This dissertation takes up developments in European Union policymaking that indicate important shifts from an emphasis on prioritizing markets and economic arrangements to a greater recognition and competing prioritization of what can be broadly characterized as "social" concerns. Potentially sweeping changes are taking place in EU policy in the areas of food safety, chemicals, and gender equality. Each is being substantially guided, even driven by concerns for public health, sustainability, and basic rights defined in terms of their social consequences. Such a socially defined agenda is increasingly important in European Union policymaking. This dissertation investigates these developments through case studies - based on interviews and original documents, as well as secondary literature - in three otherwise quite different policy sectors: the transformation of EU food policy from its focus on food as primarily a market commodity to taking into consideration and prioritizing public health and consumer safety concerns; EU chemicals policy and the banning of asbestos in Europe; the development of gender equality as an EU goal and the emergence of domestic violence as an EU policy concern. The concepts of public policy paradigm - and paradigm shifts - are employed as theoretical tools to specify, analyze and understand: 1) the priority ordering of guiding principles and institutional arrangements for defining and creating public policy, 2) public problem definitions and attributed causes, 3) the classes of social actors who are deemed authoritative, credible, and responsible for the amelioration of such problems, 4) the choice and formation of institutional strategies and definitions of appropriate means for problem solving, and more broadly, 5) the ways in which competing compelxes of leading ideas influence the choice and formation of institutional strategies. A paradigm shift in this perspective entails changes in one or more of the core dimensions of a paradigm. Such shifts also typically result in pressures to restructure institutional arrangements to make them consistent with a new paradigm. The cases examined here illustrate varying stages in an ongoing interplay between policy paradigms, actors, and institutional arrangements. The dissertation concludes that paradigmatic shifts have taken place in the three policy sectors examined, and that institutionalization is in varying phases of development.

This thesis is a case study of the Swedish Rehabilitation Reform of 1992. Vocational rehabilitation is described as an organizational activity which takes place in the interaction between social policy regulations and organizational execution. The analytical point of departure is made up of two complementary theoretical perspectives (Chapter 3): New institutional theory and the concept of 'negotiated order'. New institutional theory can aid inter-organizational analysis as it assumes that organizations are not only influenced, but also permeated by institutional and technical frameworks. The 'negotiated order' perspective can provide an understanding of actors' motives when they work together. This perspective also acknowledges that actors are able to exercise 'episodic power', and that this differs from 'formal power'. The first empirical study (Chapter 4) analyses the political motives behind the Rehabilitation Reform of 1992. It shows that at the time of the Rehabilitation Reform economical and political interests were pushing for a tighter regulations in Swedish social policy. The following three empirical studies focus on the 'organizational field' in which rehabilitation is practised. This field consists of the social insurance office, employment agencies, primary health care centres and occupational health service centres. Chapter 5 deals with the regulations and environmental factors influencing the various organizations and their representatives. It points to five external forces that influence the performance of the four type of actors. The social insurance office is influenced by a judicial social insurance logic, the employment agencies by a holistic labour market policy logic, and the physicians in primary health care centres and in occupational health centres by a 'holistic' medical frame of reference, which contrasts with that often found in other medical sub-specialities. Finally, employers are influenced first, by a logic of profit which has a technical and institutional dimension and second, by an institutional welfare state logic. Chapter six shows that the largest 'domain conflict' in the initial phase of the rehabilitation trajectory has to do with defining 'capacity to work'. Domain conflicts are seen as resulting from different institutional logics, implying different views on illness and capacity to work. Numerous and frequent personal interaction make it possible for physicians and rehabilitation officials to avoid conflict. The operative phase is associated with two major domain conflicts. The first is related to negotiations between the social insurance office and the employers about transferring employees to other duties. Both sides avoid exercising power that may damage clients and future trust. Episodic power resources are used to exercise the strategy of 'the golden middle path'. The other domain conflict is related to the judgement of work capacity. The labour market officials' view of work capacity differs from that of the officials at the social insurance office. Chapter seven compares cooperative rehabilitation projects with regular rehabilitation activity. The results show that actors in cooperative projects break the sequential work order used in regular rehabilitation activity and thereby projects quickly collect comprehensive information about individuals. Cooperative projects can also achieve flexible solutions tailored to an individual clients needs. Further, cooperative projects allow time for unconventional initiatives, which regular activity do not. The process of 'returning to work' poses a challenge both kinds of work organizations. Individuals who are disabled in some way are required to meet the same labour market demands as healthy and well educated are expected to meet. Finally, regular rehabilitation work tends uses standardize clients while cooperative projects tend to treat them as individuals. / digitalisering@umu

The primary aim of this essay and qualitative case study is to identify different explanations of why the European External Action Service (EEAS) was organised and why it resulted in today’s organisation. Existing research not entirely updated highlighted the need for new information. Furthermore, since existing research mostly focuses on other aspects, such as the character of EU foreign policy or the role of the EU internationally, this motivated an alternative approach. Three main branches of New Institutionalism (rational choice, historical and sociological) constitute a theoretical framework, aimed at identifying explanations perhaps not earlier contemplated. Findings suggest for example that a major reason for the organisation of this service is due to self-interest maximising, increasing the EUs political and economic influence by acting more coherent. The need to attain legitimacy and resemble other established actors by adopting institutionalised practices and structures in the homogeneous diplomatic field is another explanation. The Service is partially organised the way it is because of the successes of major EU institutions and the member states in ‘locking-in’ their preferences. Organisational characteristics can also be explained as results of several historical, institutional upgrades in relation to earlier treaties and debates on the future of Europe.

The Swedish child welfare system allows a possibility to place children in out-of-home-care. In 2016 a new form of placement was introduced: supported housing [stödboende]. The main purpose of a placement in supported housing is to prepare the residents – young people between the ages of 16 and 20 – for an independent life and living. Unaccompanied youths constitutes a category of service-users that has become relevant for placement in supported housing due to the assumption that they are in need of support-oriented rather that treatment- and care-oriented services. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to analyse how supported housing units for unaccompanied youths are organised and how the staff describe working to ensure the independence of the youths. To meet the purpose of the study, supported housing units in three Swedish municipalities have been studied through a total of 15 semi-structured interviews with section managers, unit managers, coordinators and staff. Supported housing for unaccompanied youths has been studied as an organisational idea which has been received and adopted in the municipalities. To understand how external pressure and internal processes influence the units and the work, an organisational perspective has been applied on the empirical material, through new institutionalism and Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracies. From Said’s theory of orientalism the construction of “the other” is used as a complement to also understand how different constructions of residents and work with independency are expressed. The results of the study indicates that the organisation of the units and the work within them are highly affected by external factors, such as reduced economical resources and the situation in which many of the placed youths are still awaiting decisions on their asylum applications due to long processing times at the Swedish Migration Agency. This leads to great challenges both in terms of organisation and work. To meet the needs of the situation informal adjustments of routines and work are often made by both managers and staff. Concerning the work with independency, a division of three becomes visible: practical, societal and emotional/social independency. How the work is conducted seems to be influenced not only by the discretion of the staff, but also by whether or not the youths have received a residential permit. An important conclusion is the emergence of a construction of the “ideal” supported housing unit, where the placed youths can practice on standing on their own two feet in a safe environment. However there is also a parallel construction of “reality”, where challenges beyond the control of the staff and managers highly affect the units and the organisation of the work, including economical resources, the Swedish asylum politics, other social service actors, as well as the mental health of the placed youths.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissLAS.pdf: 1610456 bytes, checksum: 384963044acc35e1a9c43651ac50d949 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-12-18 / In the last decade there has been a growth on society concern with topics related to epics, citizenship, human rights, economic development and social belonging. In this sense, all kinds of organizations are more and more worried on reaching and showing performance related to environment protection, socially and economically correct, controlling the impacts of its relations, processes, products and services in society according to its politics and its social responsibility goals. However, many doubts concerning what really is socially responsible in practical application, therefore in its speech. Although there has been indicators that point to the industries mentality and posture change related to its engagement in the social space. The reasons which promoted it are still doubtful. Probably this reasons must achieve specific shaping in specific realities as well, so the importance of the study: a contributions on the comprehension as how the industrial social responsibility is configured in the Sao Paulo´s orange-juice complex. Thus, the objective of this work is to design a framework of industrial social responsibility in the citric section of the São Paulo State and therefore there has been developed a case study of three different important agents in this reproductive chain. Throughout this study there is a search to build up an analysis in the comprehension of this issues on what concerns to be socially responsible, approaching and existent dynamic in the sector environmental institution that reinforces the adoption and the restructuring of acts related to industrial social responsibility. As a result it has been notice that the socially responsible acts are acts which has been an adaptation from pressure received by each agent, as well as they are isomorphic within each segment since it can be verified the existence of realities, power and legitimacy very different among the agents. It has also been noticed that the activities has been well accepted by human resources professionals and that the industrial social responsibility has been taken as a management tool. / Nas últimas décadas tem crescido a mobilização e a preocupação da sociedade com temas associados à ética, cidadania, direitos humanos, desenvolvimento econômico e sustentável e inclusão social. Neste sentido, organizações de todos os tipos estão cada vez mais preocupadas em atingir e demonstrar desempenhos ambientais, econômicos e sociais adequados, controlando os impactos de suas relações, processos, produtos e serviços na sociedade, de forma consistente com sua política e com seus objetivos de responsabilidade social. No entanto, muitas dúvidas persistem a respeito do que seja ser socialmente responsável na prática, assim como no discurso. Apesar de já existirem, de modo geral, indicadores que sinalizam para a mudança de mentalidade e posturas das empresas quanto ao seu engajamento no espaço social, as razões que provocaram tal engajamento ainda geram dúvidas. Provavelmente, tais razões devem ganhar contornos específicos em realidades também especificas, o que acaba por exigir estudos em diferentes ambientes. Daí a importância desse estudo: a contribuição para compreender como a responsabilidade social empresarial se configura no setor citrícola paulista. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalhado é desenhar um arcabouço de responsabilidade social empresarial no setor citrícola do Estado de São Paulo e para tanto, realizou-se um estudo de caso com três diferentes atores importantes desta cadeia produtiva. Com este estudo buscou-se construir uma análise do entendimento destes, no tocante a ser socialmente responsável, abordando a dinâmica existente no ambiente institucional do setor, que reforça a adoção e estruturação de ações relativas a responsabilidade social empresarial. Como resultado percebeu-se que as ações de responsabilidade social são ações adaptativas às pressões sofridas por cada ator, bem como são isomórficas dentro de cada segmento pois, no caso do setor em estudo, pode-se verificar a existência de realidades, poder e legitimidade bem diferente entre os atores. Constatou-se, também, que as atividades foram abraçadas pelos profissionais de recursos humanos e que a responsabilidade social empresarial passou a ser vista como uma ferramenta de gestão.

This study explains the process of how Kista bibliotek, a library in Stockholm, evolves from being an idea to a running activity. The library is created in a time of change, both political and economical and is supposed to meet many different goals set from many different actors. The library is placed in one of Stockholm’s biggest shopping centres, Kista galleria and close to Kista science city which is an important midpoint for international businesses and science. Kista is also an area of segregation and socioeconomic problems and the library want to connect the different ‘worlds’ and together; the local people, businesses and the community create an environment which to be proud of. With new institutionalism as theoretical frameworks and with the use of qualitative interviews and unobtrusive observations, this paper shows how the original idea transforms throughout different levels of the organization. How the library evolves to be both traditional and progressive, how it meets the needs of the locals and work with the commercial environment to fulfil their mission to be a public place in the middle a commercial shopping centre. This study portrays a picture of a library which is moves between different organizational fields, between the private and public sector to achieve the goal of being a modern library in a modern world.

The aim of this thesis was to find the answers on question how the situation, when the institutionalisation of cooperation among the Member States in the field of armament policy is taking the place, but some of its actor - in the present case Czech Republic - are not respecting the existing rules, is explained by the new institutionalism, one of the middle range theories of European Integration. The defence industries of the Member States of the EU went through deep transformation process in the 1990's in order to be able to meet the government requirements for the military equipment for its armed forces. Suitable military equipment of the European armies is one of the prerequisites for the success of military missions, which take place either within NATO or the European Security and Defence policy. The rise of European cooperation among Member States led to the creation of several organizations, such an as OCCAR or European Defence Agency. The latter is considered by the Member States as an important move on the way towards the creation of European Defence and Equipment Market. Also the role of European Commission has quite changed during last decade. EC is issuing new rules to be obeyed by the Member States, especially in the field of defence procurement. Today the European Commission does not...

In recent years the failures in the exchange of information between different parts of a highly specialized social services sector has been increasingly criticized. Criticism that has pointed out the dangers of these shortcomings within this highly specialized sector. One main characteristic of specialized social services is that the profession's domain is divided into one or more social service authorities and one or more treatment units. This study aims to show the integrative processes that exist within the specialized social services sector and points out the importance that they have. Further this study will show what factors are influencing these integrative processes. The concept of integrative processes describes in general the interaction between different actors, actors that seek collaboration in order to achieve common goals. The work focuses on integrative processes within a highly specialized social services sector which occur during the initiation and implementation of home-based treatment programs. Programs targeted at children and young people who are no older than 17 years and were carried out by the social services' own treatment resources. The reason for this is the high incidence of integrative processes in this phase of work which therefore enables a comprehensive examination of these interactions. The empirical material in this study is made up partly of documents such as operation plans and semi-standardized research interviews. The analysis of the data is carried out within a theoretical framework consisting of a coupling of the Domain Theory and New Institutionalism Organization Theory. The final discussion points out the factors that reinforce a positive impact on integrative processes and their application in the initiation and evaluation of home-based treatment programs.

Som en följd av att det ekonomiska och kulturella fältet förts samman i större grad, har en ekonomisk logik och terminologi gjort sitt intåg i kultursektorn. Kulturen har kommit att uppmärksammas och erkännas som en viktig ingrediens för ekonomisk tillväxt och samhällsutveckling, något som påverkar vad den förväntas leda till. Kulturpolitiken har bidragit med att sprida idéer om kulturen, samt ställa högre krav på kulturfältet vad gäller mätning, styrning och redovisning. Att kulturen ekonomiserats och behövt anpassa sig till en managementdiskurs blir allt tydligare. Frågan är hur dessa idéer kommit att påverka kulturbidragsorganisationer i deras syn på kultur, då dessa har en nyckelroll i att bestämma vilken typ av kultur som skapas. Uppsatsen syftar till att öka förståelsen kring vad den ökade ekonomiseringen kan ha haft för inverkan på kulturen, närmare bestämt vad kulturen förväntas leda till för att få bidrag. Detta undersöktes genom en flerfallsstudie av två kulturbidrags-organisationer: Kulturbryggan och Postkodlotteriets kulturstiftelse, samt genom kompletterande röster från kulturutövare. Studien visar att inga av samtliga respondenter anser att kulturen bör förväntas leda till ekonomisk tillväxt. Däremot behöver den visa på ett ekonomiskt värde för att kunna legitimeras. I studien går det även att utläsa ökade ekonomiska krav på mätbarhet, redovisning och utvärdering samt ett användande av ett ekonomiskt språkbruk bland respondenterna. Den ökade ekonomiseringen har även medfört ett större administrativt arbete för kulturorganisationer och kulturutövare, vilket påverkar arbetet med kärnverksamheten.

The main aim of this study is to analyze how secular organizations deal with religion in international development work, both officially and practically, and how they describe the meeting between the secular ideology and the religious context. To answer these questions we have interviewed seven employees of different secular organizations who are well familiar with the organization’s operational as well as strategic work. The study also examines the official documents of each organization. The result show that none of the organizations has any policies about religion and that there is no active dialogue about how to deal with religion within the organizations. The results also show that religion is described as a tool and a resource for change rather than is implemented in the development work. Further, the dialogue around religion is often translated into secular terms. In order to problematize and to analyze the results, the study has mainly been inspired by theories of postcolonialism, secularism, path dependency and historical institutionalism which all together highlight the issue of secularism, religion and development. / Syftet med studien har varit att kritiskt analysera hur sekulära organisationer förhåller sig till religionsfrågor i utvecklingssamarbete i religiösa kontexter. Våra frågeställningar berör hur organisationerna förhåller sig officiellt till religionsfrågor i utvecklingssamarbetet, hur de förhåller sig till dessa frågor i praktiken samt hur organisationerna beskriver mötet mellan den sekulära ideologin och den religiösa kontexten. För att ta reda på detta har vi utfört sju kvalitativa intervjuer med anställda inom sekulära organisationer som är väl insatta i organisationernas strategiska och operationella arbete samt i deras ideologiska grunder. Vi har även studerat organisationernas officiella dokument. Studiens resultat visar att samtliga organisationer saknar riktlinjer kring religion, att det inte förs någon aktiv dialog kring religionsfrågor inom organisationerna samt att organisationerna till stor del förhåller sig till religionsfrågor genom att bekräfta och respektera dess förekomst i arbetet. Det framkommer även att religiösa ledare ses som en tillgång och att religion ses som ett verktyg när det kommer till att förankra arbetet. Resultatet visar vidare på att organisationerna delvis förhåller sig till frågorna genom att beskriva dem i mer sekulära termer och pratar snarare om exempelvis mänskliga rättigheter och demokrati än om religion i arbetet i de religiösa kontexterna. I analysen av det insamlade materialet har vi utgått från teorier om sekularisering, postsekularisering, stigberoende, historisk institutionalism samt postkolonialism och även tidigare forskning inom det aktuella området, vilka på olika sätt belyser området kring sekularitet, religion och utveckling.