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The conditions for the third, non-profit sector, such as grassroots organisations and trade unions, have changed dramatically in recent years, due to prevailing social trends. Non-profit organisations have been seen as early adopters of information technology, but the area is, at the same time, largely unattended by scientific research. Meanwhile, the field of information systems development is, to an increasing extent, recognising the importance of user involvement in the design process. Nevertheless, participatory development approaches, such as Participatory Design are not suited to the context of entire organisations, and new, networked organisational structures, such as those of non-profit organisations. This reasoning also applies to the theoretical framework of Activity Theory, whose potential benefits for systems development have been acclaimed but less often tried in practice. This thesis aims, first, at extending Participatory Design to use in large, particularly non-profit organisations. This aim is partly achieved by integrating Participatory Design with an Argumentative Design approach and with the application of Activity Theory modified for an organisational context. The purpose is to obtain reasoning about and foreseeing the consequences of different design solutions. Second, the thesis aims at exploring information technology needs, solutions, and consequences in non-profit organisations, in trade unions in particular. The case under study is the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) and the design of an information system for its 250 000 shop stewards. The thesis is based on six related studies complemented with data from work in a local design group working according to the principles of Participatory Design. The first study was aimed at investigating and comparing trade union management’s view of the new technology and the actual needs of shop stewards. The second study investigated the situation, tasks and problems of shop stewards, as a pre-requisite for finding information technology needs. The third study merged the previous findings into an argumentative design of an information systems design proposal. The fourth study collected the voices from secondary user groups in the organisation, and presented an Activity theoretical analysis of the union organisation and a modified design proposal in the form of a prototype. The fifth study presented an Activity theoretical framework, modified for organisational application, and used it for producing hypotheses on possible shop steward tasks and organisational consequences of the implementation of the information system. The sixth paper was aimed at the initial testing of the hypotheses, through the evaluation of information technology facilities in one of the individual union affiliations. The complementary data was used to propose further modifications of the integrated Participatory, Argumentative, and Activity Theory design approach. The major contributions of the study are, first, a modified Participatory Design approach to be applied at three levels; in general as a way of overcoming experienced difficulties with the original approach, in the context of entire, large organisations, and in the specific non-profit organisation context. The second contribution is generated knowledge in the new research area of information technology in the non-profit, trade union context, where for instance the presented prototype can be seen as a source of inspiration. Future research directions include further development and formalisation of the integrated Participatory Design approach, as well as actual consequences of implementing information technology in non-profit organisations and trade unions. / On the day of the public defence the status of article V was: Submitted.

A saúde pública no país é uma área de alta demanda, dependente de tecnologia cara e de rápida obsolescência, com custos operacional e de manutenção altos, e com uma cobrança de crescimento ininterrupto, decorrente tanto do aumento vegetativo dos usuários, quanto da instabilidade social, quando os desempregados perdem a condição de se utilizar da saúde suplementar e migram para a rede pública. Há um agravamento de tal situação pela dispersão geográfica da população, pelo tamanho do país. O Sistema Único de Saúde, através do PlanejaSUS, tem um esforço continuado de planejar o funcionamento da saúde pública no país, para o que se utiliza, entre outros recursos, dos seguintes sistemas: de Informações sobre Nascidos Vivos; de Informação de Agravos de Notificação; de Informações Hospitalares; e de Informação de Mortalidade. Com o objetivo de identificar o grau de consistência dos mesmos, foi feito um levantamento de periódicos dos últimos 5 anos, de artigos que apontavam tal característica. Mediante a utilização de recortes dos artigos, análise e tabulação de resultados, identificou-se o predomínio de deficiências de pessoal e de qualidade das informações, estas últimas decorrentes das primeiras. Em apenas um caso houve queixa da infraestrutura de tecnologia da informação. Conclui-se pela priorização de trabalhos de persuasão e capacitação de funcionários; por um ajuste na expectativa pela precisão dos sistemas, já que por seu macro dimensionamento, face à dispersão geográfica e ao grande número de pessoas envolvidas, são sistemas com tendência natural à instabilidade; pelo papel que pesquisas como as apresentadas nos artigos podem fazer no controle de tais sistemas; pela consistência apresentada atualmente pelos sistemas, que embora não seja ótima, tem sustentado inúmeras pesquisas cujos resultados são validados por subsídios da literatura e cruzamento de bancos de dados. Aventa-se ainda a possibilidade de, em um trabalho de parceria entre universidades, centros de pesquisa, e o Sistema Único de Saúde, este último estabeleça alguns eixos e categorias, e estimule continuadamente pesquisas voltadas para identificação do nível de consistência dos sistemas mencionados, pesquisas estas cujos resultados poderão funcionar na redução da instabilidade dos mesmos / Public health in the country is a department of high demand, dependent on expensive technology and quick obsolescence, with high operational and maintenance costs, and with a charge of uninterrupted growth, due to both the vegetative growth of users, and the social instability, when the unemployed lose the condition of using additional health system and migrate to the public service. There is a worsening of the situation caused by the geographical dispersion of the population, by the size of the country. The Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System), through the PlanejaSUS, mantain a continued effort of planning the operation of public health in the country, for what it use, among other features, the following systems: information on live borns; reportable diseases information; hospital information; and mortality information. In order to identify the consistency degree of these systems was made a survey of the past 5 years, using articles that pointed such feature. Using cutouts of articles, analysis and tabulation of results, it was identified the predominance of disabilities of personnel and quality of the information, the latter arising out of the first. In only one case there was complaint of information technology infrastructure. It is concluded by the prioritization of work of persuasion and training of employees; by an adjustment in anticipation for the accuracy of the systems, since by its macro scale, given the geographic dispersion and the large number of people involved, that these are systems with natural tendency to instability; the role that research such as those presented in articles can make in the control of such systems; by consistency presented by systems, which although are not great, has sustained extensive research whose results are validated by literature subsidies and databases crossover. It also suggests the possibility of, in a working partnership between universities, research centers, and the Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System), the latter shall establish some axes and categories, and encourage continued research aimed to identifying the level of consistency of the mentioned systems, these research results may work in reducing instability

A saúde pública no país é uma área de alta demanda, dependente de tecnologia cara e de rápida obsolescência, com custos operacional e de manutenção altos, e com uma cobrança de crescimento ininterrupto, decorrente tanto do aumento vegetativo dos usuários, quanto da instabilidade social, quando os desempregados perdem a condição de se utilizar da saúde suplementar e migram para a rede pública. Há um agravamento de tal situação pela dispersão geográfica da população, pelo tamanho do país. O Sistema Único de Saúde, através do PlanejaSUS, tem um esforço continuado de planejar o funcionamento da saúde pública no país, para o que se utiliza, entre outros recursos, dos seguintes sistemas: de Informações sobre Nascidos Vivos; de Informação de Agravos de Notificação; de Informações Hospitalares; e de Informação de Mortalidade. Com o objetivo de identificar o grau de consistência dos mesmos, foi feito um levantamento de periódicos dos últimos 5 anos, de artigos que apontavam tal característica. Mediante a utilização de recortes dos artigos, análise e tabulação de resultados, identificou-se o predomínio de deficiências de pessoal e de qualidade das informações, estas últimas decorrentes das primeiras. Em apenas um caso houve queixa da infraestrutura de tecnologia da informação. Conclui-se pela priorização de trabalhos de persuasão e capacitação de funcionários; por um ajuste na expectativa pela precisão dos sistemas, já que por seu macro dimensionamento, face à dispersão geográfica e ao grande número de pessoas envolvidas, são sistemas com tendência natural à instabilidade; pelo papel que pesquisas como as apresentadas nos artigos podem fazer no controle de tais sistemas; pela consistência apresentada atualmente pelos sistemas, que embora não seja ótima, tem sustentado inúmeras pesquisas cujos resultados são validados por subsídios da literatura e cruzamento de bancos de dados. Aventa-se ainda a possibilidade de, em um trabalho de parceria entre universidades, centros de pesquisa, e o Sistema Único de Saúde, este último estabeleça alguns eixos e categorias, e estimule continuadamente pesquisas voltadas para identificação do nível de consistência dos sistemas mencionados, pesquisas estas cujos resultados poderão funcionar na redução da instabilidade dos mesmos / Public health in the country is a department of high demand, dependent on expensive technology and quick obsolescence, with high operational and maintenance costs, and with a charge of uninterrupted growth, due to both the vegetative growth of users, and the social instability, when the unemployed lose the condition of using additional health system and migrate to the public service. There is a worsening of the situation caused by the geographical dispersion of the population, by the size of the country. The Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System), through the PlanejaSUS, mantain a continued effort of planning the operation of public health in the country, for what it use, among other features, the following systems: information on live borns; reportable diseases information; hospital information; and mortality information. In order to identify the consistency degree of these systems was made a survey of the past 5 years, using articles that pointed such feature. Using cutouts of articles, analysis and tabulation of results, it was identified the predominance of disabilities of personnel and quality of the information, the latter arising out of the first. In only one case there was complaint of information technology infrastructure. It is concluded by the prioritization of work of persuasion and training of employees; by an adjustment in anticipation for the accuracy of the systems, since by its macro scale, given the geographic dispersion and the large number of people involved, that these are systems with natural tendency to instability; the role that research such as those presented in articles can make in the control of such systems; by consistency presented by systems, which although are not great, has sustained extensive research whose results are validated by literature subsidies and databases crossover. It also suggests the possibility of, in a working partnership between universities, research centers, and the Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System), the latter shall establish some axes and categories, and encourage continued research aimed to identifying the level of consistency of the mentioned systems, these research results may work in reducing instability