This study examined staff and leadership's attitudes to their work organisation and its environment, and, in particular, the extent to which they preferred a human or task orientation. The study then defined and measured the 'academic culture' of the institution and explored the different effects of emphasising human or task orientations on this academic culture. Finally, the relationship between academic culture and student satisfaction within the institution was explored in the research. The measure of academic culture encompassed 3 domains - planning, the way of doing things, and relationships. A set of survey research instruments was developed and piloted. These instruments measured, in addition to background characteristics of respondents, aspects of attitude to the organisation and perceptions of its academic culture. The results of the study provided evidence that stronger task-oriented attitudes of leaders and staff were associated with academic culture subscales based on 'clarity of the job' and 'goal setting' within the planning domain and 'job performance' within the way of doing things domain. Although the relationship was much weaker, stronger human-oriented attitudes were related to the academic culture subscales of 'communication and relationship' and 'social acceptance' within the relationship domain, and 'leader-subordinate interaction' in the way of doing things domain. In as much as a strong academic culture needs an emphasis on the 3 domains (planning, the way of doing things in an organisation, and relationships), the research suggested that staff and leadership need to be versatile and incorporate both task-oriented and human-oriented approaches. A number of measures of attitudes and perceptions of academic culture were significantly related to the demographic backgrounds of the participants. This emphasised the importance of treating the constructs as multi-dimensional and the leaders, staff, and students as heterogeneous groups. Finally, and importantly, student satisfaction measures were associated with higher academic culture scores / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Många företag står idag inför en affärssituation med stigande konkurrens,krympande marknader, och ökade kundkrav. Framför allt sitter många fast i ett föråldrat sätt attdriva sin verksamhet på, som är dåligt anpassat för den allt tuffare marknaden. Den rekommenderadelösningen stavas ofta ”inför kvalitetstänk och börja jobba med förbättringar”. Det kandock vara lättare sagt än gjort för företag utan tidigare erfarenheter från en sådan strategi, ochmed eventuella betydande brister i sin ordinarie organisationsstruktur. Demotikos AB i Stockholmär ett exempel på ett sådant företag.Avsikten med detta examensarbete är att ta fram ett förbättringsprogram särskilt anpassat förDemotikos AB genom att analysera olika kvalitetsfilosofier och koncept, samt att göra en utförlignulägesanalys av företaget. Målet är att presentera ett förbättringsprogram tillsammans meden implementationsplan som är väl anpassad till företagets utgångsläge och förutsättningar ochsom samtidigt stämmer väl överens med rådande forskningslitteratur. Företaget har dessutom enönskan om att den insamlade kvalitetsinformationen i rapporten ska kunna ligga till grund för enkvalitetsintroduktionsutbildning för företagets anställda.Företagets behovsbild samt problemområden kartlades vi en nutidsanalys. Därefter utgick manfrån kartläggningen och jämförde den med vilka effekter olika förbättringsprogram kunde åstadkomma.Efter ett program hittades gick man vidare till att utvärdera olika arbetsmetoder ochverktyg. Till sist undersöktes en lämplig implementationsplan. / Many companies are today facing a business situation with rising competition,shrinking markets, and increasing customer demands. Above all, many are stuck with an outdatedapproach on how to run their business, an approach that is poorly adapted to the ever moredemanding market. The recommended solution is often spelled "implement a quality mindsetand start working with improvements". However, this can be much easier said than done forcompanies without any experience of such a strategy, as well as any significant deficiencies in itsregular organizational structure. Demotikos AB in Stockholm is an example of such a company.This thesis is aiming to produce an improvement program for Demotikos AB by analyzing differentquality philosophies and concepts, as well as making a detailed situation analysis of thecompany. The goal is to present an improvement program together with an implementation planthat is well adapted to the company’s current condition and at the same time consistent withcurrent research literature. The company also wish to be able to use the collected quality data inthe report as a basis for a quality introduction for its employees.The company’s needs as well as problem areas were identified, through a present day analysis.The result were compared it with what effects various improvement programs could present.After an appropriate program was found the project went on to evaluate various methods andtools. Finally, a suitable implementation plan examined.