Developing countries are increasing their adoption of information systems at the country level now. One important aspect distinguishing the implementation of information systems in developing countries from that in developed countries is that developing countries usually lack the resources and capability for training and support, and the workers need to learn to use the system from their own experience. Thus, a better understanding of the workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system in developing countries may have important theoretical and practical implications, but empirical evidence on this issue remains limited. This dissertation seeks to fill in the gap by investigating workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system at two levels. First, it studies how an individual customs agent’ experience preparing and submitting customs documents influences her performance in document preparation and submission tasks. Second, it also examines how an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together affects the performance of customs inspection tasks completed through the cooperation of the dyad. The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation. The second chapter examines how the relatedness of workers’ prior experience affects their learning-by-doing and operational performance in service work. Prior research has viewed relatedness along a single dimension. However, tasks and the underlying knowledge required for task performance can vary along multiple attributes. This chapter extends prior conceptualizations of relatedness by defining it as a multi-dimensional construct and also accounting for the level of task relatedness between different categories in each task dimension. It separates the level of workers’ experience from the relatedness of their experience, and then link the two constructs to workers’ task performance, including their efficiency and quality. Analyzing data on the processing of 998,258 import customs declarations in Costa Rica from 2006-2010, the second chapter finds that customs agents, the major workers processing the customs declarations, learn from their experience to improve their time to complete the task but not their quality of completion. Moreover, it finds that the relatedness of customs agents’ experience to their current task is positively related to the quality of task completion but has a U-shape relationship with completion time, such that the completion time first decreases with and then increases with an increase in customs agents' experience relatedness. The chapter also finds that the impact of customs agents’ experience relatedness is enhanced when the agents have more experience. Overall, the results highlight the role of experience relatedness in workers’ performance in learning-by-doing service work, and help to identify ways for managers to improve different operational performance measures. Many service tasks are completed by dyads rather than by an individual worker. In this setting, the individuals in the dyad not only need to acquire knowledge about the task, but also have to learn to work with each other. Thus, individuals’ experience working together may have significant performance implications for dyads. However, this effect remains largely unexamined, especially when there are conflicts within the dyad. In the third chapter, it theorizes how a dyad’s experience working together influences the dyad’s task performance, and label it as a learning-by-working-together effect. The chapter further proposes that the impact of dyad experience can vary across tasks with different levels of complexity, goal conflict, and combinations of the two. It examines learning-by-working-together in a setting where there is goal conflict, but the dyad must work together to complete the task: customs inspections. Based on a field study on data of 323,520 customs inspections in Costa Rica, the third chapter shows that the number of prior interactions between a customs agent and a customs inspector is positively associated with the agent-inspector dyad’s efficiency in customs inspection. In addition, it demonstrates that the impact of an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together is greater for high-complexity tasks than for low-complexity tasks, and weaker for high-conflict tasks than for low-conflict tasks. It also shows that due to a joint effect of task complexity and task-level goal conflict, dyad experience exhibits the largest impact on the performance of high-complexity, high-conflict tasks. The chapter discusses the implications of our results for the study of learning curves and for the practice.

The thesis approaches the issue of IS support for service work, understood as distributed knowledge work taking place as a negotiation between diverse interests. It is based on an ethnographically inspired, longitudinal case study of certification auditing according to a formal generic standard. A handful of certification auditors are followed closely, periodically and comprehensively over three years. Observations are combined with interviews of subjects and colleagues, added by exploration of other material. The practices of company ‘W’ is placed within a larger historical and institutional context. Research literature and theory is explored in four chapters from Social studies of science (STS), Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), Information systems (IS), Information infrastructures (II) and Management literature. The aim is to identify basic characteristics of service work, its opportunities and challenges, from both the company’s and workers’ perspective. Main topics are Decision Making as negotiated sensemaking, contextual rationality and judgement; Sharing of understanding and meaning as ongoing practiced articulation work aiming for trust and an equifinal level of accord that will ‘find and allow common action’; Perseverance in a capable role that will allow calibration of distributed knowledge is vital for auditors. Common Information Spaces (CIS) is used as a framework to explore the heterogeneous circumstances of identity work in work practices; Predictability in production is sought through various strategies of standardization. Approaches to avoid and counter the inherent side-effects of standardization are described. The empirical results of the research project are presented and analysed in four chapters that look at the issue of i) being an accomplished service worker and ii) practicing service work. Both issues are addressed from a local, individual perspective, and from an organizational perspective in terms of the continuation of quality production. The thesis closes with a Conclusion of organized and standardized service work as displaying Practical drift, in response to the research question RQ0. How is IS supported distributed service work negotiated?, followed by implications for IS research and practice. The empirical case displays the role of information systems (IS) support in distributed service work - as part of a larger assembly of standardization measures, a broad-spectrum approach, displaying practical drift in its effect. The service work of certification auditing is characterized by ongoing negotiation of partly contradictory interests. It is heterogeneously standardized through material, rational/immaterial and social/organizational measures, many in place long before the advent of advanced IS. Traditionally, there are release mechanisms that, on the auditors’ discretion, alleviate the inappropriate effects of standardization. With new harmonising efforts the scope of this personal latitude needs to change, but when first implemented the IS along with new procedures start off as too tight. However, over time adaptations are made, making the overall process self regulatory with feedback mechanisms. On the whole, the thesis aims to contribute to the literature on information infrastructures, on knowledge work in general, and CSCW by drawing on insights from this specific collaborative work in controversial settings. The case provides practical insights for resilient systemizing of knowledge based global service work practices.

This dissertation is based on a research of luxury gastronomy conducted in two luxury restaurants in Prague. The main focus of analysis is on gastronomic experience as an affective commodity and a vehicle of social, economic and political transformation. The study examines how affect is produced, commodified and how value is generated in luxury "experiential gastronomy." It also analyzes the role of affect in transformation of individuals, the society, consumption practices, entrepreneurial practices, and labor. It shows how experts on gastronomy educate the public on appropriate consumption practices and eating habits. Eating and dining serve as "technologies of the self" (Rose 2004) through which individual and social health and well-being are achieved. Cultivated affect becomes a vehicle of the "purification from socialism" (Eyal 2003) and also plays an important part on the formation of ethical consumer and citizen (Muehlebach 2011). Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This dissertation is based on a research of luxury gastronomy conducted in two luxury restaurants in Prague. The main focus of analysis is on gastronomic experience as an affective commodity and a vehicle of social, economic and political transformation. The study examines how affect is produced, commodified and how value is generated in luxury "experiential gastronomy." It also analyzes the role of affect in transformation of individuals, the society, consumption practices, entrepreneurial practices, and labor. It shows how experts on gastronomy educate the public on appropriate consumption practices and eating habits. Eating and dining serve as "technologies of the self" (Rose 2004) through which individual and social health and well-being are achieved. Cultivated affect becomes a vehicle of the "purification from socialism" (Eyal 2003) and also plays an important part on the formation of ethical consumer and citizen (Muehlebach 2011). Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This thesis deals with problems of financing social service and with using care allowance as an instrument of social policy. The need for affordable and quality social services for the elderly results from prognosis of the demographic trends of aging population and it is always of interest to social policy that tincludes new tools in addressing social protection to people who depend on additional care. Determination of the public policy problem is based on a study and an analysis of available data, referring to the finding that the care allowance is not (as opposed to the intention of the law), used sufficiently as one of the sources of financing social service providers. My thesis is based on findings, which brings a theory of social inclusions as the prevention of a social exclusion of people because of a reduced self-sufficiency and a theory of a quality of life under which is necessary to ensure individual's everyday needs; later it focuses on a concept of a social protection of people in important public policy documents. The research deals with fundamental changes in the concept of the care allowance under the law No. 108/2006 Coll. on social services and the impact of these changes on the recipients of care, informal care providers and institutional social services. It analyzes public records and...

For a person who has been diagnosed with a disability at some point in their life, their ability to be an active democratic citizen in our information society changes. This thesis examines what kind of challenges the Swedish public libraries and librarians faces in their day-to-day work connected to the specific group of users with vision-related disabilities and discusses and analyze public librarians' perception of what digital skills means to them.  In the combination of people with visual impairments and their digital needs and competence development and on the actual conditions and challenges existing at the Swedish public libraries regarding digital services for people with visual impairments, the study identifies several challenges for both parties. The study results present an insecurity among librarians regarding the expectations to adjust and help with digital guidance, when they still are feeling insecure about what kind of digital competence expects of them.  During the qualitative interviews, a shared experience of anxiety, uncertainty, and an uneven level among the library staff regarding basic digital competences and where the "boundary" is revealed. The uneven level of digital competence is highlighted as problematic, as the patrons are assumed to be treated differently on repeated visits to the public library. The study identifies several challenges that would further encourage both the individual, the profession, the institution as well as society and research to study further. New knowledge in a library context has been identified and needs to be studied in a broader and more comprehensive research study.