Every policy problem has inherent value dimensions. It is on the basis of values that a state of affairs is perceived as undesirable, and thus acknowledged as a problem. This makes the process of defining and negotiating the meaning of a problem an essentially political process. Despite this, bureaucracy and expertise have a strong, if not increasing, influence over the formation of policy problems. An objectivist knowledge view predominates within the public managerial realm, which obscures the political dimension of problem formulation, while policy problems tend to be approached as a matter of efficiency. This thesis provides an account of mechanisms that shape and constrain the way a particular policy problem is understood and addressed. It analyses how policy actors make sense of particular problems, by drawing on different discourses (scientific, institutional, popular or media). The empirical case of this thesis is the formation of public safety policy in Sweden. The understanding of the problem of unsafety within Swedish policy is shown to be intrinsically related to the research field of fear of crime. The two are mutually dependent and exert an ideational path dependency. The ideational constraints on the understanding of unsafety are further affected by the institutional setting. It is argued that the appointed institutions and the emphasis on local level have a part in fostering individualist explanations and solutions,while obviating structural interpretations of the problem. The thesis finds that when governing complex policy problems there is a need to pay closer attention to how the problem is defined and how its meaning is constrained. It is crucial to make transparent the values inherent in definitions of problems as well as in research claims. By acknowledging the entwinement of policy and research the policy formation process may become characterized by greater reflexivity, and the possibility of resolving wicked problems may enlarge.

Although immigration is considered the responsibility and authority of the federal government, there is no clear federal policy regarding undocumented students and higher education. This leaves the power to regulate undocumented students in higher education to state governments. In Virginia, there is no specific, state-wide policy that addresses undocumented students and admission and enrollment in public higher education. Because of this, policies and practices related to the admission and enrollment of undocumented students are created at the university level. There is, however, state policy in Virginia related to legal immigration status and eligibility for in-state tuition. This creates a complex dynamic in which immigration-related practices, which are legally regulated on the federal level, are actually determined on the state and institutional level. Through interviews with admissions professionals at 12 Virginia, public 4-year colleges and universities, this research study uses a descriptive qualitative case study to explore the application of institution level undergraduate policies and practices related to undocumented students. The findings suggest that of the 12 institutions, five knowingly enroll undocumented students; six admit undocumented students but do not knowingly enroll undocumented students; and one institution does not admit or enroll undocumented students. None of the schools offers in-state tuition to undocumented students. Seven themes emerged from the 12 interviews, and these themes are grouped into two categories. The themes in the first category relate to the experiences of undocumented students and include funding challenges, fear, lack of knowledge of higher education processes, and post-graduation challenges. The themes in the second category are related to policy and practice, and the professionals who create and implement those policies and practices. The themes that emerged in this category are changing demographics, ambiguity, and professional and personal values. These themes are interpreted and discussed through the theoretical frameworks of administrative discretion and wicked problems. Recommendations for future research are provided.

“Vattenfrågan har alltid varit viktig på Gotland” (Bastani et al. 2015, p. 25)  - “Water questions have always been important on Gotland”. Contrary to the common perception that water shortage does not pose a problem to northern European countries, the case on Gotland provides the example that it is a real issue. Due to several factors, the Swedish island faces severe water shortages during the summer and is in urgent need to address this in the light of an expected growing number of people coming to Gotland. Since water is a topic affecting a wide range of stakeholders, the water issue is already in the focus of attention and occasionally passionately discussed on the island. The aim of this paper was to identify with the help of qualitative research how relevant stakeholder groups perceive and address the water shortage on Gotland. The identified stakeholder groups were from the administrative/political sectors, industrial/business sectors, the research sector as well as engaged citizens. During the research it became clear that the water shortage can be characterized as a wicked problem, which in its nature is impossible to solve but only manageable due to its complexity. Yet, the majority of stakeholders did not recognize the wicked problem as such which explains the multiplicity of existent strategies for how to deal with it. The different approaches lead to outcomes that seem to only address parts of the problem but fail to manage it in its entirety. The study suggests that institutional voids, meaning a lack of clear responsibilities regarding who should manage the problem and how seem to both arise from and contribute to the complexity of the problem. As result of this research, it seems crucial to firstly gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation and then work with multi stakeholder communication and cooperation against prevailing institutional voids in order to address the water shortage effectively.

Managed clinical and care networks (MCNs) have emerged in Scotland as a collaborative form of organising within health and between health and social services. Bringing together disparate disciplines and professions their aim has been to allow work across service and sector boundaries to improve care for patients. Whilst MCN prevalence has increased and policy has moved to centralise this method of organising, many research questions remain. These include: how can we understand the form, function and impact of MCNs, and further, what are the underlying motivations for practitioners and managers to organise in this way? Focussing in on the work of 3 voluntary MCNs operating in Scotland, the centrality of practice emerges. Practice is defined broadly to encompass both the interactions between practitioner-patient and practitioner-population. From this, the MCN becomes conceptualised as a set of activities focussed around ground-level clinical MCN service issues and top-level policy direction. Through considering work the interplay between ethics and scientific evidence emerges. The inherent uncertainty and suffering of daily practice comes to the fore, these concepts are brought together within a framework, morals-in-practice. Further, using the hermeneutic dynamics of alterity, openness and transcendence, MCNs can be understood as providing a space to foster creative responses to the wicked problems created by health and social service design and delivery. The organising opportunities provided by MCNs thus arguably serve several organisational and social functions, providing a forum to: mutually support and respond to the intrinsically challenging nature of practice understood; debate morals-in-practice helping to ensuring collective clinical governance; sharing of organisational knowledge; planning, delivery and audit of services; and creatively respond to wicked problems. By focussing in on the work, the practice particularities of each individual MCN are resultantly emphasised, whilst still maintaining recognition that much of the NHS operational context is more widely shared. Through this these voluntary MCNs, at least, can be viewed as an organising form which has emerged in response to the complexities of modern health and social service, care, design and delivery.

The Nigerian video film industry has emerged to become the first “popular” film industry in black Africa. Its means of production and consumption has redefined the parameters of African Cinema. The video films employ themes and images that captivate the audiences’ imagination and curiosity. Some of the most used themes in the Nigerian video films are those relating to the supernatural, magic and witchcraft. Whilst some scholars and filmmakers criticise the prevalence of themes of witchcraft, magic and the supernatural, it is these very themes that draw local audiences. This research project explores images and themes of witchcraft, magic and the supernatural in two genres of the video films; the evangelical or Christian genre, and the horror or voodoo genre, using the films End of the Wicked and Child of Promise as case studies of the two genres respectively.

Since various public and private actors at the international, supranational, national and subnational levels started to adopt long-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, low-carbon scenario analyses have flourished. Literature reveals an increasing number of analyses envisioning and exploring alternative images of low-carbon futures, as well as their adjacent transition pathways. Scenario approaches or “foresight” is intended to help policy-makers to navigate the maelstrom of confusion and conflicts associated with highly complex societal challenges such as climate change – i.e. the “super-wicked” problems. Typical scenario exercises aim at coping with uncertainty and conflicting values, and hence are often claimed as a suitable approach for knowing and governing super-wicked problems. When reviewing the scenario literature published over the recent years, we observe significant methodological developments, in particular at the level of the calculus or data-sets. These contributions have generated an increasing technical sophistication of scenario building methods, and contrast with the relative absence of social sciences research on scenarios. Scenario analyses have received little academic attention from social sciences, whether they are political science, sociology, philosophy of science or science and technology studies. By providing a SHS-analysis of low-carbon scenarios, the present thesis contributes to bridge this research gap. Scenarios are here understood as “boundary objects” linking different social worlds: science and policy, but also natural and social sciences. This thesis aspires to create an enhanced understanding on how scenario analyses perform such “boundary work”. More specifically, the following analysis of low-carbon scenarios is based on a twofold perspective focusing, on the one hand, on the interactions between low-carbon scenarios and governance (i.e. link between science and policy), and, on the other hand, on the making of knowledge about governance in low-carbon scenarios (i.e. link between natural and social sciences). In other words, it explores “scenarios in governance” and “governance in scenarios”. The thesis project includes three research axes, each based on its particular empirics. A first study explores the interactions between low-carbon scenarios and governance on the basis of a multiple case study analysing the role of four energy foresight studies in policy-making. The other two studies focus on the making of knowledge about governance in low-carbon scenarios. One of them provides an assessment of the knowledge needed to steer the low-carbon transition. The other one aims at contributing to the debate on the relations between quantitative modelling and social sciences by exposing a critical review of socio-technical energy transition models. The objective of the present thesis thus consists in providing an empirical contribution to social sciences research on low-carbon scenarios. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

abstract: Pierce College at Joint Base Lewis – McChord (PCJBLM) is a community college extension campus that is challenged with complying with multiple policies while serving a transient student population amid budget constraints. Through multiple cycles of research, entry-level student services staff expressed concern about their professional development and their ability to contribute meaningfully to initiatives around student success. Student services staff were also concerned with their connection to colleagues and leaders within the unit. Research shows that leaders may need to be more flexible and creative in staff development to appreciate the diverse values and talents of their teams. Research also identifies professional development as essential to solidifying student affairs as a profession and meeting the demands of today’s educational environment. Through multiple cycles of research, peer-to-peer mentoring was identified as the innovation to address the problem of practice at PCJBLM. The program was evaluated as part of an action research study. The theoretical perspectives guiding of the study were wicked problems, theory of structural empowerment, theory of psychological empowerment, and social learning theory and communities of practice. Peer-to-peer mentoring was evaluated over eight-weeks. Participants were selected via purposeful sampling. Key artifacts produced by participants were reflective journals and an individual development plan (IDP). Multiple qualitative data sources were used to triangulate the results. The quantitative instrument, Conditions of Work Empowerment Questionnaire – II (CWEQ-II), was administered to support learning about the participants’ feelings and perceptions about empowerment. The pre- and post-test (CWEQ-II) measures were used in conjunction with the qualitative sources. Credibility and rigor were addressed through triangulation, prolonged engagement, and member checking. Results indicate more investigation is needed to address the identified wicked problem. Peer-to-peer mentoring supported a broadened view of the problem practice. The peer-to-peer mentoring program was structurally empowering while not completely psychologically empowering. The participants’ conflicts related to psychological empowerment were identified and will support continued learning in this area. Additionally, through multiple cycles of qualitative analysis, the values of this unit were identified. These values were essential to the developing community of practice. Continued research in empowerment and wicked problems is needed to support the future growth of the community of practice. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018

Current literature on the developmentally disabled indicates they represent a large untapped labor pool that is significantly inhibited in its inclusion in the community. To address this unnecessary isolation, Right in the Community (RitC), a voluntary agency in Cobb County, Georgia, wanted to innovate its service offering by providing meaningful and sustainable work opportunities for those that are severely developmentally disabled. The Competing Values Framework (CVF) offers a dynamic and robust theoretical framework that has been adapted to explain many business factors in addition to organizational effectiveness. Based on a fourteen-month action research engagement at RitC, I adapted the CVF to concentrate on the dimensions of organizational focus, strategy formation and motivational traits to understand and guide service innovation in a voluntary organization. My research aided RitC’s development of a program to provide meaningful and sustainable work opportunities for those that are severely developmentally disabled. From a theoretical standpoint, I have added new knowledge on managing service innovation in voluntary organizations and adapted CVF for understanding and guiding service innovation in that particular context.

Model Forests were developed to bridge the gap between the emerging policy and the practice of sustainable forest management (SFM) in the early 1990s and, as such, to facilitate uptake of research findings into practice. The purpose of this study was to explore mechanisms that may explain why some research results are used in the policy and practice of SFM and others are not. Based on interviews in three Model Forests in Canada, the most prominent factors influencing research utilization identified were (1) relevance of the research findings to users’ needs, (2) effective research design and scientific credibility, and (3) user involvement in the research process. However, it was evident that there is no one factor that influences uptake, but rather a combination dependent upon the circumstances of each situation. This study also deepens understanding of the science–practice/policy interface by exploring the notion of Model Forests as boundary organizations.

Wicked problems are a special subset of particularly complex issues that current problem-solving tools fail tofully address. Because of this deficiency, a new tool for evaluating and resolving wicked problems must be developed. Theories such as anti-positivism and systems thinking are explored in order to understand the nature of wicked problems, which are often defined by the involvement of multiple stakeholders as well as non-linear interrelations between various elements of the problem. Although traditional problem-solving methods are inadequate for wicked problems, there are certain tools that are more appropriate for handling such problems. These tools include the analytic hierarchy process, positional analysis, mess maps and heat maps. With their organized structures, visual languages and collaborative processes, these methods provide features that are well suited for tackling wicked problems. However, no single tool incorporates all of the necessary features. Therefore, a combination of the tools explored can yield a new and even more effective tool for wicked problems. This new tool, called STORM, is demonstrated through an evaluation of oil shale exploitation in Estonia. With Estonia currently dependent on energy from oil shale despite the environmental drawbacks, the situation is an ideal example of a wicked problem. The Estonian example shows how STORM can provide a greater understanding of wicked problems and allow resolutions to be negotiated. As sustainable development issues are usually considered to be wickedto sustainable development research.