The purpose of this master’s thesis is to study the organisational culture of two public libraries managed differently. One of the libraries in my study is run by the local bookstore and the other is run by a staff co-operative. My aim is to elucidate characteristic features in the culture of these two public library organisations. The questions I posed are which types of organisation culture can be identified in the two given examples and what the factors are that may be of importance for these cultures. In my study I use Henning Bang’s definition of organisational culture as a set of common norms, values and comprehensions of the reality formed in an organisation through cooperating within the group and with the outside world. I’ve also used Bang’s division of the concept into content and expression, when I’ve gathered information in my empiric study. The study has contained of texts from and about the chosen libraries, an inquiry answered by all the staff members and interviews with three members from each organisation. I have used Critical Values Framework and Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument as tools for analysing the material. Both libraries in this study can, according to these tools, be characterised as clan oriented. Although the similarities, the organisation culture in the two libraries differs in many ways. My conclusion is that the specific context of history and the driving force of change, are of great importance to the organisation culture. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine how perceptions of the public libraries’ operational mode are expressed in the media debate in the autumn of 2018. The 31 articles analyzed were retrieved from Swedish daily newspapers and Internet news sites. Questions posed in this study are: which discourses about the public libraries’ operational modes are visible in the debate?; how do the discourses portray private and public operational modes of the public libraries? and which subject positions are visible in the statements? To answer these questions Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory was used but since they don’t provide any explicit method on how to use their theory inspiration was sought in other academic papers which previously used the combined theory and method. The discourses found were named the privatization positive discourse, the privatization negative discourse and the operational mode pragmatic discourse. The privatization negative discourse is dominating in the debate due to the quantity of statements and the capability to dismiss the statements claimed in the other discourses. The analysis reveals that journalists and authors have a prominent position in the privatization negative discourse and can therefore form the discourse and the content of the debate as a whole. The position is that privatization will lead to dismantling the unique collaboration between the libraries which in turn will lead to lower quality and in the long run perhaps erode democracy. The study concludes that the debate is rather polarized itself due to different ideological perspectives.

Omvandlingen av sjukvården mot marknadisering och nya driftsformer har huvudsakligen genomförts utifrån ekonomiska och politiska föresatser om ökad effektivitet och vårdkvalitet. Goda arbetsvillkor för personalen är en viktig förutsättning för förverkligandet av dessa mål. Givet det oklara kunskapsläget kring psykologiska implikationer av omställningen i välfärdssektorns styrning var syftet med avhandlingen att studera olika aspekter av arbetsvillkor samt arbetsrelaterade attityder och hälsa i privat, bolagiserad och förvaltningsdriven sjukvård. Det gjordes genom att undersöka hur krav och resurser i arbetet förhåller sig till uppkomsten och utbredningen av utbrändhet hos sjuksköterskor, betydelsen av kontroll i och över arbetet för de anställdas arbetstrivsel samt hur motivationsbaserade kognitioner av bemyndigande hos vårdpersonal förändras vid privatisering och relaterar till attityder och hälsa. De empiriska studierna inkluderade såväl tvärsnittliga som longitudinella enkätdata från tre svenska akutsjukhus med olika driftsform. Resultaten visade högre nivåer av utbrändhet hos sjuksköterskor i privat jämfört med förvaltningsdrivet sjukhus. För arbetstrivsel fanns ingen nivåskillnad mellan de tre driftsformerna. Krav i arbetet hängde samman med högre utbrändhetsnivåer och lägre arbetstrivsel. Flera resurser var förenade med lägre grad av utbrändhet medan kontroll hängde samman med högre trivsel. Vid en förändring från bolagiserad till privat driftsform var vårdpersonalens bemyndigande relativt stabilt. Dock fanns efter privatiseringen en tendens till standardisering då graden av bemyndigande blev mer lika. Likaså skedde en statusmässig differentiering i bemyndigande mellan yrkesgrupperna genom att flera med låg status fick mindre bemyndigande. Sammantaget pekar avhandlingen på fler likheter än skillnader mellan driftsformerna vilket antyder att driftsform tycks ha mindre betydelse för såväl nivå som betydelse av arbetsvillkor för personalens attityder och hälsa. / The shift in health care towards marketization and new types of ownership has mainly been carried out for financial and political reasons aimed at increasing care efficiency and quality. Good working conditions for the personnel are essential for these goals. However, knowledge of the implications at the individual level is still limited. Considering this, the aim of this thesis was to study working conditions, work-related attitudes and health in private for-profit (PFP), private non-profit (PNP), and publicly administered (PA) hospitals in three empirical studies. This was done by investigating how demands and resources at work predict the development of burnout, how control within and over work relate to employee job satisfaction, and how perceptions of empowerment change in connection with privatization and relate to attitudes and health. The empirical studies include cross-sectional and longitudinal questionnaire data from three Swedish acute care hospitals with different ownership types. The results showed higher levels of burnout among nurses at the PFP hospital than those at the PA hospital. There was no difference in levels of job satisfaction among the ownership types. Demands were associated with higher burnout levels and lower job satisfaction. Several job resources were associated with lower burnout, while control was related to higher job satisfaction. In a change from PNP to PFP, employees’ empowerment levels remained relatively stable. However, there was a tendency towards standardization as their degrees of empowerment became more similar after privatization. Also, a status-related differentiation in empowerment occurred among the occupational groups as some with low status experienced less empowerment. Altogether, the findings show more similarities than differences among the ownership types, suggesting that ownership is of less importance for both the levels and the impact of working conditions on attitudes and health. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defence, the following paper was unpublishd and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p>