<p>Beginning in the 1990s, sustainability indicators have rapidly been developed in different political contexts to measure progress towards reaching sustainable development. Previous research has largely focused on developing models and criteria for defining indicators in order to identify scientifically sound systems. However, sustainability indicators represent more than pure aggregated data; they represent values. This thesis takes its departure in seeing indicators as socially constructed, and aims to explore the role(s) indicators play in governance for local sustainable development. The traditional environmental policy discourse characterised by rationality and efficiency became challenged in the 1990s by the Agenda 21 discourse, emphasizing the need for citizen participation for environmental governance. Notions of efficiency and participation are, however, often in conflict since achieving participation is time consuming and efficiency requires results within short time frames. Thus, a tension in governance is created which is especially apparent at the local level and in politics relating to sustinable development.</p><p>In this study, Sweden is seen as an extreme case in terms of implementing sustainable development policies. Swedish local authorities have been at the international forefront in developing sustainability indicators. Here, the work surrounding seven different sustainability indicator systems in three Swedish municipalities is analysed. The overall research question relates to the tension in governance: Are the sustinability indicators driven primarily by efficiency or participatory claims? The analytical framework combines two different, yet linked theoretical approaches: an institutional approach, which captures the organizational arrangements of the indicator systems; and a discourse inspired approach, shedding light on underlying notions and ‘problem’ representations embedded in the indicator systems. Interviews with politicians and local officers and written material serve as the main empirical sources.</p><p>The analysis shows that local sustainability indicators vary to a great extent regarding their scope, which implies that sustainable development is interpreted differently depending on the local context. In general, goals linked to ‘soft’ issues like democracy, awareness raising and learning tend to be less indicated than ‘hard’ issues such as pure natural scientific measures. Oftenmost, participation is interpreted in its ‘weak’ form, that is stakeholders and citizens are being informed about political decisions taken or are invitated to attend meetings. Many politicians express concern abut participatory methods that aim for empowering citizens, claiming that this is in conflict with the idea of representative democracy. Surprisingly, the more participatory driven indicator systems have not become established in the municipal organisation despite the involvement of many different stakeholders in the developing process. In contrast, the more efficiency driven systems, have been internally anchored but involved very few external stakeholdes in the process. These latter systems are therefore most likely to be used and implemented. In general, politicians’ trust in expert knowledge in policy making is high and it is difficult to involve citizens in that process. Also, because work with sustainable development issues in general, and indicators in particular, is largely seen as projects rather than processes, the efficiency ideal prevails in local policy making – maybe not in rhetoric, but certainly in practice.</p>

Beginning in the 1990s, sustainability indicators have rapidly been developed in different political contexts to measure progress towards reaching sustainable development. Previous research has largely focused on developing models and criteria for defining indicators in order to identify scientifically sound systems. However, sustainability indicators represent more than pure aggregated data; they represent values. This thesis takes its departure in seeing indicators as socially constructed, and aims to explore the role(s) indicators play in governance for local sustainable development. The traditional environmental policy discourse characterised by rationality and efficiency became challenged in the 1990s by the Agenda 21 discourse, emphasizing the need for citizen participation for environmental governance. Notions of efficiency and participation are, however, often in conflict since achieving participation is time consuming and efficiency requires results within short time frames. Thus, a tension in governance is created which is especially apparent at the local level and in politics relating to sustinable development. In this study, Sweden is seen as an extreme case in terms of implementing sustainable development policies. Swedish local authorities have been at the international forefront in developing sustainability indicators. Here, the work surrounding seven different sustainability indicator systems in three Swedish municipalities is analysed. The overall research question relates to the tension in governance: Are the sustinability indicators driven primarily by efficiency or participatory claims? The analytical framework combines two different, yet linked theoretical approaches: an institutional approach, which captures the organizational arrangements of the indicator systems; and a discourse inspired approach, shedding light on underlying notions and ‘problem’ representations embedded in the indicator systems. Interviews with politicians and local officers and written material serve as the main empirical sources. The analysis shows that local sustainability indicators vary to a great extent regarding their scope, which implies that sustainable development is interpreted differently depending on the local context. In general, goals linked to ‘soft’ issues like democracy, awareness raising and learning tend to be less indicated than ‘hard’ issues such as pure natural scientific measures. Oftenmost, participation is interpreted in its ‘weak’ form, that is stakeholders and citizens are being informed about political decisions taken or are invitated to attend meetings. Many politicians express concern abut participatory methods that aim for empowering citizens, claiming that this is in conflict with the idea of representative democracy. Surprisingly, the more participatory driven indicator systems have not become established in the municipal organisation despite the involvement of many different stakeholders in the developing process. In contrast, the more efficiency driven systems, have been internally anchored but involved very few external stakeholdes in the process. These latter systems are therefore most likely to be used and implemented. In general, politicians’ trust in expert knowledge in policy making is high and it is difficult to involve citizens in that process. Also, because work with sustainable development issues in general, and indicators in particular, is largely seen as projects rather than processes, the efficiency ideal prevails in local policy making – maybe not in rhetoric, but certainly in practice.

L’objectif général de ces travaux de recherche vise à faciliter les activités collaboratives médiées par un progiciel de gestion de connaissances. Plus précisément, nous souhaitons améliorer les activités collaboratives par la mise en place d’indicateurs. Nous entendons par là faciliter le déroulement ou des processus collaboratifs mis en œuvre et soutenir les réseaux sociaux au sein des activités. Pour cela, nous proposons d’observer l’activité des utilisateurs en proposant des indicateurs de collaboration calculés à partir des traces numériques d’activités. Le premier objectif de cette thèse est d’identifier ce que sont les indicateurs de collaboration en déterminant les informations qui les définissent. Pour pouvoir exploiter au mieux les indicateurs, nous proposons une classification composée de six grandes caractéristiques indépendantes qui correspondent aux éléments fondamentaux pour l’élaboration d’indicateurs de collaboration. Cette classification nous fournit des indications pour construire, modéliser et mettre en place un indicateur dans un environnement collaboratif tel que ceux que nous étudions dans le cadre du projet. De plus, cette thèse présente un framework de gestion d’indicateurs basé sur une approche centrée utilisateur. En effet, en observant l’utilisation actuelle des indicateurs dans des plateformes de gestion de contenus, nous nous sommes rendus-compte que le processus d’élaboration et d'acceptation était long et complexe. Par conséquent, lorsqu’un indicateur est en place dans un environnement et qu’il fonctionne correctement, il est intéressant de le réutiliser dans d’autres contextes. Cette réutilisation peut se faire intégralement ou partiellement. Nous proposons donc une modélisation qui prend en compte les problématiques de réutilisation ainsi que de personnalisation et d’adaptation des indicateurs en fonction des utilisateurs et/ou du contexte de l’activité. Dans notre approche, les indicateurs sont calculés à partir des traces d’activités laissées par les utilisateurs de la plate-forme. Pour faciliter la mise en place de ces indicateurs, nous avons développé un outil informatique qui va permettre d’assister les utilisateurs dans l’élaboration d’indicateurs : GINDIC (Générateur d’INDICateurs). Avec cet outil, les concepteurs vont pouvoir construire des indicateurs : leur définition, les calculs effectués sur les traces pour obtenir la valeur de l’indicateur et leur visualisation. Nous avons choisi de gérer les indicateurs à l’aide d’un système à base de règles, où les traces sont des faits, tandis que les processus de calcul des indicateurs sont des règles. Cette thèse s’est effectuée dans le cadre d’un projet ANR intitulé ProCoGeC (Progiciel Collaboratif de Gestion de Connaissances). Un langage à base de règles a été confronté aux besoins de ce projet. Il nous permet de décrire les processus de construction de l’ensemble des indicateurs issus d’un recueil des besoins. De plus, une expérimentation de l’outil a été réalisée auprès d’un des partenaires industriels du projet, client d’une plate-forme collaborative de gestion de contenus. / The objective of the research carried is to facilitate collaborative activities in knowledge management software. More particularly, we aim to improve collaborative activities by the implementation of indicators. We intend thus to facilitate the progression of one or several implemented collaborative processes and to support the social networks within the activities. For that purpose, we propose to observe the users’ activity by providing collaboration indicators calculated from the digital traces of activities. The first objective of this thesis is to identify the characteristics of the collaboration indicators. In order to make the best possible use of indicators, we propose a classification composed of six main independent characteristics which correspond to the fundamental elements for the elaboration of collaboration indicators. This classification supplies us with indications to build, model and set up an indicator in a collaborative environment such as those studied in the context of the project. Moreover, this thesis presents a framework for the management of indicators based on a user-centred approach. Indeed, by observing the current use of indicators in platforms of knowledge management, we realized that the process of elaboration and acceptance was long and complex. Consequently, when an indicator is established in an environment and when it works properly, it is interesting to reuse it in other contexts. This reusing can be done entirely or partially. We thus propose a type of modeling which takes into account the reuse issues as well as those of the personalization and adaptation of indicators according to the user and\or to the context of the activity. In our approach, the indicators are calculated from the activity traces left by the users. To facilitate the implementation of these indicators, we have developed a tool which assists the users during the elaboration of indicators: GINDIC (Generator of INDICATORS). With this tool, the designers are able to build indicators: their definition, the calculations made on traces to obtain the indicator value, and their displaying. We have chosen to manage indicators by using a rules-based system, where traces are facts, whereas the calculation processes for indicators are rules. This thesis has been written within the framework of a project financed by the French National Research Agency entitled ProCoGeC (Collaborative Software package of Management of Knowledge). A rules-based language was compared with the needs of the ProCoGeC project. It helps us to describe the calculation processes for all indicators stemming from the users’ requirements. An experiment with the tool has been carried out with one of the industrial partners of the project, who is the client of a collaborative platform of knowledge management.