Organisational impacts on the environment have been a primary topic of discussion for several decades, prompting a need for organisations to eva- luate and manage their environmental impacts. Environmental management systems have since been adopted by companies worldwide for numerous reasons and benefits. In more recent years, IT solutions have been designed to meet the various needs of environmental management but with little at- tention drawn to a standardised approach.   The following thesis aims to determine the use of IT adopted by organisa- tions to support their environmental management systems (EMSs). In doing so, the importance of EMSs, IT solutions to support EMSs and the benefits of IT for such systems are addressed. A small number of informative inter- views were conducted with EMS consultants and numerous representatives of ISO 14001 certified companies to establish what IT solutions are availa- ble to support EMSs and identify the differences between such solutions.   This thesis demonstrates that IT solutions adopted by organisations to sup- port their EMSs differ in complexity and depend upon the expected results of the EMS itself. Depending on how integral the EMS is to the organisa- tion’s business processes, IT can benefit the EMS and ultimately the organi- sation in a number of ways. In conclusion, EMSs can be implemented with little technical aid. However, IT is a communicative tool adopted to review, manage and monitor environmental data and enables easier handling of en- vironmental data enhancing the performance of the EMS.

The world is changing and the business context is no exception. One of the clearest tendencies is a tougher business climate with harder competition due to increased international trade and the expansion of the e-business. At the same time the customers are becoming more sophisticated and demanding. The last decades have also meant that tougher and more frequent demands are being aimed at the businesses from a wider variety of stakeholders; demands regarding how environmental issues, social responsibilities and business ethics should be dealt with. All of the above have driven companies towards implementation of different management systems to be able to cope with the demands as well as to ensure that these issues are being dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. The result is that there might be quite a few management systems that have to be handled, usually a time consuming and bureaucratic task. Theory in the field suggests that an integration of the different management systems is logical and profitable as well as beneficial in many other aspects. Some of the benefits that could be gained due to the holistic approach that the integrated management system (IMS) provides are an alignment of goals and strategies as well as elimination of duplications and sub-optimizations. The IMS will also provide an opportunity for companies to strive towards sustainable development in a balanced manner. Despite this not many companies have intentionally sought to integrate their management systems. Researchers within the field note that there is a lack of empirical data to support the theories regarding how companies act when integrating their management systems, knowledge that might provide insights why integration and IMSs is not more widespread.Hence it is interesting as well as theoretical motivated to further study this area, especially as IMSs might be an aid on the companies’ journey towards sustainable development, a highly important issue. This qualitative multiple case study aims to contribute with knowledge regarding how Swedish companies have handled the issue of IMS, more specific, what driving forces, opportunities and hindrances they have experienced associated with IMS. This, as the knowledge about Swedish firms is limited. The research questions are answered through interviews with managers responsible for the management systems. The findings suggest that companies with more than one management system integrates them to some degree, however not always intentionally, and that it might be a lack of clear motives, driving forces and stakeholder demands that limits further or full integration. The outcome is that integration primarily becomes a coordination of existing management systems with purpose to reduce bureaucracy and redundancies. / Företagsklimatet har de senaste årtiondena genomgått stora förändringar, de tydligaste tendenserna är hur konkurrensen blivit hårdare på grund av utökad internationell och elektronisk handel, samtidigt som kunderna blivit mer kräsna och krävande. Parallellt med detta har vi sett hur allt fler och kraftfullare krav från olika intressenter riktas mot företagen; krav på hur miljö, socialt ansvarstagande och affärsetik bör hanteras. Detta har medfört att företagen implementerat olika ledningssystem för att effektivt hantera dessa frågor. Teorin föreslår att en integrering av ledningssystemen är både logisk och lönsam såväl som i övrigt fördelaktig. Detta då ett integrerat ledningssystem har fördelen av att kunna hantera samtliga frågor på ett holistiskt sätt, bland annat kan uppkomster av dubbelarbete, suboptimeringar och konflikter mellan olika strategier och mål undvikas. Dessutom erbjuder det integrerade ledningssystemet möjligheten att på ett balanserat och effektivt sätt närma sig hållbar utveckling. Trots detta är det relativt få organisationer som medvetet har sökt integrera sina olika ledningssystem för att bättre kunna hantera olika intressenters krav och önskemål. Författare inom området påtalar att det saknas empiriskt stöd för teori kring hur organisationer praktiskt gör när de integrerar, något som annars skulle kunna erbjuda förklaringar till varför integrering inte sker i större utsträckning.Det är alltså såväl intressant som teoretisk motiverat att undersöka detta, speciellt då integrerade ledningssystem kan vara ett hjälpmedel i företagens strävan mot hållbar utveckling. Denna kvalitativa studie syftar således till att bidra med kunskap kring hur svenska företag hanterar frågan om integrerade ledningssystem; vilka drivkrafter, möjligheter och hinder de upplever inom området. Detta då kunskapen om hur svenska företag agerar kring dessa frågor är begränsad. Frågorna besvaras genom tre fallstudier, där intervjuer med ansvariga för ledningssystemen har genomförts. Resultaten indikerar att företag, dock kanske inte alltid medvetet, integrerar sina ledningssystem till en viss grad men att en avsaknad av tydliga motiv, intressentkrav och drivkrafter förklarar varför ytterligare, eller full integrering, ej sker. Detta medför att integrering i första hand innebär att en samordning av befintliga ledningssystem sker i syfte att reducera byråkrati och dubbelarbete.

Competence Portals are software tools that are intended to make it easier for persons that have had no previous contact to find and contact each other. The portals can address areas ranging from finding an expert within an organisation to the marketing of the competence of a region or a research centre to other organisations. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the necessity of Competence Portals in research-intensive organisations. Important characteristics of the information in such portals have been identified and used as a basis for recommendations regarding how Competence Portals could be designed. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on the task of finding a source of knowledge within an organisation. The study is of a general nature and is supposed to be of interest to anyone who has an interest in knowledge management and tools to enable easy contacts within and between organisations. The study includes research organisations from Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom and privately owned Swedish companies. The focus is on the German research organisations and Swedish companies. The empirical data was gathered using two surveys and multiple interviews with both persons featured in a Competence Portal as well as prospective users. We have found that is uncommon to have access to tools such as Competence Portals in the studied groups. The tasks that a portal is meant to make easier is most often already solved in an efficient way or not performed frequently enough to merit a larger investment. Furthermore, the general opinion regarding Competence Systems in the studied group is very sceptical. We have therefore reached the conclusion that the demand for a software solution such as Competence Portals is low in the studied group. As a result of the little room for improvement in current work procedures and a general low demand we conclude that the necessity of Competence Portals is low in the studied group. However, Competence Portals are likely to be useful to very large or geographically scattered organisations. We have summarized our findings regarding the quality aspects of the information inCompetence Portals in a model that illustrates the important areas to consider when designing a Competence Portal. The model emphasise the importance of processes for updating and maintaining the information in the portal.

Many of the future methods are used in areas like economical studies, predicting future markets or legislations that might have an effect on a company or an organization. There is a necessity for knowing what the future holds. Following sustainable development companies has begun to adopt standardized environmental management systems like EMAS and ISO 14001. The companies that use scenario methods are often companies that also use environmental management and standardized management systems, which also is the case in this study. The aim of the study is to examine how future oriented studies can be used to develop the environmental strategic arena, by suggesting possible work procedures. The aim is also to describe how different future studies and techniques theoretically can be used within the strategic environmental area and to examine the use of future studies within different companies. Four Semi-structured interviews were made with companies that both use EMS and future studies. The interviews and the theoretical framework in study were used to answer the aim. The results indicate that company future studies only have an effect on the market area and not the company EMS, the influence at the best is only indirect. The companies are more focused on factors that can change the market and economical aspects surrounding their products and services, than on factors that can be of important in making strategic important decisions about the appearance of the future environmental arena. Future oriented studies can be of use in EMS, the forecasting used in company A or the external method used in the three other companies. The methods each have qualities that are of use in different areas of the standardized EMS. Forecasting can help the user in the beginning of the planning process of EMS, with its short term visions the user can create an understanding about which way to go and this can then be complemented with backcasting. External scenarios used in the other three companies should be able to be integrated with the environmental area of the companies. These companies have god conditions to integrate their scenario work with the EMS because of the knowledge and use of future studies today. / The ISRN in the pdf-file is incorrect. The correct ISRN is shown below.

Pavement Management Systems (PMS) are widely used by transportation agencies to maintain safe, durable and economic road networks. PMS prioritize the maintenance and rehabilitation of pavement sections by evaluating pavement performance at the network level. There are many PMS software packages that have been developed over the past decades for provincial/state road agencies. However, sometimes due to lack of budget and experience, adopting the existing PMS for a road agency is not cost effective. Thus, it is important to introduce a simple, effective, and affordable PMS for a local agency and municipality. This research is carried out in partnership between the City of Markham and the Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology (CPATT) located at the University of Waterloo. For the purpose of developing a PMS for local agencies, an extensive literature review on PMS components was carried out, with emphasizing data inventory, data collection, and performance evaluation. In addition, the literature review also concentrated on the overall pavement condition assessment. In July 2011, a study on “Evaluation of Pavement Distress Measurement Survey” was conducted as a part of this research and was distributed to cities and municipalities across Canada. The study focused on the current state-of-the-practice in pavement distress and condition evaluation methods used by local agencies to compare the results from the literature review. The components of the proposed PMS framework are also developed based on the literature review with some modifications and technical requirements. The City of Markham is selected as a case study, since it represents a local agency and provides all the data, to illustrate the validation of the proposed PMS framework.

Previous work on innovation performance has focused on either organization or individual-level analysis. The current study is the first that we are aware of in which multilevel theory and method were applied to innovation behavior and innovation performance. This multilevel study of 100 managers, 512 R&D teams of employees from 38 R&D companies demonstrated that both individual-and team-level factors were significantly associated with innovation behavior: Balanced psychological contract fulfillment explained within-team variance, and innovation climate explained between-team variance. Further, employee innovation behavior aggregated to the team level explained between-team variance in innovation performance. This paper also explores the impact of the RBV on the theoretical and empirical development of SHRM and innovation climate. This study is to introduce Intellectual capital as a mediating construct between knowledge human resource management (KHRM) systems and knowledge create. This study provides consistent support for the notion that KHRM systems are fundamental in the development of intellectual capital. This study also found intellectual capital to be associated with increased knowledge creation and innovation performance. With regard to intellectual capital¡¦s mediating role in the HR-performance linkage, this study provides both managers and academics with a more fine-grained analysis of how to target HR investments that build intellectual capital, which, in turn, drive team innovation performance. The results contribute to knowledge on the resource-based view of the firm and the importance of multilevel theory.

With the advances in technology, the change of the healthcare environment, and the need for users, the use of computerized support systems or expert systems are able to cut down costs for unnecessary procedures, achieve higher levels of efficiency and productivity. Applied to the nursing department, it may provide good quality of care, decrease the time that nurses duplicate patient history, reduce nurses¡¦ burden and enhance the abilities to solve problems. The topic of this research mainly focused on the nursing department in the pediatric ward. I propose a framework for nursing knowledge management by using subjective data, objective data, assessment, and care plan (SOAP), which is used by the nursing staffs as a way of decision-making processes. The method is to collect subjective and objective data, read relevant clinical practice guidelines, make clinical judgments about patients¡¦ actual or potential problems and provide applicable nursing plans and interventions. The staffs review and make final decision to accept or reject these judgments, nursing plans and related interventions. If the staffs reject any judgment, nursing plan and intervention, the system should have inquiry-signs to ask physician and nursing staff. Then the staffs correct the inappropriateness. These clear and easy-to-follow processes help student nurses or beginning nurses cultivate their abilities to care and hope it can provide as a guide to nursing teaching and clinical patient care.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of gender, CGPA and amount of weekly Internet use on the acceptance of CMS (Course Management System). Specifically, the purpose is to investigate METU-ONLINE in a course given in PSPA (Political Science and Public Administration) department at METU. One questionnaire has been used in the study. The questionnaires have been distributed to 63 PSPA students who were enrolled to POLITICAL HISTORY (ADM3106) course during spring semester of 2007-2008 year. The data gathered from the students with questionnaires has been analyzed in SPSS 16.0 program with ANOVA method using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that students&rsquo / Cumulative GPA and amount of weekly Internet use have an effect on the perceived usefulness of METU-ONLINE.

<p>Organisational impacts on the environment have been a primary topic of</p><p>discussion for several decades, prompting a need for organisations to eva-</p><p>luate and manage their environmental impacts. Environmental management</p><p>systems have since been adopted by companies worldwide for numerous</p><p>reasons and benefits. In more recent years, IT solutions have been designed</p><p>to meet the various needs of environmental management but with little at-</p><p>tention drawn to a standardised approach.</p><p> </p><p>The following thesis aims to determine the use of IT adopted by organisa-</p><p>tions to support their environmental management systems (EMSs). In doing</p><p>so, the importance of EMSs, IT solutions to support EMSs and the benefits</p><p>of IT for such systems are addressed. A small number of informative inter-</p><p>views were conducted with EMS consultants and numerous representatives</p><p>of ISO 14001 certified companies to establish what IT solutions are availa-</p><p>ble to support EMSs and identify the differences between such solutions.</p><p> </p><p>This thesis demonstrates that IT solutions adopted by organisations to sup-</p><p>port their EMSs differ in complexity and depend upon the expected results</p><p>of the EMS itself. Depending on how integral the EMS is to the organisa-</p><p>tion’s business processes, IT can benefit the EMS and ultimately the organi-</p><p>sation in a number of ways. In conclusion, EMSs can be implemented with</p><p>little technical aid. However, IT is a communicative tool adopted to review,</p><p>manage and monitor environmental data and enables easier handling of en-</p><p>vironmental data enhancing the performance of the EMS.</p>

Syftet med denna studie är att få kunskaper om hur lärplattformar och sociala nätverksverktyg stödjer undervisningen. Lärplattformar kallas för Learning Management Systems på engelska och förkortas med LMS. Det är ett samarbetsverktyg som används av lärare och studenter i undervisningen. Sociala nätverksverktyg används för att lärare ska kunna publicera sitt material via olika sociala nätverksverktyg, och de viktigaste verktygen är Facebook, bloggar och You-tube. De senaste åren har lärare börjat integrera sin undervisning med sociala nätverksverktyg för att de utökade kommunikationsmöjligheterna kan gynna lärandet.Denna studie handlar om användning av lärplattformar och sociala nätverksverktyg i högre utbildning. Uppsatsen bygger på en intervjustudie med lärare i två olika utbildningar på Högskolan Väst. De lärare som har intervjuats har olika erfarenheter av användning av lärplatt-formar och sociala nätverksverktyg. En av de slutsatser som har framkommit i studien är att diskussionsforum i alla lärplattformar inte är användbara. Ett annat resultat som har framkommit i denna uppsats är att via lärplattformen kan lärarna examinera studenter på ett bra och säkert sätt. Sociala nätverksverktyg och andra verktyg innehåller många fler funktioner och är mer tillgängliga för de flesta användare. Lärplattformar erbjuder en del möjligheter och att sociala nätverksverktyg erbjuder andra möjligheter. Detta innebär att man kan integrera olika verktygs-stöd för att läraren ska kunna göra sitt arbete på ett bra och flexibelt sätt. / The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and how learning platforms and social networking tools supporting education. LMS is a tool used by teachers and students in education. Social networks are used by teachers for publishing their materials through various social networking tools, and the most used tools are Facebook, blogs, and YouTube. In recent years, teachers have been integrating their teaching with social network-ing tools for practical activities can be powerful tools for learning.This work is about the use of learning platforms and social networking tools in higher education. The work is based on some interviews of teachers in two different courses in the University West. The teachers who have been interviewed have different experiences on the use of learning platforms and social networking tools. One of the conclusions that have emerged in the study is that the discussion boards that is already available in the learning platforms are not useful. Something else that has emerged in this study is that by learning platform teachers can examine students in a good and safe way. Social networking tools and other tools contains many more features and is more available for most users. Another conclusion is that learning platforms offer some opportunities, and social networking tools offer other possibilities. This means that you can integrate different tool support for the teacher to be able to do their work in a good and flexible way.