The inability of the public sector to satisfy social needs - like poverty alleviation, social inclusion of disadvantaged groups, unemployment, health and education - are redefining the relationship between the governments and their citizens by making the latter play an active role as the provider of the welfare state. Citizens through their entrepreneurial activity have been pulled to the third sector leading to the emergence of new organizational forms like social enterprises and social franchises. The main focus of this research study is the investigation of the new interorganizational format of social franchising which has received ‘scunt’ research attention up to now. The behaviour of actors and organizations in the social economy sector are influenced by the properties and dynamics of elements coming from the political, social, organizational and individual level. We have adopted a systems approach of social network theory. A grounded theory named Social Franchise Model (SoFraM) has been induced from an exploratory empirical mixed method study conducted at various stages and from different sources during a time frame of thirty months. Primary data were raised through six case studies in the UK and Greece, more than 143 interviews with social entrepreneurs and various stakeholders and three action research projects which were the subject of analytic induction supported by archival analysis of secondary data coming from governmental, European Commission, local authority and other sources. Our findings indicate that the formation, growth and success of social franchises is heavily shaped through: firstly, law, regulations, and incentives introduced by centralized or formal institutions- both supranational and national- as well as their driving logics; secondly, the relational and structural embeddedness of actors in networks and the social norms that subsequently emerge; thirdly, the characteristics of the individual social entrepreneurship profile; and finally elements of the social innovation model adopted. The properties of the system of informal or decentralised institutions of networks have been further explored through a pilot quantitative study on mainstream franchises in the UK and Greece. An online self-administered questionnaire has been created based on our conceptual framework of the Franchise Network Model (FNM) drawn from existing scales from literature. The findings indicate that relational and structural embeddedness of actors and organizations in networks determine choices of formation, partner selection, governance mode and the subsequent performance of franchise systems.

Två grundläggande paradigm inom datavetenskap är objektorienterad programmering och relationsdatabasteknik. En kombinering av applikationer gjorda i ett objektorienterat programmeringsspråk med den beständighet och funktionalitet som ges av relationsdatabaser är en möjlig vidareutveckling av ens kunskaper inom dessa områden. Kombinationen av dessa båda förutnämnda paradigm innebär åtminstone ett problem som uppkommer då en relationsdatabas lagrar data i tabeller och en objektorienterad applikation lagrar data i objekt. Detta problem kallas objekt/relations paradigmens missanpassning. På grund av detta problem så måste kopplingen mellan paradigmen skötas av ett ramverk av något slag. I vår rapport så undersöker vi två av de ramverk som behandlar kopplingen mellan paradigmen. Specifikt i våran studie kommer vi att fokusera på kvalitetsattributet användbarhet. De ramverk som vi undersöker heter Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) och Hibernate. Båda dessa verktyg är skapade för det objektorienterade programmeringsspråket Java. / Two of the fundamental paradigms within computer science are object oriented programming and relational databases. A combination of an object oriented application with the persistence and functionality provided by relational databases is a further development of one’s knowledge within these areas. The combination of the two aforementioned paradigms will yield at least one problem, which occurs because in a database data is stored in tables whereas an object oriented application stores data in objects. This problem is called the object/relational paradigm mismatch. Because of this problem the connection between the paradigms must be handled by some kind of framework. In our report we investigate two of the frameworks which handle the connection between the paradigms. Specifically in our study we will focus on the quality attribute usability of the two frameworks and conduct a comparison between these two. The frameworks we investigate are called Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) and Hibernate. Both of these tools are created for the object oriented programming language Java.

Questa ricerca esplorativa qualitativa si è posta l’obiettivo di comprendere il funzionamento del peer support in ospedale e le ragioni che spingono alcuni pazienti a diventare peer supporter. È stata realizzata un’ osservazione di tre reparti ospedalieri italiani in cui il peer support è praticato e successivamente sono state condotte 27 interviste agli attori coinvolti (peer supporter, pazienti, operatori). Uno sguardo internazionale si è avuto con la realizzazione di due interviste a peer supporter del King’s Hospital di Londra. I dati raccolti sono stati analizzati e interpretati alla luce del paradigma relazionale, secondo il quale il professionista da solo non è in grado di trovare delle soluzioni ad una malattia che colpisce una persona, ma necessita anche dell’aiuto della persona stessa per fronteggiare la situazione. Dalla ricerca è emerso che la presenza del peer support produce benefici per il reparto ospedaliero e tutti gli attori coinvolti: i pazienti conoscono meglio i servizi, i loro doveri e diritti e comprendono meglio alcune scelte terapeutiche del medico; i medici comprendono meglio i vissuti dei pazienti e le loro esigenze, si avvicinano al paziente e riescono a lavorare meglio; i peer supporter valorizzano il proprio sapere esperienziale e si sentono utili. / This exploratory qualitative reasearch identifies the reasons who leads patient to become peer supporter and explain peer support program in hospital ward. Three italian hospital ward, whose already have a peer support program, have been selected. Practicioners, patients and peer supporters were interview in these hospital departments (27 interviews in total), moreover each department was observed for three days to follow all the peer supporter’s activities. Thanks to two peer supporter’s interviews who worked at King’s Hospital in London was possible to have an international view. The collected qualitative data were then analyzed and interpreted according to the relational paradigm of social work. The idea of this approach is that social workers are not able to solve problems and to find solutions for the life problems; in the contrary professionals need to be helped from the service users. From the results emerged that the peer support program produce benefit for all people: the patients learned to know their rights and duties together with social and clinical services; the practitioners learned to know experiential knowledge, patient’s needs and how to work in a better way; the peer supporters learned to use their illness experience and feel useful.

Eingebettet in die Theorie der Weiterbildung nimmt die Dissertation die Forderung der bildungstheoretisch orientierten Biographieforschung auf, den transformatorischen Bildungsbegriff zu präzisieren. Aus der Diagnose einer Stagnation in diesem Bereich wird der Wechsel vom interpretativen zum relationalen Paradigma vorgeschlagen und eine relationale Entwicklungslogik als methodologische Basis relationalen Denkens eingeführt. Mit der Übertragung der Ergebnisse der informellen Axiomatisierung von Robert Kegans strukturaler Entwicklungstheorie auf den Bildungsbegriff wird unter Verwendung weiterer Referenztheorien aus dem Bereich der relationalen Kommunikationstheorien die Präzisierung des Begriffs möglich. Bildung wird als Prozess der Transformation der Regel der Bedeutungsbildung einer Person unter Konfrontation mit der Regel der Bedeutungsbildung nächsthöherer Ordnung definiert und als eine Struktur der Übergänge zwischen Kontext-Regeln beschrieben, die ein Beobachter der Person im Interaktionsprozess zuschreibt. Mit dem hier entwickelten Kontext-Ebenen-Modell der Bedeutungsbildung lassen sich zum einen Zeichen-Arten ZA definieren, die eine empirische Beschreibung des Bildungsprozesses einer Person zulassen, und zum anderen drei Typen von Kontext-Regeln XR bestimmen, die aus der relationalen Entwicklungslogik abgeleitet, die Prinzipien der Bedeutungsbildung als Regeln der Zeichenrelationierung darstellen. Das Kontext-Ebenen-Modell der Bedeutungsbildung steht als Ergebnis einerseits für eine erfolgreiche Präzisierung des transformatorischen Bildungsbegriffs, andererseits für die Leistungsfähigkeit der strukturalistischen Methode im Rahmen des Programms der relationalen Weiterbildungsforschung. / Embedded in the theory of adult education (andragogy) this PhD-thesis takes up the challenge proclaimed by the biography research based on the concept of Bildung and seeks to define the concept of transformational Bildung more precisely. To overcome the identified stagnation in this research field, this thesis proposes a change from qualitative research paradigm to relational paradigm and introduces the relational logic of development as methodology of relational thinking. The application of the results of the informal axiomatization of Robert Kegan’s theory of human development to the concept of transformational Bildung as well as the use of various approaches based on relational communication theories allowed to provide a more precise definition of the concept of transformational Bildung. In this thesis Bildung is defined as a process of transformation of individual’s rules of meaning making caused by a person’s confrontation with the rules of meaning making of a higher order. From the observer’s perspective the structure of the Bildung process can be described as a transition from one context rule to another. The developed model of context levels of meaning making allows defining types of signs (ZA) that enable to measure the levels in the process of Bildung. Furthermore, this model allows determining three types of context rules (XR), which – according to the relational logic of development – represent principles of meaning making seen as rules for relating signs. Thus, on the one hand, the model of context levels of meaning making has succeeded to specify the concept of transformational Bildung and, on the other hand, has proven the effectiveness of the structuralist method for the relational adult education research.