin to use the model. This work is in the thesis seen as a translation process and contrasts the rational view of implementation. The sensemaking perspective rests on a social constructionist viewpoint, which distinguishes it from the view that TQM has on organisations. The study is placed in the interpretative paradigm and two service organisations in public sector have been studied with a longitudinal design.</p><p>The main contribution of the study is a new way of looking at the work with the model. Thus, the interpretations could be seen as aspects, which together present a detailed description of the translation process. These aspects are, in summary, a way of looking upon and understanding:</p><p>• the translation process as a number of parallel and reciprocal processes</p><p>• the role of the translators</p><p>• the relationship between translators and top management</p><p>• the contextual prerequisites of the translation process.</p><p>In addition to this, the thesis can work as a driving force towards a more constructive and critical attitude among practitioner of TQM. The somewhat seductive rhetoric and the risk to work with the model without an apparent intention are highlighted in the study. It seems that the model in itself can lead to collective sensemaking that gets the work done without discussing the intention. In light of the interpretations it becomes clear that working with the model is a relatively complicated process. Many of the failed attempts to reach excellence could be explained by unrealistic expectations of the character and requirement of the work. In the thesis, the translator has been introduced as a counterbalance that possibly could help dealing with the complexity of TQM.</p>

In 2007, Uganda had one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in the world. Given the influence of multilateral and bilateral agencies in Uganda; the strong international reputation and domestic influence of its President; the country’s historic achievements in public sector and economic reform; and the intimate connection between economic performance, social well-being and access to electricity, the problems with Uganda’s electricity sector have proven deeply frustrating and, indeed, puzzling. Following increased scholarly attention to the relationship between political change, policymaking, and public sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world generally, this thesis examines the multilevel politics of Uganda’s electricity sector reform process. This study contends that explanations for Uganda’s electricity sector reform problems generally, and hydroelectric dam construction efforts specifically, must move beyond technical and financial factors. Problems in this sector have also been the result of a model of reform (promoted by the World Bank) that failed adequately to account for the character of political change. Indeed, the model of reform that was promoted and implemented was risky and it was deeply antagonistic to domestic and international civil society organizations. In addition, it was presented as a linear, technical, apolitical exercise. Finally the model was inconsistent with key principles the Bank itself, and public policy literature generally, suggest are needed for success. Based on this analysis, the thesis contends that policymaking and reform must be understood as deeply political processes, which not only define access to services, but also participation in, and exclusion from, national debates. Future approaches to reform and policymaking must anticipate the complex, multilevel, non-linear character of ‘second-generation’ policy issues like electricity, and the political and institutional capacity needed to increase the potential for success. At the heart of this approach is a need to carefully consider how the character of state-society relations in the country – “governance” – will influence reform processes and outcomes.

Collaboration across the organisational boundaries takes place for different reasons. One of them is to solve complex problems that cannot be dealt with by a single organisation. The area of vocational rehabilitation constitutes an example of inter-organisational collaboration motivated by a need for joint problem solving. Individuals are admitted to vocational rehabilitation with the aim of entering or re-entering the labour market. These individuals constitute a heterogeneous group with different kinds of problems, based on e.g. their social situation, long-term diseases and/or substance abuse. As a result, they are handled at more than one welfare state agency at the time, and the practitioners working at these agencies need to collaborate to find individual solutions for their clients. The expected positive effects of such collaboration are long-term planning, increased quality of the casee management, and reductions of invested time and money. In this thesis, an interpretive case study of inter-organisational teamwork within the vocational rehabilitation is presented. The aim of the study was to investigate how the collaboration could be supported by information technology. During a time period of two years, practitioners from three welfare state agencies took part in the research project, The activities included observations of the teamwork, individual interviews with the practitioners and design of information technology that should support the teamwork. An essential part of the design activities was the user representatives' direct participation in the design group, composed by practitioners and researchers. To stimulate the participation, methods with its origin in the participatory design approach were used. The design requirements that were defined included support for the team's communication and joint documentation of cases, and also information sharing about previous, present and future rehabilitation activities. The teamwork was characterised by an open, positive atmosphere where the practitioners were trying to find solutions for the clients within the frames of the current rules and regulations, limited by the resources allocated for vocational rehabilitation activities. However, the environment was also found to be dynamic with changing, and in some cases conflicting, enterprise objectives, Furthermore, the enterprise objectives were not broken down into tangible objectives on the operational level. The physical team meetings and the meetings with the clients constituted essential parts of the work practices and it is concluded that these meetings should not be substituted by technology. The case management could, however, be supported by a flexible tool that meets the users' needs of freedom of action.

Titel: Sjukt omhändertagande - en studie om sjukfrånvaron inom den kommunala äldrevården Författare: Tuyet Pham, Hannes Skanung och Ida Söderman Handledare: Kjell Arvidsson Kurs: Företagsekonomi III - organisation, examensarbete (kandidat)   Syfte Vårt syfte med denna uppsats var att undersöka om den generellt höga sjukfrånvaron inom äldrevården i kommunal sektor har en organisatorisk koppling. I samband med uppsatsens syfte ställdes följande forskningsfråga: vilka organisatoriska faktorer bidrar till sjukskrivningarna inom den kommunala äldrevården?   Metod Denna studie är både en kvalitativ och kvantitativ studie som antagit en abduktiv ansats. Studien går under undersökningsdesignen fallstudie där det empiriska materialet består av en enkätundersökning samt kvalitativa intervjuer. I enkätundersökningen deltar 56 medarbetare och på intervjuerna deltar nio anställda på sex avdelningar under tre enheter.   Slutsatser Den empiriska och teoretiska datainsamlingen resulterade i slutsatsen att den generellt höga sjukfrånvaron inom den kommunala äldrevården har en organisatorisk koppling. Organisatoriska faktorer som vi anser påverkar sjukfrånvaron inom den kommunala äldrevården är olika uppfattningar om ansvaret för arbetsuppgifter, låg bemanning, graden av gemenskapen i olika arbetsgrupper och frånvarokultur.  Vi menar även att dessa organisatoriska faktorer påverkas av strukturella faktorer som ligger utanför organisationen. Ett exempel på detta är det långsamma vårdsystemet. / The purpose of this study was to analyze if the sickness absence in the public elderly care is due to organizational elements. This study is based on the research question:   What organizational elements contribute to the sickness absence in the public elderly care?   Method This thesis is based on a qualitative and a quantitative research and presumes an abductive approach. The empirical study consist a survey with 56 employees and interviews with nine employees in six departments within three units.   Results The empirical and theoretical study has contributed with the result that the sickness absence in the public elderly care is due to organizational elements. Organizational elements, which are affecting the sickness absence, are different views on responsibility of work tasks, low staffing, the degree of community in various working groups and absence culture. These organizational elements are also affected by structural elements in the external environment. An example of this is the inertial healthcare system

BACKGROUND: Powerful public-private partnerships (PPPs) can only be established if the partners are able to deal with complexity. Such partnerships may serve to stimulate local community and economic development. Thus, it may maximise the effectiveness of local groups and resources in meeting the needs for rebuilding a community through a partnership representative of the public and private sectors. A problem that exists in South Africa, is the uneven distribution of population ratios dependent on public and private sector health care service delivery, in relation to the proportion of pharmaceutical service providers in the different sectors. OBJECTIVE: The main objectives of this qualitative research investigation were to examine the prospects for PPP development in the pharmaceutical sector of South Africa as well as to explore the possibilities of a proposition for a proposed generic public-private partnership model to be managed and used in the pharmaceutical sector of South Africa. METHOD: The study comprises of the exploration of the research questions by means of a qualitative research design. The study design implicated a balance between the in-depth literature study and a qualitative research process. The researcher employed a grounded theory approach to collect and analyse the data. Data collection represented the identifiable role players and opinion formulators in the South African health care sector. By following a combination of the various qualitative sampling methods and techniques, a total of 38 (n=38) interviews were conducted. The data collected from the interviewees and from the literature study were integrated and analysed by making use of computer assisted data analysis. SETTING: The researcher selected interviewees from the South African health care sector. The interviews included role players in the pharmaceutical sector in both the public and private sectors. The interviewees further represented eight different spheres of the pharmaceutical setting in South Africa. KEY FINDINGS: The investigation identified a range of prospects for PPP development in South Africa and these were reported in terms of views, expectations and scope for success. The management elements for developing and sustaining joint ventures between the public and private sectors were identified and a proposition was formulated in theory to serve as a proposed generic PPP model (PGM) in the pharmaceutical sector for the South African health care milieu. CONCLUSION The exploratory qualitative investigation surfaced the various facets of the complexity of PPPs. The investigation concluded that several barriers, such as competition and market entry disparities between the macro and micro level pharmaceutical entities, which impede PPP development, affected the prospects for PPP development in South Africa. The South African legislation, South African Treasury guidelines, regulations and the views of the SA Competition Commission need transformation to accommodate both the micro and macro level pharmaceutical service providers in the formation of PPPs. Capacity building within the sphere of pharmaceutical service delivery to the bigger population of South Africa may become sustainable on removal of these barriers. A series of recommendations were presented and several critical issues in need of supplementary research, have been identified. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.