Bakgrund: Mångfald som begrepp introducerades i Sverige under 1990-talet med den amerikanska ledningsstrategin Diversity management som förebild, där man i slutet av 1980-talet började tala om anti-diskriminering i termer av organisationsnytta. Insikten om vikten av diversifierade arbetsstyrkor som kan generera effektivitet och kundanpassning beskrivs tillsammans med den demografiska utvecklingen ha gjort mångfald till en etablerad managementfråga. Begreppet konceptualiseras emellertid på en mängd olika sätt - en normativ managementlitteratur tenderar att framhäva mångfaldens fördelar, medan en omfattande kritik mot mångfald som managementstrategi vuxit fram i den akademiska sfären. Syfte: Studien syftar till att studera hur mångfaldsbegreppet konstrueras i olika svenska organisationer samt att förstå villkoren för dessa konstruktioner. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med elva respondenter i tio organisationer inom offentlig och privat sektor. Slutsats: Människors olikheter utgör själva utgångspunkten för konstruktionen av mångfaldsbegreppet och ses som en förutsättning för organisationers prestationsförmåga. En funktionalistiskt orienterad forskning betraktas som sann och objektiv och olika normativa element i den institutionella omgivningen beskrivs prägla organisationernas konstruktion av begreppet. Mångfaldsfrågan förstås som frikopplad från praktiken och starka institutionella krav på ekonomisk rationalitet i den organisatoriska kontexten beskrivs vara avgörande för begreppets konstruktion. Genom att betona den särartsideologi som utgör själva förutsättningen för diskriminering beskrivs vidare konstruktionen av den lönsamma mångfalden bidra till att skapa och upprätthålla maktrelationer och social ojämlikhet. / Background: Diversity management was introduced in Sweden during the 1990s along with its desirable arguments which stresses the importance of diversified workforces in order to ensure organizational efficiency and customization. These assumptions along with demographic changes in the Swedish labour force has led to diversity being described as an established issue for management. However, the concept can be conceptualized in a variety of ways – a functionalistic orientated management literature tend to highlight the benefits of diversity in organizations, while extensive criticism of diversity as a management strategy has emerged in the academic sphere.  Purpose: The purpose is to study how the concept of diversity is constructed in Swedish organizations. Furthermore to understand the conditions of these constructions.   Method: The study was conducted with a qualitative research method,  through ten semi-structured interviews in both public and private organizations. Conclusion: Human differences constitute the very basis of the construction of diversity management and is seen as a prerequisite for organizations' performance ability. A functionalist-oriented research is regarded as true and objective and various normative elements in the institutional environment are described as important for the construction of diversity. However, the issue of diversity management is understood to be decoupled from practice and strong institutional requirements for economic rationality in the organizational context are described as crucial for the concept's construction. By emphasizing the specific ideology that constitutes the very premise of discrimination, the construction of diversity as a business case is further described to contribute to creating and maintaining power relations and social inequality.

This thesis interrogates my and others?? creative praxis using the tools of the Internet, webcam, blogging and digital video, to elucidate possibilities for communication. I examine whether these tools are productive for my creativity and others?? in increasing communicative spaces and building social networks amongst the complexities of globalised culture. Many cultural commentators consider the Internet as a new kind of public sphere, developing community, strengthening the lifeworld and providing ethical discourse. The Internet, however, is a context not without problems. Still, less that one quarter of the world??s population has access, and computer illiteracy and governance (to name only a few) contribute to its limitations ?? this dichotomy is central to my investigation. I demonstrate that information communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet are radically altering our everyday lives and mediation is increasingly pervasive. I argue, therefore, that our globalised context demands alternative communicative spaces to mainstream media that allow diversity, plurality, intersubjectivity and new forms of interrogation. I ask whether the Internet can assist in the development of social networks and newest social movements (NSMs) by increasing civic bonds and communities. I posit communicative action, reflexivity and praxis as productive tools for a critical practice. I suggest that these theories are influential in researching the Internet??s potential in generating social awareness. I argue that the Internet can be used to construct social spaces and, in conjunction with creativity, can increase its productive capacity in developing diverse and ethical communicative contexts.

This thesis examines why law firms are organised as they are. It develops a theoretical framework of reflexive archetype theory which is constructed from structuring theory (Ranson, Hinings and Greenwood 1980), archetype theory (Hinings and Greenwood 1988), and circuits of power theory (Clegg 1989). It emphasises the reflexivity and integration of the process of organising within law firms. Empirical data are collected from fifteen Sydney law firms and interpreted within reflexive archetype theory. These data confirm the reflexivity and integration of elements within law firms that are theoretically postulated. A research agenda is developed and the contributions of the thesis to the field of organisational analysis are enumerated. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis explores, through critical dialogue and personal experience, various aspects of rehabilitation in the context of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The journey visits broad, in principle, government policy reports. It touches on insurance and political aspects of health care; the separation between medical, convalescent and tertiary divisions of the rehabilitation professions; and, most importantly, it is concerned with the personal struggle to find some ‘meaning’ in the experience of a chronic illness for which there is, at this stage, no cure. From this arises the complexity of the inter-relationships between professionals and clients and the vexed question of ethics. The writing or methodology is first-person narrative, with deep roots in natural philosophy, and the dissertation can be read on several levels. It can also be read as a meta-thesis, that is, as an illustration of the process of researching/writing in an experiential methodology / Master of Science (Hons) Social Ecology

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a unit that manages the most critically ill, complex and unstable patients in the hospital. As a result, the ICU is characterised by a high degree of clinical and organisational unpredictability and uncertainty. In Western discourse, uncertainty is often portrayed as problematic, and as something to be controlled and reduced. This research challenges this discourse by examining the productive relationship between certainty and uncertainty in the work practices of ICU clinicians, and subsequently, how intensive care clinicians utilise uncertainty to construct order in a highly unpredictable work environment. To understand how order can coexist with ICU’s unremitting unpredictability, complexity theory is used to frame this investigation. This research engaged an emergent, interventionist methodology, deploying multiple methods. Using ethnography, video-ethnography, and video-reflexivity, this research relied on clinicians’ participation in the construction and analysis of video data of the ICU clinicians’ work practices. This resulted in clinician-led practice change in the ICU. This research suggests that methods need to be deployed adaptively in order to deal with the complexity of ICU, in addition to the moment-to-moment emergence of events that require the researcher’s own work plans to be revisited. Moreover, in order to gain traction with, and understand highly complex and changeable environments, the researcher needs to also enter and experience uncertainty herself. Using complexity theory as its analytical tool, this research shows an inseparability of uncertainty and certainty in the ICU which is labeled ‘un/certainty’. Three main conclusions emerge from this research. First, un/certainty predominates in intensive care, and due to this, ordering is a process rather than a final state. Un/certainty is at the heart of the adaptive practices that clinicians enact. These adaptive practices are highly interconnected to the changes that the ICU environment may require, and thus produce a dynamic order in the unit. Second, the researcher herself, in order to come to terms with the complexity and un/certainty of the ICU environment must also enter un/certainty in order to gain traction with the ICU environment: unpredictability and complexity cannot be studied from a neat and disengaged distance. Third, the presence of un/certainty in the ICU can be significant and enabling rather than disabling for clinicians in their ongoing pursuit of dynamically ordering practice. The contribution of un/certainty to frontline practice is as a central driver to managing change and complexity. Therefore it should be positively revalued by health services researchers, policy makers and clinicians alike.

<p>Truancy is a problem in the Swedish schools today, just as well as in other European and other developed countries where educataion is gratuitous. Teachers all over Sweden go to classes with a clear and well-planned schedule for the day. But some are unable to do their work because of asent students. In this study I have chosen to focus on the perspective of the youths and the main question is: how do students discuss and think about truancy. During the study I have chosen a qualitative approach and have therefore done observation in various classes in a Swedish senior high school in a suburb outside Stockholm during twelve weeks. I have also done twelve interviews with the same number of students, six girls and six boys. The age ranges from 16 to 19 with two students from each grade. The result of the study is that some of the students are indiffirent when it comes to school. They just do not care about attending school all the lessons and all the days. Some of the students are absent when they feel they have lack of time in the prospect of a big examination. But the most astonishing statement from all the twelve students is that they state that their parents mean that the education is the student own responsibility.</p>

Truancy is a problem in the Swedish schools today, just as well as in other European and other developed countries where educataion is gratuitous. Teachers all over Sweden go to classes with a clear and well-planned schedule for the day. But some are unable to do their work because of asent students. In this study I have chosen to focus on the perspective of the youths and the main question is: how do students discuss and think about truancy. During the study I have chosen a qualitative approach and have therefore done observation in various classes in a Swedish senior high school in a suburb outside Stockholm during twelve weeks. I have also done twelve interviews with the same number of students, six girls and six boys. The age ranges from 16 to 19 with two students from each grade. The result of the study is that some of the students are indiffirent when it comes to school. They just do not care about attending school all the lessons and all the days. Some of the students are absent when they feel they have lack of time in the prospect of a big examination. But the most astonishing statement from all the twelve students is that they state that their parents mean that the education is the student own responsibility.

This thesis is an exploration of why the development of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) systems (IS) does not include more humanistic issues. I argue that this exclusion is one reason for the annoying situation of users and organizations: we are forced to deal with poorly designed systems that cause major frustration. In this reflexive investigation I present theories, data, analysis and arguments in the form of a theatrical script. With the theatre metaphor I aim to make visible the ideological elements not only within IS acquisition but also within research, in particular HCI research. The thesis includes three studies performed during 2003-2005: two interview studies with a total of 47 interviews, and one field study with extensive observations and 22 interviews. The material was analyzed with a focus on power structures and the ways common sense is constructed within the discourses of Information Systems Development (ISD). The theoretical perspective is inspired by discourse theory, social constructionism, and reflexivity. The main argument is that ISD is pervaded by a truth construct in which rationality and logic constitutes the norm and everything else, including humans, becomes subordinate. In my analysis of the research material I see that user participation through informal “methods” and user representation does not lead to meaningful involvement; instead it adds to the power structures in which ICT expertise and technology determination are hegemonic. I distinguish several significant subjects within the discourses of ISD and argue that the ways they are construed and positioned relate to certain functions; for example ICT experts as authority and users as trouble makers both function to exclude users from ISD. HCI has an important role as a resistive discourse but to increase its impact we must refocus our attention on systems development, directing our efforts towards the procurers of ICT systems instead of trying to integrate human perspectives into the functional paradigm. / QC 20100913

How and why do organizations approach greening? How can we conceptualize approaches and how can we encourage reflexive dialogues on them? These are the main questions addressed in this qualitative study on organizational greening. The study sets off by discussing matters of research philosophy, arguing that our trust in science ought to be revised and that a more postmodern and constructionist philosophy might be a way to go. This is then followed by a theoretical review, showing that organizational studies have a history in environmental issues, but that it is basically technocentric in orientation. A more reflexive organizational approach is suggested. The empirical part of the study is based on qualitative research of five case studies, representing a mix of organizations situated in Sweden, all with an explicit ambition to approach greening. The analyses target the organizations' approaches from practice to assumptions, pointing at the commonalities as well as the tensions. Basically, greening was an issue for all studied organizations, but an increasing pressure to market-orient their operations in line with the business rhetoric dominated their identity construction. The environment was included if there were opportunities of win-win situations between environment and economy in sight. Once embarked upon, the organizations tended to focus on technocratic practices, developing or implementing management systems, product development indexes, life-cycle methodologies and other tools. On a more philosophical level, in the study referred to as the worldview level, the approaches were predominandy characterized by a representative epistemology and a dualistic ontology, that is, they were clearly anthropocentric. With a base in these findings, an alternative approach is discussed as a way out, or as a way of constructing a reflexive dialogue on greening. This is partly based on the tensions within and between the cases, which encouraged reflections on how greening was approached. In the alternative, organizations are seen as actors on a symbolic agora where transparency, participation and self-reflexivity are keys to organizational legitimacy. This view frames organizations in the dominating approach as agoraphobic producers of materialistically dependent satisfiers. The alternative also targets the limits of a preference and materialistically oriented view on die satisfaction of human needs. Instead, it is argued that environmental and cultural sensitivity should be acknowledged as natural parts of organizational greening. This, however, demands more room for reflexive dialogues encouraging ontological awareness and a respect for more ecocentric views. / digitalisering@umu

This thesis is about exploring the politics within and around research. The starting point is a European project which ran from late 1997 to the end of 2000. It was called "Self-employment activities concerning women and mi­norities: their success or failure in relation to social citizenship policies" and had as its objective to provide the EU-Commission with recommendations for improved self-employment policies. Background material was comple­mented by interviews with "experts", but the main source of information was in the form of biographical interviews with the self-employed, or for­merly self-employed, themselves. The qualitative method was used as a way of researching how individuals' background and experiences influenced their decision to become self-employed as well as their tendency to use labour market policies available for starting businesses. It was also a way to find out how those policies impacted on the individuals' lives. The conse­quent recommendations included a suggestion for broadening existing policies to comprise social aspects as well as financial allowances, and also the caution that self-employment was perhaps not the best solution to labour market and social exclusion. This latter doubt arose during project work, as did questions about methodology, the role of the researcher, and eventually about the politics that inform research. Only briefly touched upon in the project reports, these issues instead became the basis for the thesis. A reflexive rereading of the Final Report led to a critical examination of the political uses of con­cepts and categories, of how stereotypes affect research, and of the embeddedness in ethnocentric discourses of both research and researcher. The use of postcolonial and feminist theory, discourse analysis and a social constructionist perspective broadened the analytical possibilities and fur­thered understanding of the connections between politics and research. A conclusion is that a comprehensive change in the social order as well as in people's conscience is required to stem ethnic discrimination in society and the perpetuation of stereotypes and preconstructed categories in research. / digitalisering@umu