Computer use at work has risen considerably over the past fifteen years and is currently a relatively common phenomenon when 76 percent of women and 72 percent of men using the computer in their daily work (SCB Arbetsmiljörapport 2009).According to Gulliksen and Göransson (2009), Sweden is one of the countries which are more advanced in the procurement of computer systems at work. He means that Sweden has unique opportunities and conditions for user participation in the development of computer systems, when the user has the right to influence their working environment through a law in the Work Environment Act. The paper examines the importance of user involvement in system development and the Swedish company's approach and experience of user involvement. To highlight and explore the importance of user involvement, there has been a case study in which users have been representative of the development process. The case study has been conducted on a case company where the system IST analys was in need of a new interface. The development process has been as such that the developers have worked out their requirements before users have been interviewed and had to give their requirements. This is to compare the requirements of developers and users and whether users gave useful requirements.To investigate the Swedish company's approach to user participation has a questionnaire sent out and it has also been a discussion with two experienced system developers. The conclusion has been that it is advantageous to user participation in systems development but that it is important to have a controlled process that allows users to not steer too much.

Management information system department has long been considered as a supporting function in organization and develop the system which should fulfill users¡¦ need to support the business process. Although previous studies indicate users participate in project process can enhance the project outcome, the final ISD project failure rate is still high and extra costs and time occurs consequently. Based on internal service concept adopted from marketing filed, this study views MIS department is viewed as an internal service provider and end user is viewed as a customer in development stage. We attempt to understand the antecedents and consequence of user co-production in ISD project. Project outcomes are expected to be affected by user co-production, represented by open communication, shared problem solving, involvement in project governance, tolerance, accommodation, advocacy and personal dedication. Project outcome is evaluated by user satisfaction, system quality and project performance. Besides, this study adopted social capital theory and examined how co-production is affected by social capitals between users and developers. Paired data collected from both user representatives and developers through using survey approach was used to test proposed hypotheses. The results showed that user co-production has positively significant influence on project outcomes, and social capitals between user representatives and developers also have positively significant influence on user co-production. Discussion of the results and conclusions about this study were made. Finally, the study also provides some academic and practical implications

The impact of user risks on project performance has long been acknowledged by researchers. Identifying approaches or capabilities to reduce the likelihood of the occurrence of user risks and their consequences is then critical. By viewing information system development (ISD) as a knowledge intensive process, this study attempts to explore possible knowledge or capabilities that must be present to counter risks related to user risk elicited from the information processing perspective. We adopted the uncertainty reduction and coping concepts, and extended their study by restructuring the theoretical model to align it with the proposed reduction and coping concepts. Specifically, the effects of user risk reduction capabilities are reflected in the impacts of user participation, the relation between user with information system developer and user informance experience. At the same time, risk coping is demonstrated by hypothesizing the moderating role of ISD business expertise on the relationship between user risk and project performance. Data collected from 235 IS professionals on the basis of their experiences of recently completed ISD projects confirmed all of our hypotheses. The results successfully demonstrated that the eliciting of user risk can be reduced when users participate in the project, users and developers have wonderful relationship and users have good experiences. Furthermore, the impact of risk on project performance can be eased when developers have sufficient ISD business expertise. This study concludes with a presentation of the implication and conclusion.

User participation has long been considered as one important factor which affects the development of information management systems performance. It is believed that the cooperation between users and developers contributes to higher satisfaction and acceptance. Service has become the main economic activities in the modern society and traditional good-dominant logic has been replaced by service - dominant logic. Based on this concept, information system development can also be considered a service in which the final value determined by the extent to which the project can meet the predefined goal and fit users¡¦ needs. To maximize the value created, users should be viewed as co-producer and play a more active role in the system development process. The main research purpose of this study is to understand how users can act as value co-production in different types of information system development project. We studied three different hospital information system projects: user-initiated internal project, IT department initiated the project, and outsourcing development project. We then explored how users can co-create value under different contexts. By using case study approach and based on service-dominant logic concept, we identified the importance of user co-production and clarify the role that users may play. The results of this study can contribute to system development project and serve as a reference for subsequent research.

The Service-Dominant Logic concept has replaced the traditional Product-Dominant Logic to be the mainstream of contemporary business activities. Based on this concept, value creation is viewed as a co-produced result instead of the responsibility of producer only. Through applying Service-Dominant Logic to information systems development and maintenance process, one can conclude that users should play a more active role as a co-producers. Past user participate studies largely focused on system development stage only and only little attention has been paid the maintenance process. Given the importance of maintenance in system life cycle, the main purpose of this study is to understand the factors that drive users to engage in value co-production. I adopted case study method and analyzed antecedents of co-production behavior performed by users. According to the found results, I suggest that familiarity toward system, source of demand for services, and system complexity are three potential factors that may lead to various co-production behaviors. The findings of this study can serve as critical reference for future studies. Practitioners can also be benefited by knowing how to enhance user co-production in the maintenance stage of system life cycle. Keywords: Service-Dominant Logic, System Maintenance, User Participation, Value Co-production, Case Study

Detta är en kvalitativ studie med syfte att få en djupare förståelse av klienters delaktighet i samverkansmöten. Fyra klienter från Socialtjänsten har intervjuats i en semistrukturerad intervju. Det har sedan gjorts en innehållsanalys på empirin. Studien visar att ett samverkansmöte är uppbyggt av sociala processer som antingen kan skapa delaktighet för klienten eller försvåra för densamma. Studien påvisar även att det finns maktskillnader i samverkansmöten och att dessa måste synliggöras kontinuerligt för att kunna skapa en mer jämlik diskussion. Det har också framkommit att det finns faktorer på individ- grupp- och strukturellnivå som försvårar eller främjar klientdelaktighet. / This is a qualitative study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of a client´s participation in collaboration meetings. Four clients that get interventions from the Social services have been interviewed with a semi-structured interview. After the intake of empirical data it has been made a content analysis. The research shows that a collaboration meeting is built out of social processes that can either create participation of the client or obstruct it. The study also shows that there are power differences in collaboration meetings and that these must be made visible continuously in order to create a more equal discussion. It has also emerged that there are factors at an individual, group and structural level which hinders or promotes client participation.

The purpose of this study was to describe participation in a new context in which niche journalism is combined with online communities. The majority of past research regarding participation in journalism is focused on traditional journalism and the definition of the term needs to be updated. The aim of the study was to describe participation amongst niche pure players. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, a survey study and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The two empirical aspects resulted in a perspective of participation amongst five pure players, sharing a similar niche. The results of the study showed that niche pure players create user participation by combining journalistic participation with participation in online communities. Empirical data showed a correlation between user participation in the two different sections of the sites. Users with higher participation in one of the sections also partook more in the other. Furthermore, another correlation found was that users who considered it important to be able to partake in a discussion of the journalistic content, also considered the online community to be of great importance to the site. Additionally, the study showed that there is an exchange of information and knowledge, being regarded by the users as something of high value. By providing a platform for horizontal communication between users in the form of a forum, in which users are able to freely create and share content, a participatory culture is created. This participatory culture further increases the degree of user participation in the journalistic content.

This thesis addresses the relationship between citizens and the welfare state with a focus on the collaboration between service users and professionals in Swedish health and social care services. The overall aim of the thesis was to explore how professionals and service users experience collaboration in health and social care. Descriptive and interpretative study designs were employed in the four studies that comprise this thesis. A total of 87 persons participated in the four studies, including 22 service users and 65 front-line professionals. The research methods included focused group interviews, individual interviews and interactive participant reflection dialogues. The first study describes the discursive patterns in the front-line professionals’ constructions of ‘we the team’ which positions the service user as both a member and a non-member of the interprofessional team. The second study surfaces the difficulties of interprofessional teamwork as perceived by professionals. The third and the fourth studies explore how service users and professionals construct and perceive the concept of service user participation. The findings show that collaboration in terms of service user participation cannot only be understood as contract relationships between consumers and service providers. Service users and professionals perceive that there are several other ways to act as a citizen and for people to exercise human agency in relation to the welfare state. This thesis shows that the various conceptions of service user participation in interprofessional practice encompass dimensions that include themes of togetherness, understanding and interaction within the clinical microsystem. The findings of the four studies are discussed and used to create models that aim to conceptualise collaboration. These models can contribute to learning and improvement processes which facilitate the development of innovative service user-centered clinical microsystems in health and social care.

User participation within social work has caught more attention in the public sector of Sweden. The aim of this study is to gain understanding of how user participation as taking into consideration in the field of care for the elderly. The study is based on six semi-structured interviews with six social service officers, therefore the study is based on their perspectives and experiences. In order to gain qualitative data, the method of meaning categorization was used, which resulted in three association themes: user participation, limitations, relationships and approach. The results were then analyzed together with previous research, and through Lipskys’ (1980) theory “Street-level bureaucrats”. The results of the study indicate that user participation is complex in practice and therefore the social service officer have to find a way to manage and implement user participation in their work. Also, that there are some factors that affect user participation e.g. guidelines, relatives, users with cognitive impairment and furthermore the social service officer himself.

Abstract A trivial information system consists of three components: a user, a container for the information and a tool to manage the information. The focus of this research is more complicated with several users and organisations, with several databases in those organisations and with an inter-organisational information system. In inter-organisational information systems information flows across boundaries and the boundaries as well as information itself must be carefully taken into account. This research takes seriously the users who represent different professions and who were more or less involved in the information system implementations. In a distributed project, also the container is under special attention. That is discussed in the dissertation, as well. The approach in the research is mainly interpretative and subjective. The empirical material comes from several cases but three of them acted as a background for the main case that was conducted in an academic environment. The case appeared to be versatile due to its many stakeholders and it offered several topics to be explored. The goal of the research was introduced in a meeting to the attendees: "The aim of the thesis is to describe how a joint information system of different universities was finally implemented or why it wasn't." This introduction predicted challenges that were to be overcome during the subsequent years. In addition to the versatile case, also the information system implementation offered fruitful viewpoints for the research. Inter-organisational information system projects are described in literature to some extent. This case contributes the research with the many organisations and users that were involved in the development project. Furthermore, the information system was planned to be built on ready-made specifications and it increased the challenges to succeed. This led to the lesson that a new model to be used in information system developments is needed because existing models do not support this kind of development process. The research supports the concept that action research and design science complement each other especially in development projects when the output is an information system that has been implemented in collaboration with several users and stakeholders. The results of this thesis emphasise the need to manage potential competition between participating organisations, lack of interaction between parties and security and user authentication. Proper project management is needed with active and confidential terms between all project members. In addition, flexible working routines are found workable.