Emergency management (EM) can benefit from new information and communication technology (ICT). However, the complexity of the field poses high demands upon prospective system developers. The design of technological support in a field where roles and actions are entwined and never completely predetermined, requires an understanding of interactions in the socio-technical system as a whole. In this thesis, an attempt is made to work from a Cognitive Systems Engineering stance to identify important characteristics of coordination in intermunicipal EM. Applying perspectives from distributed cognition, joint activity and common ground, Hollnagel’s COCOM and ECOM models have been applied to identify points of entry into work practices. Working with data from a simulated forest-fire in a role-playing exercise, an analysis of dialogues uncovered ambiguity in how functions are handled in a large event, indicating vulnerabilities in face of larger crises. In addition, it became evident that functions moved across roles during the evolving event, and it was possible to uncover recognizable phases of a response. The results underline characteristics that should be supported by future ICT, and occurrences that can be explored in future studies.

The Multiple Remote Tower Center concept (mRTC) is a cutting edge project which allows one air traffic control officer (ATCO) to be in charge of multiple remotely situated airports simultaneously. When implemented, it will revolutionise how air traffic is managed at smaller airports and allow for increased efficiency and decreased operational costs. Consequently, at the time of writing a lot of effort is going into evaluating this new way of air traffic management from a safety perspective. Air traffic management has been defined as an issue maintaining situational awareness and exercising control. This thesis aims to investigate how the phenomenon target fascination affects the ATCOs ability to exercise control over its controlled airspace and maintain its situation awareness. It does so by creating a baseline scenario of work in a mRTC, and then comparing the ATCOs performance in the baseline scenario with its performance in the same corresponding scenario, but with elements of target fascination introduced. The differences in the scenarios are analysed using the Contextual Control Model, the Extended Control Model and a holistic framework for studying situation awareness. The analysis shows that target fascination does affect the ATCOs ability to maintain control, but not radically so, and only for a short period of time. The target fascination forces the ATCO to rely on information in the immediate environment to a higher degree than during regular work, as opposed to making decisions based on a holistic understanding of the situation and high level goals. However, once the understanding of the situation have been re-established, the level of control quickly returns to normal levels. Situation awareness is thus a key concept in maintaining control. The situation awareness analysis show that target fascination affects situation awareness by causing the ATCOs understanding of the situation to become outdated without the ATCOs knowledge. Because of this, there may be developments in the situation that the ATCO is not aware of, which hinders it from acting as it normally would. In some cases an intervention from an external actor or element may be necessary to break the fascination and re-establish the ATCOs understanding for the situation. As soon as the fascination is broken, the ATCO quickly takes steps to re-establish its situation awareness and return to normal operations.

In recent years, the research approach known as Resilience Engineering (RE) has offered a promising new way of understanding safety-critical organizations, but less in the way of empirical methods for analysis. In this master’s thesis, an extensive comparison was made between RE and two different research approaches on cognitive systems: Distributed Cognition (DC) and Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) with the aim of exploring whether these approaches can contribute to the analysis and understanding of resilience. In addition to a theoretical comparison, an ethnographic healthcare case study was conducted, analyzing the patient safety at a pediatric emergency department using the Three-Level Analytical Framework from DC and the Extended Control Model from CSE, then conducting an RE analysis based on the former two analyses. It was found that while the DC and CSE approaches can explain how an organization adapts to current demands, neither approach fully addresses the issue of future demands anticipation, central to the RE perspective. However, the CSE framework lends itself well as an empirical ground providing the entry points for a more thoroughgoing RE analysis, while the inclusion of physical context in a DC analysis offers valuable insights to safety-related issues that would otherwise be left out in the study of resilience.

I vårt allt mer digitaliserade samhälle har internet fått en central roll, och har förändrat många aspekter i vårt vardagsliv. Ett av de områden som påverkats starkt av denna utveckling, är den svenska detaljhandelns e-handelsmarknad. De senaste 10 åren har dess omsättning sexdubblats, och prognoser tyder på att denna expansiva trend kommer att hålla i sig. Detta innebär helt nya förutsättningar för de svenska detaljhandelsföretag som tidigare bara bedrivit försäljning i fysiska butiker, eller bedrivit e-handelsverksamhet i liten skala. Ämnet för denna studie föreslogs av den svenska detaljhandelskedjan Företag X[1], som har beslutat att lansera en e-handel i början av år 2016. Företag X föreslog att författaren skulle kartlägga vad som krävs för att gå från en liten nyetablerad e-handel, till en stor och framgångsrik e-handel som bidrar till företagets lönsamhet och fortsatta välmående. Studiens syfte är således att kartlägga praxis och metoder som möjliggör framgångsrik expansion av e-handeln för medelstora, svenska detaljhandelsföretag. För att uppnå syftet valdes en kvalitativ multifallstudie-design. Information till den teoretiska referensramen samlades in från vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker, och kompletterades med sekundärempiri i form av rapporter från företag. Kvalitativ primärdata samlades sedan in från intervjuer med tre fallföretag, som hittades genom en mindre tvärsnittsstudie av 20 konkurrenter till Företag X där företagens EBITDA-marginal de senaste fem åren studerades.   Studiens resultat visade att den svenska detaljhandelns e-handelsmarknad har sett en mycket expansiv trend de senaste åren, och att denna ser ut att hålla i sig under det kommande decenniet. Detta innebär att marknadsklimatet håller på att förändras och går mot att bli allt mer digitalt, vilket kräver att företagen ser över sina försäljningsorganisationer. Den största trenden på marknaden kallas ”omnikanalhandel”, och innebär i korthet att företaget integrerar sin butiks- och e-handelsförsäljning för att möjliggöra en sömlös köpupplevelse för kunden. Denna trend har framträtt som ett svar på ett nytt köpmönster som noterats bland kunderna, där dessa rör sig mellan företagens digitala och fysiska försäljningskanaler under köpresan. Studien pekar på att de e-handelsrelaterade frågor som är viktigast att adressera och arbeta med finns inom följande områden: KundfokusIT Kundrelationer Lyhördhet mot kund KostnadseffektivitetSupply chain och logistik Strategi och styrning MotståndshanteringUtbildning Samspel med butiker Studien utgör författarens examensarbete i utbildningen Industriell Ekonomi vid Linköpings Tekniska Högskola.   [1] Företag X heter egentligen något annat, men har bett att få vara anonyma i denna studie. / The Internet has become a central part of the modern society and has change our everyday life in many ways. An area that’s been strongly affected by this development is the Swedish retail e-commerce market. E-commerce sales have increased six-fold over the course of the past decade and forecasts indicate that this expansive trend will continue. This trend places significant challenges on Swedish retail companies who have a legacy of exclusively carrying out their sales in the traditional brick and mortar format. The subject of this study was originally proposed by the Swedish retail company Företag X[1], who have decided to embark on their e-commerce initiative in early 2016. Företag X asked the author of this report to help with finding out what it takes to develop a small e-commerce store, in such a way that it becomes a successful part of the company, contributing to the company’s overall profitability. The purpose of this study is therefore to identify practices and methods that enable successful expansion of e-commerce for medium-sized, Swedish retail companies. In order to achieve the purpose, a qualitative multi-case study design was chosen for the study. Information for the theoretical framework was collected from articles in scientific journals and books, and supplemented with secondary empirical data in the form of reports from companies. Qualitative primary data were then collected from interviews with three chosen companies, which were found with through a small cross-sectional study of 20 competitors to Företag X where their EBITDA margins over the past five years were studied. The study results showed an expansive trend on the Swedish retail e-commerce market, and it seems that this trend is set to continue over the next decade. As a consequence, market climate is changing and shifting towards becoming more digitalized, which requires companies to review their sales organizations. The main trend in the market is called “omni-channel retailing" and means that a company is integrating its brick and mortar and e-commerce sales to enable a seamless shopping experience for the customer. This trend has emerged as a response to a new buying patterns observed among customers, who move between their digital and physical sales channels during the purchase. The study indicates that the e-commerce-related issues that are most important to address and work with are in the following areas: Customer FocusIT Customer relations Responsiveness to customers Cost effectiveness Supply chain and logistics Strategy and governance Resistance ManagementEducation Synchronization between brick and mortar stores and e-commerce store This study represents the author’s master’s thesis in the Industrial Engineering and Management program at Linköping University, Sweden. [1] Företag X are known by a different name, but have asked to remain anonymous in this study