There has been increasing public concern about farm animal welfare regarding transportation, slaughter, and some management practices, especially in systems where animals are confined for most of their existence. Animal welfare organizations (groups) have traditionally focused on forwarding their agendas through legislation, although more recent attempts have focused on convincing large firms that buy agricultural commodities to require particular production process standards to be met. The strategic interactions of players in the egg industry are modeled using a game theory approach. Two scenarios were explored: a principal-agent contract model between food firms and farmers, and a model where two firms are targeted by animal activists. The former model was empirically analyzed while the latter model was theoretically examined. Results for the principal-agent contract model indicate that, in general, the decision by the farmer of whether to invest in a free-range production system is dependent on the probability of being caught cheating. Whether contracts will be accepted or rejected by suppliers is dependent on the premium for free-range eggs. Finally, as the amount that can be lost if caught breaching the contract decreases, investment is motivated only with a higher probability of being caught. Theoretical analysis where competition did not matter and animal welfare was not a determinant of demand shows that animal activists must convince food firms that there will be a significant change in revenue with compliance as opposed to rejecting the contract or negotiating a compromise in order to attain their objectives of increased animal welfare.

Disasters such as major floods and heat waves are taking an increasing toll on societies. Like other pressing policy issues, they are complex and cut across sectors, jurisdictions, and professional fields. Addressing these problems requires interorganizational collaboration between heterogeneous organizations and thus, interactions between representatives who may have different professional views and identities. Successful collaboration partly hinges on their capacity to integrate perspectives and develop sustainable working relationships despite differences. This thesis aimed to improve our understanding of the role played by professional differences in perspectives and identities in public-sector interorganizational collaboration. Three specific objectives were pursued in a multilevel approach: 1) To document the role of professional diversity for interorganizational collaboration when considered outside of sectoral or jurisdictional differences; 2) To investigate how salient differences in professional identity affect perceptions and reactions following task disagreement; and 3) To investigate the cognitive and relational pathways by which emotions, conflict perceptions, and information processing can predict decision quality and relationship quality following disagreement. Study 1 examined the experience of interorganizational collaboration in disaster management based on qualitative interviews with professional- and executive-level public servants from relevant Canadian federal organizations. Findings suggested that professional diversity was not by itself a salient issue. The most disempowering type of diversity was differences in mandates, especially when combined with differences in expertise or identities. Study 2 examined whether group composition based on professional identity was associated with differential perception of and reaction to disagreement during interorganizational problem solving. It was based on a small sample of experienced senior risk managers involved in a quasi-experimental simulation. In terms of disagreement perception, nonparametric analyses indicated that interprofessional teams reported more disagreement than homogeneous ones even if observed disagreement did not differ. In terms of reaction, disagreement showed consistent negative associations with reported measures of effectiveness, performance, and relationship quality in homogeneous teams. In contrast, these associations were either positive or nonsignificant in interprofessional teams. Study 3 experimentally tested in a disciplinary-defined university sample whether salient group professional composition affected how people perceived and reacted to a scripted task disagreement. Findings indicated that after experiencing the exact same task disagreement, participants in interprofessional teams were significantly more satisfied with their team than those in homogeneous teams. Path analyses supported the two hypothesized pathways linking emotion following disagreement to integrative decision making and satisfaction: a) a cognitive pathway whereby surprise predicted beneficial outcomes through increased reported task conflict and increased information processing and b) a relational pathway whereby negative emotions predicted detrimental outcomes through increased reported relationship conflict and decreased information processing. As a whole, the thesis improves our understanding of the cognitive and relational roles played by professional diversity in interorganizational collaboration. It provides evidence on the beneficial effects of salient diversity for group cohesion in the face of disagreement. It documents intervening cognitive and relational processes predicting performance and relational quality following task disagreement. Finally, it proposes research avenues whereby social psychology can be leveraged to support the adaptation of public-sector organizations to contemporary challenges in public policy.

This study documents and describes efforts by Oregon school districts to network in order to improve schools and provide resources for staff development. There are at least 41 networks linking school districts, institutions of higher education, and Educational Service Districts in both rural and urban areas of the state. These networks, collaboratives, and consortia have the common purpose of improving education, and the belief that they can accomplish more cooperatively than they can individually. These networks are described in terms of purposes, benefits and problems, and desire for assistance. Comparisons showed that large school districts are much more likely to participate in networks than small ones. This is significant because there are many small school districts in Oregon that would benefit from the assistance of a network in providing resources and expertise for school improvement efforts. Descriptions of three active networks in different parts of the state provided additional information regarding organizational structure, membership, and activities. There is a listing of the membership of 41 networks in the state. Statistical comparisons indicate that the greatest benefits responding school districts derived from networking include increased effectiveness of staff development efforts, sharing of information, cost sharing, and psychological support. Problems encountered in networking were: conflicting work priorities, conflicting goals, organizational problems, and funding. Two-thirds of the districts surveyed would like to have assistance for their efforts in the form of funding or incentives for networking, information on school improvement practices, and communications linkage among school districts. The study indicates that networking is widely practiced in the state of Oregon for the purpose of improving school effectiveness and staff development efforts. Implications are that this is an effective way for schools to accomplish their goals. Therefore, it is recommended that school districts not engaged in this practice give consideration to networking as an effective way to increase resources for school improvement efforts and to become more effective. It is hoped that encouragement and incentives for networking will be forthcoming from state and local education agencies. These agencies should exercise caution that their efforts to encourage networking not create unnecessary structures that would destroy the flexibility that makes networks so effective.

This study attempts to identify the variables associated with an organization's decision to participate in an interorganizational service network. The survev of literature on the subject supported the hypothesis that structural variables of complexity, formalization, and centralization and a psychological variable, the awareness of organizational interdependency, are associated with the decision to participate. Interorganizational participation was operationally defined in terms of various behavioral components: an organization's involvement with the coordinating agency, client referrals to and from other organizations and to and from the coordinating agency, and information exchanged with other organizations and with the coordinating agency. Using this framework, testable hypotheses were formulated regarding the relationship between the selected measures of the independent variables of complexity, formalization, centralization, and awareness of interdependency and the dependent variable of interorganizational participation. Human service agencies which provide services to the elderly in the State of Oregon were surveyed in this study. These agencies, together with the Area Agency on Aging, a coordinating agency established under the Older Americans Act, constituted the interorganizational service network. A main concern of that type of coordinating agency is to facilitate effective working relationships between the organizations in such service networks. This study was designed to explore the factors associated with that process. Findings and Conclusions: The evidence presented suggests that the psychological variable of awareness of interdependency is significantly related to the decision to participate. This finding was generally supported by qualitative data gathered from six organizations examined under the case study method. For the structural variable it was found that: a) complexity was not significantly related to the decision to participate; b) centralization had a significant relationship with only some components of the measures of participation; c) there was some association between formalization and the participation processes. In general, it appears that a key step to building effective networks of service organizations is to increase awareness of interdependency among organizational members.

This study aims to investigate the organizational and interorganizational challenges of an SME in achieving climate objectives in medium-sized tenant adaptation projects. In order to answer this research question, the study has used three qualitative methods: documentation analysis, direct observation and nine semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, the framework used for guiding this research utilizes the concepts of institutional logic, stakeholder theory and boundary object. This study identifies seven challenges: 1) different views on value creation, 2) balancing short-and long-term objectives, 3) the company’s strategy, 4) client demands, 5) stakeholder cooperation, 6) initial construction meeting, and 7) implementation of a new boundary object. In addition, this study also identifies five institutional logics (sustainability/customer/regulation/risk/business) within the SME which aids in interpreting the aforementioned challenges.

As globalisation is now a reality for most large organizations, and the competition for most businesses moving faster and becoming tougher, there is a need for engineering projects to deliver results faster in a more complex environment than ever, but also for companies to collaborate to utilize a wider array of competencies and to reach new markets with their products. This case study analyses which difficulties arise in interorganizational requirements engineering, and what organizations can do to alleviate the effects of those difficulties, as well as suggest which actions are most effective to focus on. The conclusion of this study is that the difficulties can be divided into three categories, namely interpersonal, structural and processual. Each category concerns a different set of people and require different actions for increased effectiveness. For the interpersonal category, prioritized efforts should be to establish a shared vocabulary and use techniques to build shared contextual understanding. For structural difficulties, evaluating management and control structures and the implementation of the project’s strategy should be prioritized. In the processual category, codifying existing processes to enable improvements, defining information artefacts and aligning information flows should be of high priority / Globaliseringens effekter är idag en verklighet för de flesta stora organisationer, och konkurrensen för företag blir hårdare och förändrar sig allt snabbare. Därför blir det allt viktigare för utvecklingsprojekt att anpassa sig till en allt mer komplex miljö och leverera resultat snabbare än tidigare, men också att samarbeta mer med andra företag för att såväl utnyttja bredare kompetens som att nå nya marknader. Den här studien undersöker utmaningarna i interorganisatoriskt kravställningsarbete, vad företag kan göra för att möta de utmaningarna, såväl som att föreslå vilka handlingar som ger mest effekt för ett bättre kravställningsarbete. Slutsatsen av studien är att utmaningarna kan delas in i tre kategorier, nämligen personorienterade, strukturella och processorienterade. Varje kategori rör en viss mängd deltagare i projektet och kräver olika handlingar för ökad effektivitet. För att minska utmaningar i den personorienterade kategorin bör ett projekt prioritera att använda tekniker för att skapa ett gemensamt språkbruk och att använda tekniker för att bygga upp gemensam kontextuell förståelse. För strukturella utmaningar bör det prioriteras att utvärdera styrnings- och kontrollstrukturer, samt hur projektets strategi har implementerats och förankrats bland deltagarna. I den processorienterade kategorin bör det prioriteras att kodifiera existerande processer för att möjliggöra förbättringsarbete, definiera informationsartefakter och att försäkra sig om att informationsflöden är i linje med varandra mellan företagen, så att rätt information möts vid rätt tillfällen.

The purpose of this study is to allow social workers who work with financial assistance to give their view of cooperation. We want to understand what opportunities and obstacles they experience with collaboration. The empirical material has been collected through nine semi-structured interviews with ten interviewees in nine different cities. According to both the previous research that this study deals with and Socialstyrelsen (2021), social workers who work with financial assistance need to cooperate with other actors in order to be able to perform the work that the professional role requires. This study shows that social workers who work with financial assistance face several obstacles in collaboration with other actors but also with other units within social services. Obstacles that stand out are lack of accessibility, lack of knowledge of each other's areas and lack of will. The social workers also believe that collaboration gives them knowledge of the work of other actors and that the work within financial assistance is made more efficient through collaboration. The study also shows suggestions for improvement regarding collaboration between financial aid and other actors. The study primarily shows a need for increased knowledge of economicassistance and the social workers' need to collaborate with other actors in order for them to be able to do the job that the professional role describes

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