There is a shortage of nurses leading to challenges in recruitment in Sweden and many other countries. Especially for less populated regions recruitment can be chal-lenging. Nurses often face difficulties with work-life balance (WLB). This study aims to identify the importance of WLB opportunities and support that make a work-place attractive from the perspective of nursing students studying in Dalarna. A questionnaire was distributed via email to 525 students enrolled in the nursing bach-elor program at Dalarna University. They were asked to rate the importance of 15 sub questions regarding WLB opportunities and support. These sub questions were asked in order to analyze the importance of 15 components regarding WLB oppor-tunities and support. 196 students (37 percent) answered the questionnaire. Three WLB components, working from home, childcare and rooms for breastfeeding, were found to be not important to nursing students studying in Dalarna. This was reason-able due to the profession of nursing and the WLB support provided by the Swedish government. Cultural factors, such as the organization being positive towards using WLB opportunities and support, were more important than structural factors, such as the possibility to work part-time. Moreover, to have a manager that is supportive towards using WLB opportunities and support was found to be the most important factor and having workplace practical support such as childcare was found least im-portant. Furthermore, contrary to the expected results, no statistical significance was found on the influence on the importance of all combined relevant WLB opportuni-ties and support by the sociodemographic variables; gender, semester of studies, age, having children, months of work experience and work experience in the healthcare sector. However, nine individual components were found to be influ-enced by one or more sociodemographic variables. Therefore, some recommenda-tions on how to target specific groups of individuals were made. However, the con-clusion of the study is that, regardless of the sociodemographic variables and gov-ernmental support, organizations should offer new nurses opportunities and support to gain a balance between work and life, especially in terms of cultural factors.

Detta examensarbete innehåller en kvalitativ undersökning om vuxenmobbning. Syftet med studien var att öka förståelsen för de fysiska och psykiska konsekvenserna av vuxenmobbning inklusive användandet av försvarsmekanismer. Studien syftade även till att undersöka de utsattas upplevelser av sjukvården i samband med att de har sökt hjälp för mobbningen. Resultatet bygger på två tematiska analyser av fem stycken frågeformulär med öppna frågor som har besvarats av personer som har utsatts för mobbning i vuxen ålder. De teman som framkom var; depression, tappat umgänge, negativ påverkan på arbetssituationen, försvarsmekanismer och brist på kunskap och resurser inom sjukvården. Resultatet visar att mobbning påverkar människor uteslutande negativt och den mest allvarliga konsekvensen av mobbning är depression. Detta för att depression kan leda till självmordstankar och självmordsförsök. Inom sjukvården fanns flera upplevda brister gällande mobbning och den största var brist på kunskap och resurser eftersom det leder till att människor inte blir tagna på allvar och inte får nog mycket hjälp i tid. Medvetenheten om mobbning måste öka för att förebyggande arbete ska kunna tillämpas på arbetsplatsen men också på andra platser där mobbning kan förekomma. / This thesis includes a qualitative study on adult bullying. The purpose of this study was to investigate the physical and psychological consequences of adult bullying including the use of defense mechanisms. The study also aimed to investigate the victims experiences of the healthcare as they have sought help for the bullying. The results are based on two thematic analyses of five questionnaires with open questions which have been answered by people who have been victims of bullying in adulthood. The themes that emerged were; depression, loss of association, negative impact on the work situation, defense mechanisms and lack of knowledge and resources within healthcare. The results show that bullying affects people exclusively negatively and the most severe consequence of bullying is depression. This is because depression could lead to suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide. There were several experienced flaws within the healthcare on bullying and the most severe was lack of knowledge and resources because people are not taken seriously and they don’t receive enough with help in time. The awareness of bullying has to increase in order to make preventive action against bullying in the workplace and other places where bullying may occur.

M. Tech. (Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Workplace health and safety is a global concern. South African companies are bound by the stipulations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) (85 of 1993), which regulates employer and employee duties to identify and eliminate hazards, thereby controlling and minimising the risk to health and safety within the working environment. Employees are regarded as the strength of ArcelorMittal. The on-board programme of this employer is designed specifically to support the integration of new employees into ArcelorMittal’s environment and enable them to maximise their contribution to the performance of their team, implementation of a business plan and strategy and realisation of the group’s objectives. This study investigates the perceptions that ArcelorMittal (Vanderbijlpark) employees uphold regarding the effectiveness of the health and safety induction they received. The iron division was identified purposefully for selection of the target population because of its high rate of health and safety incidents. Simple random sampling was used within a quantitative research design to select 317 respondents out of 634 employees. Accordingly, questionnaires were distributed within the demarcated division and a total of 160 questionnaires were completed and returned. The collected data were statistically analysed and presented. The results indicated that the majority of employees perceive the health and safety induction they received to be effective. Respondents also indicated that ArcelorMittal was effective in providing them with the support they need towards their health and safety. Hence, it is recommended that the zero tolerance approach towards safety hazards be reinforced on a continuous basis within the work context of this leading steel manufacturer.

The presented thesis discusses an investigation conducted into the improvement of employee experiences of stress in the workplace. It is estimated that 11.4 million working days were lost in 2008-2009 due to stress-related outcomes, and that stress was described as the top cause of long-term sickness absence in 70% of all public-sector organisations in 2010-2011 (CIPD, 2011a). Indeed major studies have associated chronic stress with individual outcomes such as increased cardiovascular disease, depression and burnout. The work, conducted within one department of a borough council organisation in the East of England, had two main objectives: the discovery of 'daily hassles' that comprise organisational stressors for staff and the intervention design aimed at improvement of stress. A novel mixed-methods approach combining quantitative surveys with Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was utilised, with five phases of inquiry conducted. The surveys (Stages 1 and 5) were utilised to assess the experience of work-related stress and Burnout. Stages 2, 3 and 4 were employee completion of daily logs, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The ultimate aim of the qualitative work was to design a number of interventions for the improvement of stress. A local stress theory, designed via the mixing of convergent qualitative and quantitative outcomes, found that professional efficacy, relationships and creativity buffered the impact of three major stressors: (too many) demands, (lack of) managerial support and (poorly communicated) organisational change. These translated into concrete examples of procedural 'hassles' and a number of organisational interventions were designed with staff and subsequently implemented into the organisation. It is concluded that the methodology used was fruitful without being largely resource-demanding for either employees/participants or the organisation. Also while the mixing of AI methodologies with quantitative surveys can appear contradictory, it is demonstrated that the pragmatic approach taken led to strong research and practitioner-based outcomes. Lastly the work has demonstrated both originality and new knowledge in a variety of areas, as well as opening a number of future research questions and avenues.

This research is concerned with the construction and expression of selfidentity in a sample of lay Christians working in a contemporary workplace. It seeks to understand how these believers construct and sustain, in and through autobiographical narrative, a faith-full self-identity at work. It is inspired by my own experience as a Christian believer in a secular workplace. The results of the study contribute to the discipline of practical theology in the specific area of understanding autobiographical construction of Christian self-identity. Although the study takes an overt Christian theological stance, it draws not only from the theory of autobiographical narrative in theology, but also from corresponding theory in philosophy, sociology and psychology. In particular the research draws on the Confessions of St. Augustine (c AD 400), using this patristic text as a benchmark expression of Christian selfidentity. Augustine’s neo-platonic thinking informs the central research question which asks whether fragmentation of self-identity is experienced by Christians in the challenging environment of the present-day workplace. Narrative is both phenomenon under study and research methodology. It is a particularly appropriate means by which to study faith identity. The concept is a fluid one and narrative inquiry is more concerned with establishing meaning and significance than facts and truth. The research resides within a constructivist paradigm and acknowledges that the findings are limited and specific. The findings suggest that fragmentation of self-identity is experienced by the research actors in work/faith tensions. However, these believers move through a process of growing self-awareness and awareness of God’s action in their lives as they construct personal work/life narratives. The research findings explore this process of self-identity construction and offer conclusions about the discovery of a sense of deep self-identity amidst the experience of fragmentation.

The new industry revolution creates a vast transformation in the manufacturing methods. Embedded Intelligence and communication technologies facilitate the execution of the smart factory. It can provide lots of features for strong customization of products. Assembly system is a critical segment of the smart factory. However, the complexity of production planning and the variety of products being manufactured, persuade the factories to use different methods to guide the workers for unfamiliar tasks in the assembly section. Motion tracking is the process of capturing the movement of human body or objects which has been used in different industrial systems. It can be integrated to a wide range of applications such as interacting with computers, games and entertainment, industry, etc. Motion tracking can be integrated to assembly systems and it has the potential to create an improvement in this industry as well. But the integration of motion tracking in industrial processes is still not widespread. This thesis work provides a fully automatic tracking solution for future systems in manufacturing industry and other fields. In general a configurable, flexible, and scalable motion tracking system is created in this thesis work to amend the tracking process. According to our environment, we have done a research between different motion tracking methods and technologies including Kinect and Leap Motion sensor, and finally the leap motion sensor is selected as the most appropriate method, because it fulfils our demands in this project. Multiple Leap motion sensors are used in this work to cover areas with different size. Data fusion between multiple leap motion sensors can be considered as another novel contribution of this thesis work. To achieve this goal data from multiple sensors are combined. This system can improve the lack of accuracy in order to creating a practical industrial application. By fusion of several sensors in order to achieve accuracies that allow implementation in practice, a motion tracking system with higher accuracy is created.

Dagens arbetsmarknad kännetecknas av ständig rörlighet av arbetskraft och en generationsväxling som under de närmsta åren kommer att påverka efterfrågan på arbetskraft. Under sådana omständigheter är det viktigt att säkra att de kompetenser som organisationers medarbetare innehar stannar kvar även om enskilda medarbetare väljer att lämna organisationen. För att säkra dessa kompetenser var kompetensöverföring en central fråga att arbeta med. Svensk sjukvård är inget undantag från denna verklighet, utan är i stort behov av att attrahera nya och kompetenta medarbetare. För att säkra att nya medarbetare får den kompetens som behövs för organisationens verksamheter, är individuella och organisatoriska villkor för kompetensöverföring under inskolning varit viktiga faktorer. Vi har studerat medarbetares upplevelser av vad som villkorar kompetensöverföring under inskolningsprocessen på Norrlands universitetssjukhus. Utifrån tidigare forskning har vi definierat begreppet kompetens genom faktorerna motivation, kunskap, färdigheter, erfarenheter, nätverk och värderingar. Dessa har utgjort grunden för genomförandet av denna studie. Vidare har strukturer som HR-strategier, handledar- och mentorskap samt inskolning identifierats. Strukturerna har studerats ur perspektivet att dessa utgör villkor för hur kompetensöverföring genom inskolning kan ske. Resultaten av studien visade på att alla ovan beskrivna villkor påverkade hur kompetensöverföring sker. Samtliga deltagare upplevde även att kompetensöverföring genom inskolning är ett område som bör ges stort fokus i syfte att säkerställa god och hög kvalité så väl ur medarbetar- som medborgarperspektiv.

The extensive use of global teams to develop software has prompted researchers to investigate various factors that can enhance a team’s performance. While a significant body of research exists on global software teams, previous research has not fully explored the interrelationships and collective impact of various factors on team performance. This study explored a model that added the characteristics of a team’s culture, ability, communication frequencies, response rates, and linguistic categories to a central framework of team performance. Data was collected from two student software development projects that occurred between teams located in the United States, Panama, and Turkey. The data was obtained through online surveys and recorded postings of team activities that occurred throughout the global software development projects. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) was chosen as the analytic technique to test the model and identify the most influential factors. Individual factors associated with response rates and linguistic characteristics proved to significantly affect a team’s activity related to grade on the project, group cohesion, and the number of messages received and sent. Moreover, an examination of possible latent homogeneous segments in the model supported the existence of differences among groups based on leadership style. Teams with assigned leaders tended to have stronger relationships between linguistic characteristics and team performance factors, while teams with emergent leaders had stronger. Relationships between response rates and team performance factors. The contributions in this dissertation are three fold. 1) Novel analysis techniques using PLS-PM and clustering, 2) Use of new, quantifiable variables in analyzing team activity, 3) Identification of plausible causal indicators for team performance and analysis of the same.

This empirical study is aimed at understanding the patterns of relationships among the organization structure of self-managed work teams in terms of three sets of constructs: 1. organization-based self-esteem; 2. consequent behaviors of intrinsic work motivation, general job satisfaction, organization citizenship, and organization commitment; and 3. performance. The primary significance of this study is that it adds to the pool of empirical knowledge in the field of self-managed work team research. The significance of this study to practicing managers is that it can help them make better-informed decisions on the use of the self-managed work team structure. This study was a sample survey composed of five standardized questionnaires using a five-point Likert-type scale, open-ended questions, and demographic questions. Unstructured interviews supplemented the structured survey and for means of triangulation of results. The variables were analyzed using regression analysis for the purpose of path analysis. The site was a manufacturing plant structured around self-managed work teams. The population was full-time, first-line production employees.

It was hypothesized that group industrial accident rates would be negatively related to job satisfaction. An employee opinion survey measuring satisfaction with various aspects of the job was administered to 1,577 non-exempt (hourly) field workers in 36 district offices of a Texas petroleum services company. Factor analysis of the survey revealed five interpretable sub-scales (factors) measuring five aspects of job satisfaction. Internal consistency reliability for each of the sub-scales and for the instrument as a whole was high (.83 or better). For each of the 36 districts, group accident rate for a six month period was determined. A correlational analysis was then done between district accident rate and the district satisfaction score for each factor and for total satisfaction. None of the correlations were significant.