Vid möbeltillverkning ställs krav på både formgivning och hållfasthet. Formgivare och konstruktörer har vanligtvis olika akademisk bakgrund vilket kräver ett fungerande samarbete. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur möbeltillverkare arbetar med att säkerställa produkternas hållfasthet samt vad som krävs för en god samverkan mellan formgivare och konstruktörer. En litteraturstudie genomfördes där tidigare forskning och litteratur inom området studerades. Respondenter från fyra svenska möbelföretag intervjuades. Intervjuerna spelades in och transkriberades för att möjliggöra undersökning av samband, skillnader och likheter. Tre övergripande teman kunde identifieras: • Produktutveckling och formgivning • Test av hållfasthet • Samverkan mellan formgivare och konstruktörer Studien visar att möbelföretag i första hand säkerhetsställer hållfastheten med egna tester och erfarenhetsbaserad kunskap. Att möbelfaktamärka produkterna kan vara ett sätt att säkra kvaliteten, men är inte nödvändigtvis förmånligt för alla företag. Studien visar vidare att samverkan mellan konstruktörer och formgivare fungerar som bäst när det finns en god kommunikation samt att det finns tydligt uppsatta mål att arbeta mot. / When manufacturing furnitures, there are demands considering both design and material strength. Designers and constructors usually have different academic backgrounds, which require a working collaboration. This study aims to investigate how furniture manufacturers work to ensure the material strength of the products and what is required for a good collaboration between designers and constructors. A literature study was conducted where previous research and literature in the field were studied. Respondents from four Swedish furniture companies were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed to enable investigation of relations, differences and similarities. Three general themes were identified: • Product development and design • Tests of material strength • Collaboration between designers and constructors The study shows that furniture companies primarily uses own tests and tacit knowledge to ensure the strength of a product. To certify the products with a Möbelfakta-label can be a way of ensuring quality, but is not necessarily advantageous for all companies. The study further shows that collaboration between designers and constructors operates best when there is good communication. However, it is also important to set a clear goal to work towards.

There is a growing need to study factors that affect user comprehension of Business Process Management (BPM) information portrayed by graphical process models (GPMs). For example, deployment of BPM Systems, unique types of enterprise-level information systems, has dramatically increased in recent years. This increase is primarily because BPM Systems give a variety of managers across an enterprise the ability to directly design, configure, enact, monitor, diagnose, and control business processes that other types of enterprise systems do not. This is possible because BPM Systems uniquely rely on GPMs derived from formal graph theory. Besides controlling the business processes, these GPMs, such as metagraphs and Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams, portray business process information (BPI) and prompt BPM managers to apply their training and expertise to deal with BPM situations. As a result, GPMs are the primary information artifacts for decision-making and communication among different, often geographically dispersed stakeholders. Therefore, user comprehension of these unique GPMs is critical to the efficient and effective development, deployment, and utilization of BPM Systems. User comprehension outcomes are jointly affected by the (1) BPM cognitive resources available to each manager (including the type of GPM, BPI, and user educational training and experience), and (2) cognitive differences between individual BPM managers (such as their mental workload, cognitive styles and cognitive abilities). Although research has studied GPMs in various contexts, there is apparently no empirical research investigating GPM user comprehension in the context of BPM Systems. This research makes an important contribution by addressing this gap in the literature. Statement of the Objective: The purpose of this research is to empirically study how BPM cognitive resources and cognitive differences between individuals affect outcomes of GPM user comprehension. This research centered on the following objectives: A. Investigate whether more positive user comprehension outcomes are produced by novice users if a single GPM technique is used to portray different types of BPI (e.g., as with metagraphs) or if different GPM techniques are used to portray different types of BPI (e.g., as with UML diagrams). B. Investigate whether one type of BPI is more easily comprehended and interpreted by novice users irrespective of the type of GPM or the type of educational training of the user. C. Investigate whether users with a specific type of user educational training can more easily comprehend and interpret BPM information irrespective of the type of GPM or the type of BPI. D. Evaluate influences of individual cognitive differences (i.e., mental workload, cognitive styles, and cognitive abilities) on outcomes of user comprehension. In order to accomplish these objectives, this study: (a) defined a theoretical framework conceptualizing user comprehension outcomes in terms of the interaction between cognitive resources external to the user and individual differences affecting how users cognitively process BPI, (b) empirically tested an operational research model of GPM user comprehension that is based on the theoretical framework, and (c) interpreted the experimental results in the context of related literatures. Description of Research Methods: This study empirically tested relationships between several variables representing BPM cognitive resources and individual cognitive differences hypothesized as influencing the outcomes of user comprehension. A laboratory experiment, involving 87 upper-level undergraduate students from two universities, analyzed relationships between participant comprehension of two types of GPMs (i.e., metagraphs and UML diagrams) used to portray three types of BPI (i.e., task-centric, resource-centric, and information-centric BPI) by novice GPM users possessing different educational training (i.e., industrial engineering, business management, and computer science training). Dependent variables included assessments of task accuracy, task timeliness, subjective mental workload, and self-efficacy. Covariate effects were also analyzed for two types of participant cognitive abilities (i.e., general cognitive ability (GCA) and attentional abilities) and two types of participant cognitive styles (extroversion-introversion and sensing-intuitive). Multivariate analysis techniques were used to analyze and interpret the data. Discussion of Results: The type of GPM and participants' GCA produced significant effects on the dependent variables in this study. For example, metagraph users produced significantly more desirable results than UML users across all dependent variables, contrary to what was hypothesized. However, if only the BPM cognitive resources (i.e., GPM Type, BPM Type, and the Type of Participant Education) were studied in relation to user comprehension outcomes, spurious conclusions would have been reached. When individual cognitive differences were included in the research model and analyses, results showed participants with higher GCA produced significantly more positive user comprehension outcomes compared to participants with lower GCAs. Also, many of the impacts of differences in the types of BPI and the types of UET were moderated by the differences in participants' GCA and attentional abilities. In addition, the relationship between subjective mental workload and task performance (i.e., accuracy and timeliness) suggest a possible GPM cognitive "profile" for user comprehension tasks in a BPM Systems context. These results have important implications for future research and practice in several bodies of knowledge, including GPM user comprehension in management systems engineering, BPM modeling, BPM Systems, HCI, and cognitive ergonomics literature. / Ph. D.

As current social problems grow more complex, public organizations have to deal with more complicated problems and values than in the past. Public organizations arguably need more knowledge to effectively address such complex problems. However, there is little study of the relationship between knowledge sharing and government performance. This study has several primary purposes. First, it tries to find out more about the roles and effects of knowledge sharing on program performance in public organizations. Second, by examining the factors affecting the relationships between knowledge sharing and program performance, the study explores the importance of individual and organizational conditions in connecting knowledge sharing to program performance. Lastly, the study helps clarify the effect of knowledge sharing on program performance by also examining other factors that are likely to affect program performance. To explore the relationships among explicit and tacit knowledge sharing, public service motivation, self-set goals, red tape, economic conditions, staffers' professionalism, budgetary resources, and program performance, I examined Virginia's Child Protective Services program. The Virginia Department of Social Services determines the guidelines and policies for the state's CPS program and supervises its implementation by local agencies. I focused on the implementation of the CPS program. The study examined the relationships between CPS program performance and the degree and dynamics of knowledge sharing at the local jurisdictional and at the individual social worker levels in each of the 23 local CPS departments in which staffers responded to an on-line survey. In addition to these relationships, the study examined the effects of individual, organizational, and financial factors in Virginia local CPS departments on the relationships between knowledge sharing and program performance. The study yielded numerous findings. First, at the local agency level evidence showed that explicit knowledge sharing played an important role in affecting CPS program performance. At the individual level, only the reported usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing affected CPS program performance, while the usefulness of tacit knowledge sharing and time devoted to explicit knowledge sharing affected usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing. The personal motivation of CPS staffers influenced program performance through tacit knowledge sharing, and red tape evidently affected CPS program performance by decreasing explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Even when factors like local economic conditions and available financial resources were taken into account, the usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing still affected CPS program performance. Second, the relationships among time devoted to, usefulness of, and access to explicit and tacit knowledge sharing were diverse. They affected CPS program performance through the reported usefulness of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Third, individual and organizational factors influenced the relationship between knowledge sharing and CPS program performance. The personal motivation of CPS staffers had a positive effect on tacit knowledge sharing, but red tape appeared to have a negative effect on explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Fourth, the study showed that several factors other than knowledge sharing such as local economic conditions, work training of CPS staffers, family assessments, CPS staffer education, and additional budgetary resources also affected CPS program performance. / Ph. D.

För att kunna bibehålla och utveckla kunskapen inom ett företag krävs det tydliga strategier för kunskapshantering och samarbete mellan chefer och anställda för att företagen ska ha en möjlighet att nå framgång. Studiens syfte var att undersöka chefers uppfattningar gällande medarbetarsamtalets syfte, funktion och innehåll i relation till knowledge management. Metoden som användes var en fenomenografisk analysmetod i sju steg. Resultaten visade att uppfattningarna angående syfte, funktion och innehållet av medarbetarsamtalet skiljer sig beroende på vilken yrkeskategori personerna tillhör. Resultatet skiljer sig i en del av utsagorna angående uppfattningarna om medarbetarsamtalet då en del utsagor beskriver att det är ett tillfälle att mäta arbetsprestation. En annan del av utsagorna uppfattar medarbetarsamtalet som en möjlighet till individuellt samtal. Majoriteten av utsagorna uppfattar att funktionen med medarbetarsamtalet är att de anställda ska få en chans att ventilera angående hälsa, mål och utveckling i ett samtal med sin chef. Det finns uppfattningar om att medarbetarsamtalet är mer än ett individuellt samtal mellan chef och anställd då de även är ett sätt att ha koll på arbetsprestation. De flesta utsagorna beskriver att innehållet från ett medarbetarsamtal kan bidra till att skapa ett stöd till de anställda för att tillgodose utvecklingsmöjligheter och en trivsam arbetsmiljö. Det fanns få uppfattningar om vad knowledge management innebar vilket bidrog till ett mer begränsat svar. Relevansen för studien är att den uppmärksammar ett fenomen som är aktuellt på dagens arbetsmarknad och att medarbetarsamtalet kan användas i flera avseenden än att mäta prestation.

Modern organisations are increasingly seen as knowledge-based business ventures in which proactive knowledge management is important for competitiveness. The interest in knowledge management seems to have surged across world. In the increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are especially keen to integrate and capitalise on the knowledge of their employees and make it available when and where it is needed. In addition, many firms realise the need to educate and indoctrinate new hirelings into the organisation quickly due to the scarcity of global resources and an aging workforce (Teicholz, 2004). As a result, many organisations implement knowledge management initiatives in an attempt to combine and exploit their knowledge assets. It is therefore necessary to critically evaluate Sasol on these terms. How the knowledge management strategy supports organisational processes is investigated along with collective learning and collaborative decision making within the organisation. An in depth literature study was conducted to gain insight into KM concepts and strategies. It also provided a reference to current best practices. Above all, the literature study helped to gain perspective on the complexities of measuring a phenomenon like KM in an organisation. Performance measurement techniques are discussed and reference made to the eras of knowledge management. A short section makes reference to another organisation considered to be a global leader in integration of knowledge management systems. The research design method that was chosen to authenticate the research objectives is qualitative. The interpretive methods employ an inductive approach that starts with data and tries to derive a theory about the phenomenon of interest from the observed data. Results were obtained from a combination of two methods. Published and available secondary data mainly obtained from Sasol resources. The second was structured interviews conducted from a criterion based sampling strategy conducted on employees to obtain primary data. Sasol employees are supportive of the Sasol KM systems and are (to some extent) using it. Many believe that Sasol is a learning organisation and therefore benefitting from the systems in place. However, the people of Sasol are generally not aware of the full functionality of the deployed systems. Therefore the current state of the Sasol KM system integration is the consequence. Organisational Knowledge, unlike personal knowledge, is only of value if it is shared with others who need it (KMI, 2010). In order to enhance collective learning, learning organisations establish specific learning processes that become embedded in work processes. This is the basis of the outcomes and the recommendations of this research. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Modern organisations are increasingly seen as knowledge-based business ventures in which proactive knowledge management is important for competitiveness. The interest in knowledge management seems to have surged across world. In the increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are especially keen to integrate and capitalise on the knowledge of their employees and make it available when and where it is needed. In addition, many firms realise the need to educate and indoctrinate new hirelings into the organisation quickly due to the scarcity of global resources and an aging workforce (Teicholz, 2004). As a result, many organisations implement knowledge management initiatives in an attempt to combine and exploit their knowledge assets. It is therefore necessary to critically evaluate Sasol on these terms. How the knowledge management strategy supports organisational processes is investigated along with collective learning and collaborative decision making within the organisation. An in depth literature study was conducted to gain insight into KM concepts and strategies. It also provided a reference to current best practices. Above all, the literature study helped to gain perspective on the complexities of measuring a phenomenon like KM in an organisation. Performance measurement techniques are discussed and reference made to the eras of knowledge management. A short section makes reference to another organisation considered to be a global leader in integration of knowledge management systems. The research design method that was chosen to authenticate the research objectives is qualitative. The interpretive methods employ an inductive approach that starts with data and tries to derive a theory about the phenomenon of interest from the observed data. Results were obtained from a combination of two methods. Published and available secondary data mainly obtained from Sasol resources. The second was structured interviews conducted from a criterion based sampling strategy conducted on employees to obtain primary data. Sasol employees are supportive of the Sasol KM systems and are (to some extent) using it. Many believe that Sasol is a learning organisation and therefore benefitting from the systems in place. However, the people of Sasol are generally not aware of the full functionality of the deployed systems. Therefore the current state of the Sasol KM system integration is the consequence. Organisational Knowledge, unlike personal knowledge, is only of value if it is shared with others who need it (KMI, 2010). In order to enhance collective learning, learning organisations establish specific learning processes that become embedded in work processes. This is the basis of the outcomes and the recommendations of this research. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Knowledge Management Systems are deployed in organisations of all sizes to support the coordination and control of a range of intellectual assets, and the low cost infrastructures made available by the shift to ‘cloud computing’ looks to only increase the speed and pervasiveness of this move. However, their implementation has not been without its problems, and the development of novel interventions capable of supporting the mundane work of everyday organisational settings has ultimately been limited. A common source of trouble for those formulating such systems is said to be that some proportion of the knowledge held by a setting’s members is hidden from the undirected view of both The Organisation and its analysts - typically characterised as a tacit knowledge - and can therefore go unnoticed during the design and deployment of new technologies. Notwithstanding its utility, overuse of this characterisation has resulted in the inappropriate labelling of a disparate assortment of phenomena, some of which might be more appropriately re-specified as ‘hidden knowledges’: a standpoint which seeks to acknowledge their unspoken character without making any unwarranted claims regarding their cognitive status. Approaches which focus on the situated and contingent properties of the actual work carried out by a setting’s members - such as ethnomethodologically informed ethnography - have shown significant promise as a mechanism for transforming the role played by members’ practices into an explicit topic of study. Specifically they have proven particularly adept at noticing those aspects of members’ work that might ordinarily be hidden from an undirected view, such as the methodic procedures through which we can sometimes mean more than we can say in-just-so-many-words. Here - within the context of gathering the requirements for new Knowledge Management Systems to support the reuse of existing knowledge - the findings from the application of just such an approach are presented in the form of a Pattern Language for Knowledge Management Systems: a descriptive device that lends itself to articulating the role that such hidden knowledges are playing in everyday work settings. By combining these three facets, this work shows that it is possible to take a more meaningful approach towards noticing those knowledges which might ordinarily be hidden from view, and apply our new understanding of them to the design of Knowledge Management Systems that actively engage with the knowledgeable work of a setting’s members.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Vår studie belyser hur hotellverksamheter arbetar med social hållbarhet kopplat till sextrafficking. Studien undersöker hur hotellen arbetar förebyggande mot sextrafficking, vilka utmaningar personalen upplever i verksamheten sett till förebyggandet av sextrafficking samt hur Corporate social responsibility (CSR) används i verksamheten kopplat till sextrafficking. Vårt syfte är att undersöka hur svenska hotellföretag arbetar med ärenden kring sextrafficking i sin verksamhet. För att möjliggöra detta genomförde vi intervjuer med åtta informanter anställda på tre olika hotell. Kriterierna för hotellen var följande: medelstora hotell (100–250 rum), belägna i en stad i mellansverige och att en ansvarig chef kunde ställa upp på expertintervju. Expertinformanten valde en eller flera i personalen från receptionen, restaurangen eller housekeeping som informanter till kvalitativa intervjuer. Huvudbegreppen som lyfts fram är sextrafficking och CSR. Det finns mycket forskning kring sextrafficking och CSR, men dessa fenomen satt i samma kontext alltså hur förebyggande av sextrafficking är en del av CSR visar att en teoretisk lucka finns. Utöver att använda sig av CSR finns olika certifieringar och checklistor som kan underlätta ett förebyggande arbete. Dock är det upp till ledningen eller chefer att implementera dessa arbetssätt för att arbeta mot sextrafficking. Studien visar att hotellen vidtar åtgärder för att förebygga sextrafficking, men det sker på olika nivåer och olika aktivt. Resultatet av studien visar att hotellen letar efter spår i bokningar från externa kanaler när de får en misstanke. Informanterna konstaterar även att personalen agerar på misstänkta fall utifrån den svenska lagen mot sexköp som är en skyddsaspekt för att vidta åtgärder mot sextrafficking. Utmaningar för personalen är olika typer av profilering av gäster, bristen på utbildning, tyst kunskap, och digitalisering som tar bort mötet med gäster. Informanterna belyser att polisen är en viktig resurs samt andra hotellaktörer på platsen. Resultatet visar att hotellen arbetar med CSR och har lokala samarbeten för att förebygga sextrafficking. / Our study highlights how hotels work with social sustainability linked to sex-trafficking. The study examines how the hotels work preventatively against sex-trafficking, what challenges they experience in the business and how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is used in the businesses linked to sextrafficking. The aim of the study is to investigate how Swedish companies in the hotel industry take measures to prevent sex-trafficking of people. To enable this, we conducted interviews with eight respondents employed at three different hotels. The criteria for the selected hotels were as follows: Medium size hotels (100 – 250 rooms), located in a city in central Sweden and that a responsible manager could provide an expert interview. The managers from the expert interviews chose one or more staff from reception, restaurant or housekeeping as respondents to the qualitative interviews. The main concepts highlighted are sex-trafficking and CSR. There is a lot of research on sex-trafficking and CSR as two separate terms, but these phenomena set in the same context show that there is a theoretical gap on how sex trafficking can be prevented as part of CSR. In addition to using CSR, there are different certifications and checklists that can facilitate preventative work. However, it is up to the management or managers to implement these working methods to work against sex trafficking. The study shows that the hotels take measures to prevent sex-trafficking, but it is done at different levels and the work is done differently. The results of the study show that the hotels look for different traces in the bookings coming from external channels. These traces help staff identify suspicions even before the guest arrives. The respondents also note that the Swedish law against sex purchases is a protection aspect to act on suspicious cases. Challenges identified by the companies are different types of profiling of guests, lack of education, tacit knowledge, and digitization that takes away the meeting with guests. The hotels highlight that the police and other hotels on the site are an important resource. The results also show that the hotels work with CSR and have local collaborations to prevent sextrafficking.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:24:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mariana Salinas Serrano.pdf: 1305825 bytes, checksum: 90634f177e48cb87681db090ed04a379 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-15 / Even though the hiring process of employees (registered according to the Consolidation of the Labor Law) by the Public Administration may look simple at a glance, the employment relationships that are established are permeated with cumbersome questions when checked against the interface of Labor Law and Administrative Law. The present work aims to raise the main issues originated from applying the regime of the Consolidated Labor Laws to public employees (denomination now elected, as will be justified, the employees the Public Administration registeres according to the Consolidation of the Labor Law), considering, on one hand, the unavailability and inalienability of public interest, a guiding principle of the Administrative Law; and, on the other hand, the unavailability and inalienability of worker rights. The analysis of this dilemma will be conducted with a focus on studying the applicability of the institute of tacit pardon to public employees, which effectively challenges the juxtaposition of the legal-labor and legaladministrative regimes when verifying if the Government is able to abstain from penalizing an employee who committed a faulty act punishable with dismissal on a just cause basis and, also, if the legal system legitimizes this omission to be considered a pardonº / Embora à primeira vista possa parecer simples a compreensão do regime de contratação de empregados celetistas pela Administração Pública, as relações de trabalho que se estabelecem são permeadas por questões embaraçosas, diante da interface entre o Direito do Trabalho e o Direito Administrativo. Objetivamos com o presente estudo perfazer levantamento das principais problemáticas advindas da aplicação do regime da Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho aos empregados públicos (denominação ora eleita, conforme será justificado no decorrer do trabalho, aos empregados celetistas da Administração Pública), tendo em vista, de um lado, a indisponibilidade do interesse público, princípio norteador do Direito Administrativo; e, de outro lado, a indisponibilidade dos direitos do trabalhador. A análise desse dilema será feita com enfoque no estudo da aplicabilidade do instituto do perdão tácito aos empregados públicos, que efetivamente coloca em cheque a justaposição dos regimes jurídico-trabalhista e jurídico-administrativo, ao verificar se pode o Estado, deixar de punir empregado que tenha cometido ato faltoso apenado por justa causa e, ainda, se o ordenamento jurídico legitima que essa omissão seja considerada perdão à falta cometida, pelo silêncio