O trabalho teve como objetivo investigar a agilidade nas contratações de projetos de pesquisa no âmbito do Programa de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento da Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica (ANEEL). A pesquisa foi motivada pela demora na contratação de alguns projetos e pelo insucesso na contratação de outros, com o concorrente acúmulo de recursos a serem investidos. O primeiro objetivo específico foi a identificação das restrições do programa de P&D da ANEEL e seleção daquelas que afetam a contratação de projetos de pesquisa. O segundo objetivo é a proposição de alternativas para aumentar a agilidade na contratação de projetos de pesquisa. O trabalho foi dividido em duas etapas que correspondem aos objetivos específicos e são apresentadas em dois artigos. A primeira procurou investigar as variáveis do problema. A segunda etapa procurou propor alternativas para agilizar o processo de contratação de projetos de pesquisa das empresas. Na primeira etapa foi aplicado método para lidar com problemas sociais complexos ao longo de reuniões específicas. Uma das reuniões foi realizada com especialistas em pesquisa e outra com os envolvidos no programa de pesquisa. As informações foram trabalhadas e validadas com os participantes. Para desenvolver a segunda etapa, foram realizados três estudos de caso em que foram realizadas entrevistas e o mapeamento dos processos de contratação de empresas de diferentes naturezas jurídicas. Os procedimentos buscaram investigar se existiam diferenças na agilidade de contratação entre as empresas, tendo como base de comparação uma configuração específica de projeto, investigar a motivação para tais diferenças e levantar alternativas para disseminar entre as empresas a agilidade nas contratações. Na primeira etapa, as restrições do programa de P&D foram identificadas e a maior parte delas está relacionada com a gestão interna das empresas. Em seguida, estão as restrições relacionadas a contratação de projetos, mais especificamente a questões de propriedade industrial e de equipamentos comprados ou produzidos pelo projeto. Na segunda etapa, foram confirmadas diferenças na agilidade de contratação entre as empresas. A padronização de procedimentos e as relações recorrentes foram identificadas como motivações para tais diferenças. Entre as alternativas encontradas na literatura para tratar as restrições constatadas na primeira etapa, a formação de relações de longo prazo parece beneficiar a celebração de contratos. A formação de comitês para ajustes nos contratos não foi alvo de questionamento na presente pesquisa, mas também pode ser uma alternativa para agilizar a celebração de contratos. A atribuição da propriedade dos resultados para a parceira que mais contribui é alvo de controvérsia por questões legais. A presente pesquisa contribuiu para o campo gerencial ao propor a criação de uma certificação de qualidade para disseminar a padronização de processos, sendo que a padronização não foi abordada na teoria revisada que trata sobre a contratação de projetos de pesquisa. Essa alternativa contribuiria para tratar as restrições encontradas na contratação de projetos entre as empresas e as executoras com benefícios que extrapolam o escopo da presente pesquisa, visto que as instituições de pesquisa envolvidas no programa de P&D ANEEL estão dentre as principais do sistema de pesquisa brasileiro. Propõe-se desenvolver novas pesquisas que evoluam o conhecimento sobre a agilidade de contratação ao investigar os perfis de contratações, os mecanismos de governança utilizados e as diferenças de agilidade obtidas. / The work´s objective was the investigation of research contracting agility in the context of R&D Program for the Brazilian Electric Energy Sector. The research was motivated by the delay on some projects contract negotiation and by others unsuccessful contracting process, while the funds to invest keep growing. The first specific objective was to discover which constraints of the R&D Program for the Brazilian Electric Energy Sector, which guidelines and instructions are established by the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency – ANEEL, affects research projects contracting process. The second objective is the proposition of alternatives to increase contracting agility. The work had two main stages to address the specific objectives and they are presented in two papers. The first stage investigated problem´s topics. The second stage intended to propose alternatives to make the utilities contracting process more agile. The first stage has applied a method for handling complex societal problems. A discussion meeting involved research experts and other the utilities and academy. The information collected was summarized and then validated with the participants. At the second stage, three case studies were developed using interviews and process mapping with public, private and mixed utilities. The procedures applied intended to investigate if there was agility differences in utilities contracting processes, using as reference a specific project configuration, identify the motivation for the differences founded and raise alternatives to make all utilities contracting processes agile. The constraints were identified in the first stage and most of them are related with utilities management. In second place, there are constraints related with project contracting, especially issues about industrial property and equipments developed or bought in the project. At the second stage, contracting agility differences were found. Process standardization and recurrent relationships were identified as possible motivations for these differences. Among the alternatives found in the literature review to handle the constraints identified in the first stage, the long term relationships seems to make contracting easier. The development of committees to adapt contracts during evolution of the collaboration was not in the scope of the present research, but also can be an alternative to make contracting more agile. Share property rights according with technological contribution can be refused because of legal aspects. The present research evolve the management knowledge as it proposes a certification to promote process standardization, besides the standardization was not present in the reviewed theory about research project contracting. This alternative would contribute to handle constraints identified in the contracting experience, with benefits that will exceed the planned scope, as the research institutions in the ANEEL R&D program are among the most importants in the brazilian research system. New researches may expand the knowledge about contracting agility if they investigate contracting configuration, governance mechanisms used and the agility differences obtained.

Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka företagens hantering av en samhällskris. Vilka faktorer är av vikt för att inte utsätta företaget för risker och utveckla samhällskrisen till en varumärkeskris? Studien utforskar hur dessa faktorer påverkar den faktiska krishanteringen under covid-19 pandemin och vilken skepnad dessa överväganden tar. Metod: Metoden som använts i studien är av kvalitativ karaktär. Data samlades in genom strukturerade intervjuer av nio personer med ledningsposition och kunskap om företagets hantering av covid-19 pandemin.  Resultat och slutsats: Studien visar att företagens hantering av samhällskriser skiljer sig från hantering av varumärkeskriser. Faktorerna som påverkar hanteringen under kriserna är desamma men de skiljer sig från hur dessa faktorer prioriteras beroende på krisens form. Studien visar att personalen är den enskilt viktigaste faktorn för företagen att ta hänsyn till vid krishantering under en samhällskris för att undvika att den utvecklas till en varumärkeskris. Examensarbete bidrag: Studien utökar forskningen kring krishanteringen och kommer med nya insikter till ett knapphändigt utforskat ämne som är företagens krishantering vid samhällskriser. Vilka bakomliggande faktorer som är viktiga sett utifrån ett marknadsföringsperspektiv för att kontrollera effekterna av en samhällskris för att inte utveckla en varumärkeskris. Förslag till fortsatt forskning:  Ett förslag är att undersöka företag som drabbats negativt av covid-19 pandemin för att göra en jämförande analys och validera resultaten från denna studie. / Aim: This study aims to explore the management of a societal crisis by firms. Which factors are important as to not expose the firm of turning the societal crisis into a full-blown brand crisis? The study explores how these factors affect the actual crisis management during the covid-19 pandemic and the shape these considerations take.  Design: A qualitative method was applied. Data was collected through open-ended interviews with nine persons in leading positions with knowledge of the firms' management during the covid-19 pandemic.  Results and conclusion: The study shows that management during societal crises differs from the management during a brand crisis. While the factors that influence the management during a societal crisis are the same as during a brand crisis the importance of each factor changes. This work further shows that focusing on the employees as the single most important aspect of crisis management during a societal crisis can help the firm avoid facing a brand crisis.  Contributions of the thesis: This study expands the crisis management research and provides new insight into a scarcely researched area when it comes to crisis management during societal crises. What factors are important from a marketing perspective to contain the effects of a societal crisis and avoid turning it into a brand crisis. Suggestions for further research: A suggestion is to study firms that have been negatively affected by the covid-19 pandemic to make comparative analysis and validate the findings from this study.

The covid-19 pandemic resulted in large changes and restrictions that impacted the Swedish society and the whole world. Both individuals and companies were impacted by this, not least the traveling companies in the public transport. One of these companies was the Swedish travel company SJ. The purpose of this study was to understand the communication that SJ operated on the social media platform Facebook during the covid-19 pandemic, march to november 2020. Because of the new situation and unexplored field of research a qualitative exploratory research design was used. The material studied were SJs Facebook posts and a semi structured expert interview. The data was analysed through a qualitative content analysis inspired by Grounded Theory. This method generated two sets of categories, one set of categories that represented different types of issues that were communicated on their Facebook, another set of categories that represented important grounds for why the communicated turned out the way it did. By analyzing these categories and forming a timeline of the communication, communicational phases were identified. The results of the study have contributed with a new time perspective of organizational communication on Facebook during this pandemic. The study's results could therefore be seen, not only as an explanation of SJs communication on Facebook during the pandemic, but also as a hypothesis of how organizations communication might change throughout a longer societal crisis, like a pandemic.

Militära organisationer påverkas ständigt av samhällets förändring och dess trender. En allt snabbare social och teknisk utveckling kan vara utmanande för en hierarkisk och byråkratisk institution vilket är grundläggande karaktärsdrag för militära organisationer. Den svenska Försvarsmakten har efter decennier av nedskärningar nu gått in i en omfattande tillväxtfas vilket också innebär stora förändringar för organisationens personal. Denna fallstudie har syftat till att uppnå en djupare förståelse för hur sjöofficerare, som första linjens chefer utövar sitt ledarskap för att hantera underställd personal och organisationens krav kopplat till Försvarsmaktens nuvarande tillväxtfas och normativa förändringar i samhället. Studien, som undersökt hur nästa generations officerare hanterar förändringar, söker tillföra ytterligare kunskap till de senaste årens forskning, om ledarskap och organisatoriska karaktärsdrag, som hittills riktat sig mot officerare på strategisk och operativ nivå. Under april 2021 genomfördes semi-strukturerade intervjuer med totalt 9 sjöofficerare som utbildat sig genom det nya utbildningssystemet och som efter 7–12 års yrkeserfarenhet tjänstgör som chefer inom ett sjöstridsförband. Det insamlande underlaget har genomgått en kvalitativ innehållsanalys som presenterats i två olika teman. Studien resultat visar att det är en utmaning på flera nivåer att få en anorektisk organisation att övergå i tillväxt. Första linjens chefer inom sjöstridsförband påverkas och upplever flera obalanser som kan ses som ett resultat av både social och teknisk acceleration i samhället. Detta hanteras genom fokus på ställda uppgifter och ett engagerat samt modernt ledarskap fokuserat på att skapa en samhörighet. Ledarskapet ses som det främsta verktyget för att bibehålla och rekrytera personal. Det råder en obalans mellan organisationens planering och individens synsätt på karriärsutveckling. Detta kan påverka både organisationens och individens möjlighet till utveckling. Tjänstgörande i Försvarsmakten ställer högre krav på arbetsgivaren än vad tidigare generationer har gjort avseende stimulerande arbetsuppgifter, transparens i beslut och att bli sedd av organisationen vid karriärplanering. Här upplever första linjens chefer begränsade möjligheter att påverka från sin nivå. Skiljelinjen mellan arbete och fritid är viktigare idag än tidigare, samtidigt är personalen beredd att göra uppoffringar. Lojalitet och engagemang finns men är inte villkorslös. Första linjens chefer försöker skapa balans för underställd personal genom ett ge och ta förhållande. / Military organizations are constantly affected by changes in society and social trends. Increasing social and technological development can be challenging for a hierarchical and bureaucratic institution, which are fundamental characteristics of military organizations. After decades of cuts, the Swedish Armed Forces has now entered an extensive rearmament phase, which also means major changes for all personnel within the organization. This case study has aimed to achieve a deeper understanding of how naval officers, as managers on tactical level, exercise their leadership to manage subordinate personnel and the organization's requirements linked to the Armed Forces' current rearmament phase and normative changes in society. The study, which examined how next-generation officers handle change, seeks to add additional knowledge to recent years' research on leadership and organizational characteristics, which has so far focused on officers at the strategic and operational levels. During April 2021, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 9 naval officers, who has all been educated through the new officer education system at the Swedish Defence University. After 7–12 years of professional experience, they serve as commanders within a naval warfare flotilla. A qualitative content analysis has resulted in the collected data being presented in two different themes. The study results show that there is a challenge on several levels to get an anorexic organization to grow. Managers on tactical level are affected and experience several imbalances that can be seen because of both social and technical acceleration in society. This is handled through a focus on given tasks. Managers show a committed and modern leadership focused on creating solidarity and coherence. Leadership is seen as the main tool for retaining and recruiting staff. There is an imbalance between organizational planning and the individual view of career development. This challenge both the organization and the individual possibility to develop experience. Personnel taking service in the Armed Forces places higher demands on the organization than previous generations have done regarding stimulating activities, transparency in decisions and being seen by the organization in career planning. Here, managers experience limited opportunities to influence from their level. Work life balance is more important today than before, at the same time the staff is prepared to make sacrifices. Loyalty and commitment exist but are not unconditional. Managers on tactical level aim to create balance for subordinate staff through a give and take relationship.

This study intends to develop knowledge about how the Swedish concept of values (“Värdegrund”)is used in the media, how the concept has shifted over time in the media from 1992 to 2020, and what this says about the school's function as part of society. Since the concept of values, with its set of values was incorporated, the difficulty over time has been in different emphases of what is considered to strengthen values. Perspectives that in value pedagogical research highlight normative as well as descriptive aspects. Aspects that describe perspectives on the school's civic education and the conditions for it. In the debate about the school's civic education, aspects emerge that refer to the school as a societal function and in some respects as an institution. Here, discourses emerge that are at the framework factor level or at the institutional level that can clarify, exploring and explaining the conditions that emerge in the study's empirical data. Aspects that express both to maintain, reproduce, an ideology and partly to create, produce, and prepare students based on society's demand.  Through the ways in which school and education are treated in the media, the image of the school's social function in a certain time and a certain society is framed. Based on this, I have chosen to use the media as a peephole to see how the school's basic values concept has been activated and used over time. Content analysis has been applied to analyse 91 articles from the newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet.  The study shows how the school's values, with its set of values, which are found in the first chapter of the national curricula, relate to society's different use and application of the same values, which creates a complexity. The study shows how the school is expected to handle the increased complexity of society. The results and analyses highlight generally normative approaches that express what the school ‘should’ do, even if there are some examples of descriptive “how” different approaches are considered to strengthen values. This is made visible in how schools considered as a corrective and normative practice, where efforts are to a greater extent about counteracting factors that violate the school's values, rather than strengthening what promotes the values.

On the 8th of January 2005, two deep technical cave divers entered Bushman’s Hole, a water filled cave system in the Northern Cape in South Africa. One did not return, the other, fighting the elements for over 12 hours, narrated the event the very next day. This exploration into the narratives of a technical cave diver, is an interpretive journey into the various constructions informing the process of making sense of the death of a fellow dive partner. Exploration of the unknown within the wombs of the earth uncompromisingly challenges society’s dominant views on death and the safekeeping imperative. This exploration of the culture within death and survival in water filled cave systems is situated within the narrative ontology. Subsequently this exploration is aimed at continuously integrating the historical and cultural messages within this dangerous pastime in attempt to find meaning within the narratives of one such individual who ventured into this darkness. Ultimately this exploration is aimed at understanding narratives of sense making employed by a technical cave diver after the loss of a fellow diver amidst the passion that summoned them to explore the darkness within water filled cave systems; a pastime that has been labelled by some as the most dangerous sporting pursuit available to humankind. The journey starts with a literature exploration on death, moving through various researched understandings of the bereavement experience. From there it continues into the nature of interpretive methodology, with an in-depth focus on the historical and cultural situated nature of the narratives we employ in making sense of our world. This qualitative approach is based on the subjective experienced and interpreted meaning that I discovered while moving through the narrated text, hence this journey is also reflective of the co-construction of meaning that implicitly takes place between individuals when making sense of their own experiences. As the receiver of this narrative exploration, you too will find meaning within this journey, meaning co-constructed with the multitude of narratives and experiences that have historically and culturally entered your interpretive process. Implicit within this exploration is the unique nature of the death and bereavement experience within the specific context of deep technical cave diving. This journey places the emphasis on the uniqueness of the bereavement experience, and ultimately challenges the objective approach to dealing with bereavement as a psychologist. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / Unrestricted

Malgré une littérature abondante sur les conséquences des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC), cette littérature n'aborde que trop peu les conséquences sociétales, qu'elles soient positives ou négatives, intentionnelles ou non. Parce que les interactions se propagent au-delà de l'espace en ligne et de ces conséquences paradoxales, les défis sociétaux sont un problème complexe. C'est pour ces raisons que nous avons besoin d'une meilleure compréhension des problèmes sociaux complexes. Pour ce faire, nous avons adopté le modèle de la thèse sur travaux. Les trois études de ce travail de doctorat adoptent une approche qualitative et un positionnement réaliste critique. Nous examinons un premier cas : celui du Printemps Arabe et l'utilisation de Facebook. Etudier ces types d'événements contemporains ne vient pas sans difficultés analytiques. Par conséquent, nous utilisons un outil d'analyse sémiotique pour faire face à la complexité représentationnelle des données recueillies. Enfin, les communautés en ligne peuvent également générer des coûts sociaux en fournissant un espace se faisant l'écho à des comportements socialement indésirables. / Despite the wide literature on the consequences of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) use, the literature still lacks understanding about the societal consequences, positive or negative, intended or unintended. Consequences of technology usages on society are paradoxical. The paradoxical outcomes can be threat to the sustainability of society. Because interactions spread beyond the online space and its outcomes are paradoxical, societal challenges are complex problem. To harvest society, we need a better understanding of social complex problems. To do so, we adopted a multi-study dissertation model. The three studies of this doctoral work adopt a qualitative approach and a critical realist philosophy.We look at a first case: The Arab Spring and aim at understanding how an online community that started on Facebook materialized in urban space, changing the political landscape. Addressing these contemporaneous events does not come without analytical challenges. Therefore, we use and extend a semiotic analytical tool to face the representational complexity: Finally, online communities can also have social costs by providing an echo chamber to socially undesirable behaviors.

The thesis is rooted in the new regional geography paradigm that gained strength in geographical thought since the 1980s. This approach is characterized by emphasizing the socially constructed nature of regions; thus, regions are scrutinized as a historically contingent process. A region is formed, reproduced and eventually disappears in time. The thesis works with the assumption that a plurality of regions, that exists in changing time- space contexts of different mechanisms and meanings, can be experienced de facto in any particular area. In simpler terms, it can be understood as a plurality of regional images produced on the one side by regional actors to fulfil their particular goals and on the other regional images produced by inhabitants in and outside the region in order to understand the outside world and position themselves within it. Motivation for the production of images can vary, from a simple manifestation of one position in the regional system, through the attempt to attract attention towards the region to exploitation of the regional potential in order to fulfil particular power-oriented aims. The general idea of a region can be sought throughout the synthesis of the many regional images that can be understood as somewhat layers of a region. The thesis contributes to the discussion...

The aim of this paper is to find out whether the securitization theory of the Copenhagen School is applicable outside euro-american space. This topic is chosen because of the contradicting opinions of theorists regarding the universality of the theory. Many authors criticize also the disregard of the process, context, pictures or physical actions. The theory is applied in societal sector in Egypt on nine cases including human rights non-governmental organizations, political opponents, critics and asylum seekers. The development of securitization, implementation of extraordinary measures, results and impact of the securitization are monitored in these cases. Attention is paid also to the fact whether securitization took into consideration context, process and whether pictures and physical actions played any role and what role it was. Method used in the paper is instrumental case study. It aims at the explanation of narrowly defined case on the basis of the theory. In the stated cases the threats to identity are presented as "others", alien and with the exception of one case as "Western" which means different from the Egyptian identity. The implementation of extraordinary measures to deal with the threats then becomes legitimate. The main contribution of the paper is the finding that the...

Les menaces sociétales, comme les attaques terroristes, la crise économique ou le réchauffement climatique sont devenues omniprésentes dans notre société en raison de leur extensive diffusion médiatique. La situation de menace, qui agit comme une disruption entre les représentations de l'individu et la réalité, conduit au processus du partage social des émotions (Rimé, 2005) qui constitue le moteur de la propagation des informations menaçantes d'une personne à l'autre et d'un groupe social à l'autre. La présente thèse examine le rôle du temps et de l'espace en tant que deux principales sources de freins à la propagation des informations menaçantes. L'objectif de l'Étude 1 est d'investiguer le sens que les personnes attribuent au terme « menace sociétale », ainsi que de proposer un classement des menaces sociétales actuelles issues de l'actualité médiatique et perçues par les personnes dans le contexte français. L'Étude 2 examine le rôle du temps en tant que frein à la propagation des informations menaçantes dans le contexte suivant l'attentat de Charlie Hebdo à Paris du 7 janvier 2015, en se basant sur le modèle des étapes sociales de coping collectif avec les catastrophes (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). Puis, l'Étude 3 consiste en une mise à l'épreuve expérimentale du rôle de l'espace social, plus spécifiquement le rôle de l'appartenance groupale, en tant que frein à la propagation des informations porteuses d'une menace terroriste. Les principaux résultats montrent que la fréquence des deux principales composantes du partage social des émotions, c'est-à-dire la parole et l'écoute, diminue dans les deux mois suivant l'attaque terroriste (Étude 2). Puis, l'appartenance groupale des personnes influence le contenu de l'information menaçante transmise à l'interlocuteur (Étude 3). Ces résultats suggèrent que le temps et l'espace social contribueraient à freiner la propagation des informations porteuses d'une menace. Toutefois, de futures recherches devraient se focaliser sur d'autres processus qui permettraient de freiner la propagation des informations menaçantes au sein de la société et d'élucider ainsi la construction du climat socio-émotionnel négatif. / Large-scale societal threats, such as the terrorist attacks, the economic crisis and global warming have become omnipresent in our society because of their extensive media coverage. The threat situation that acts as a disruption between people's representations and the reality leads to social sharing of emotions (Rimé, 2005). The social sharing of emotions constitutes the main impetus underpinning the propagation of threatening information from one person to another and from one social group to another. Thus, this thesis investigates the role of time and space as the primary brakes on the propagation of threatening information. The main aim of Study 1 is to investigate the meaning that people attach to the term "societal threat", and also to propose a classification of actual societal threats from the mass media and actual societal threats perceived by individuals in a French context. Study 2 examines the role of time as a brake on the propagation of threatening information following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack of January 7, 2015 in Paris, using the social stage model of collective coping with disasters (Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). Study 3, which is experimental in nature, investigates the role of social space, and group membership specifically, as a brake on the propagation of threatening information related to terrorism. The results show that the frequency of the two main components of social sharing, namely talking and hearing, decreased over two months following the terrorist attack (Study 2). Furthermore, participants' group membership modifies the content of threatening information transmitted to the interlocutor (Study 3). Such results suggest that time and social space contribute to curbing the propagation of threatening information. However, future research might bear a specific interest on the other processes that impede the propagation of threatening information within society, thus elucidating the construction of a negative socioemotional climate.