The wolf is an endangered animal in Sweden and the issue of conserving the species is a polarizing one. Specific attention has been given to this issue in environmental social sciences with studies focusing on the divide between wolf support and opposition. These studies include looking at historical interactions with the wolf, contemporary attitudes about the issue, and the way the law shapes policy. Following this focus on the disputed nature of wolf conservation, this thesis addresses whether polarization over the issue occurs between several stakeholders in large carnivore management in Sweden. Using Actor Network Theory, this thesis examines the similarities and divergences in the stakeholders’ conservation practices and maps their interactions with one another. Emphasis is placed on how the European Union’s regulations and the Swedish State’s policies conflict and/or influence the stakeholders. Overall results show that despite a discourse of polarization surrounding wolf management in Sweden, the actors in this study cannot be easily positioned against each other, and despite some divergences, share many similarities in their large carnivore management practices.

När det offentliga väljer att upphandla välfärden och köpa in tjänsteutförandet från fristående vårdbolag följer ett behov av nya verktyg för att driva välfärden i önskad riktning. Den här uppsatsen söker beskriva hur kommunala tjänstemän bemöter konsekvenserna av trenden att omvandla de byråkratiska välfärdssystemen till marknader för välfärdstjänster och utvecklar nya verktyg för styrning. Utgångspunkten för undersökningen är de förfrågningsunderlag tjänstemännen formulerar och som utgör grunden för upphandlingsprocessen. Fördjupad kunskap om hur upphandlingsprocessen utformas i praktiken samlas genom intervjuer med ansvariga tjänstemän vid Uppsala Kommun samt marknadschefen vid ett av kommunens utförarbolag. Undersökningen visar att tjänstemännen lägger stor vikt vid formuleringen av obligatoriska krav som utförarna måste leva upp till för att maximera de boendes välmående. Dessa krav utformas för att stärka tydlighet, uppföljningsbarhet och standardisering. Detta görs genom att öka mängden krav, använda och skapa normer för hur verksamheten bör bedrivas och att stärka professionella yrkesgruppers roll.

In this thesis I argue that technical communication as an academic curricular entity has struggled to define itself as either a humanities or scientific discipline. I argue that this crisis of identity is due to a larger, institutional flaw first identified by the science studies scholar Bruno Latour as the problem of the "modern constitution." Latour's argument, often referred to as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), suggests that the epistemological arguments about scientific certainty are built on a contradiction. In viewing the problem of technical communication's disciplinarity through the lens of ANT, I argue that technical communication can never be productive if it seeks to locate itself within any of the institutional camps of the modern university. Rather, I contend that technical communication is a strong example of a nonmodern discipline, and that its identity crisis can be utilized to take one step towards rewriting the institutional debate over scientific certainty.

Nearshore populations have been depleted and some have not yet recovered. Therefore, theoretical studies focus on improving fisheries management and designing marine protected areas (MPAs). Depleted populations may be undergoing an Allee effect, i.e. a decrease in fitness at low densities. Here, I constructed a marine metapopulation model that included pre- and post-dispersal Allee effects using a network theory approach. Networks represent metapopulations as groups of nodes connected by dispersal paths. With this model I answered four questions: What is the role of Allee effects on habitat occupancy? Are MPAs effective in recovering exploited populations? What is the importance of larval dispersal patterns in preventing local extinctions due to exploitation and Allee effects? Can exploitation fragment nearshore metapopulations? When weak Allee effects are included, habitat occupancy drops as larval retention decreases because more larvae are lost to unsuitable habitat. With strong Allee effects habitat occupancy also drops at high larval retention because more larvae are needed to overcome the Allee effect. Post-dispersal Allee effects seem more detrimental for nearshore metapopulations. MPA effectiveness seems also lower in a post-dispersal Allee effect scenario. In overexploited systems, local populations that go extinct are also less likely to recover even after protecting the whole coastline. In exploited nearshore metapopulations with Allee effects, local occupancy or the recovery of local populations depends not only on larval inflow from neighbor populations, but also on larval inflow for these neighbors. Nearshore metapopulations with intense fishing mortality and Allee effects may also suffer a decrease in dispersal strength and fragmentation. Population fragmentation occurs when large populations are split into smaller groups. A tool for detecting partitioning in a network is modularity. The modularity analysis performed for red abalone in the Southern California Bight showed that exploitation increases partitioning through time before the entire metapopulation collapses. These findings call for research effort in estimating the strength of potential Allee effects to prevent stock collapse and assess MPA effectiveness, evaluating the predictability of local occupancy by centrality metrics to help identify important sites for conservation, and using modularity analysis to quantify the health of exploited metapopulations to prevent their collapse. / text

Denna studie har undersökt professioners lärande inom äldreomsorg, förskola och musikskola i det tillfälliga nätverket "sång- och musikstunden" som är en del av projektet "Barn och äldre sjunger tillsamman". Studien är inspirerad av Aktör-nätverksteorin. Studiens är kvalitativ och data har insamlats med hjälp av intervjuer och observationer. Studien har studerat samspelet mellan mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktanter och hur dessa påverkat det tillfälliga nätverket. Resultatet visar på att aktanterna har betydelse för hur kommunikationen uppstår i det tillfälliga nätverket. Studien har också visat att det tillfälliga nätverket bidragit till lärande hos professionerna som deltagit. / This study examined professions learning in elderly care, kindergarten and music school in the temporary network "song- and music time" as part of the project "Children and the elderly are singing together" The study is inspired by actor-network theory. The study is qualitative and the data was collected through interviews and observations. The study has studied the interaction between human and non-human actants and how these affected the temporary network. The results show that the actants are important for how communication occurs in the temporary network. The study has also shown the temporary network contributed to the learning needs of the profession who participated.

Modern management literature highlights the importance of headquarter and country organisations working together in an interdependent fashion to improve their performance. However, empirical support for this link is scarce; moreover, the theoretical framework on the factors that may affect these relationships and the prerequisites for fostering them is limited. Current literature highlights the importance of high levels of interdependency between HQs and subsidiaries for the performance of the subsidiary, but a direct relationship has not been established. In this research, the link between headquarter-subsidiary interdependence and subsidiary-level performance is empirically probed and explored, using a longitudinal, multi-method approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data. Responses to surveys from 53 marketing and business managers are used to describe the interdependence levels, which are then combined with actual launch outcomes data for Xarelto® in their respective countries. Based on the survey results, a direct link between headquarter and subsidiary interdependence and the launch success of Xarleto® could not be established and subsidiary interdependence and uptake levels were used to select 10 countries for further explorative interviews. The results of these highlighted that, through fully collaborative and supportive headquarter subsidiary relationships, improved knowledge transfer, avoidance of duplication and leveraging of materials and expertise, product launch outcomes in the subsidiary could be enhanced. Moderators to these relationships and factors to maintain these relationships will be presented and this research and a link to network theory and social capital will be made. This research provides several practical recommendations that can be taken into consideration when planning future launches to enhance product uptake in subsidiary markets.

With origins in the South Bronx area of New York in the early 1970s, hip-hop culture is now produced and consumed globally. While hip-hop activities can be varied, hip-hop is generally considered to have four forms or “elements”: DJing, MCing, b-boying/b-girling, and graffiti. Although all four elements of hip-hop have become a part of many youth work initiatives across the globe, public debate and controversy continue to surround hip-hop activities. Very little research and literature has explored the complexities involved in the assembling of hip-hop activities in youth work sites of practice using these hip-hop elements. This study attends to the gap in hip-hop and human service literature by tracing how hip-hop activities were assembled in several sites of youth work activity in Christchurch, New Zealand. Actor-network theory (ANT) is the methodological framework used to map the assemblage of hip-hop-youth work activities in this study. ANT follows how action is distributed across both human and non-human actors. By recognising the potential agency of “things”, this research traces the roles played by human actors, such as young people and youth workers, together with those of non-human actors such as funding documents, social media, clothing, and youth venue equipment. This ethnographic study provides rich descriptions or “snapshots” of some of the key socio-material practices that shaped the enactment of hip-hop-youth work activities. These are derived from fieldwork undertaken between October 2009 and December 2011, where participant observation took place across a range of sites of hip-hop-youth work activity. In addition to this fieldwork, formal interviews were undertaken with 22 participants, the majority being youth workers, young people, and youth trust administrators. The ANT framework reveals the complexity of the task of assembling hip-hop in youth work worlds. The thesis traces the work undertaken by both human and non-human actors in generating youth engagement in hip-hop-youth work activities. Young people’s hip-hop interests are shown to be varied, multiple, and continually evolving. It is also shown how generating youth interest in hip-hop-youth work activities involved overcoming young people’s indifference or lack of awareness of the hip-hop resources a youth trust had on offer. Furthermore, the study highlights where hip-hop activities were edited or “tinkered” with to avoid hip-hop “bads”. The thesis also unpacks how needed resources were enlisted, and how funders’ interests were translated into supporting hip-hop groups and activities. By tracing the range of actors mobilised to enact hip-hop-youth work activities, this research reveals how some youth trusts could avoid having to rely on obtaining government funds for their hip-hop activities. The thesis also includes an examination of one youth trust’s efforts to reconfigure its hip-hop activities after the earthquakes that struck Christchurch city in 2010 and 2011. Working both in and on the world, the text that is this thesis is also understood as an intervention. This study constitutes a deliberate attempt to strengthen understandings of hip-hop as a complex, multiple, and fluid entity. It therefore challenges traditional media and literature representations that simplify and thus either stigmatise or celebrate hip-hop. As such, this study opens up possibilities to consider the opportunities, as well as the complexities of assembling hip-hop in youth work sites of practice.

Whereas the traditional rhetorical practices of memory and delivery were directly connected to the body of the speaker, I argue that when communication is embodied on digital networks, the processes underlying memory and delivery—the coordination of individual and text and the use of embodied affordances to present a text, respectively— are expressed in different ways. Resonance, or the act of bringing two structures into coordination with each other, and switching, or the act of making connections between two networks, fulfill the role of memory in digital networks, coordinating the actions of different networks. Similarly, the protocol, or the technical and cultural rules of networks, and the program, or the emergent behavior, of a network must be taken into account by writers who wish to achieve rhetorical ends. Using three case studies of network formation on the microblogging service Twitter, I show how the acts of resonance and switching, along with the protocol and program of these networks, influence network formation, the types of communication generated by networks, and how those networks are received by outsiders. / text

This thesis focuses on the internationalization process of SMEs, the strategies and methods they use. The major aim of this research was to gain a better understanding of the process by comparing and analyzing three main internationalization process theories: the Uppsala model, network theory and international entrepreneurship theory. An essential part of this study consisted of gathering empirical data from SMEs that has already been internationalized as well as from some of those who intend to internationalize in the near future. Our findings show the application and usefulness of the three theories to these SMEs, especially their heavy reliance on network relationships. The findings also indicate that firms use a combination of variables from all three theories and some aspects of the much criticized Uppsala model are still significant in describing the internationalization process behavior of SMEs.

No description available.