The aim of this study is to examine in what ways civics teachers perceive digitalization as a means of efficiency in perspectives mainly revolving the teachers’ organization. By conducting interviews with five teachers educating within civic studies, the aim is to collect data about a perceived reality, rather than a factual state. Hence the following essay focuses on a qualitative approach, rather than a quantitative. The interviews were conducted over the internet as a result of the raging pandemic, Covid-19. By including the neoliberal marketing model of New Public Management as the theoretical framework in the analysis, the purpose is to illuminate the difficulties of steering a dynamic organization with quantitative values. The result showed that teachers were generally pessimistic about the inclusion of digital tools within both the administration and the classroom. All of the interviewed teachers worked with digital tools, but in different extent and with varied competence. The work with digital tools was well established in both administration and classroom. Teachers believed the digital tools could be used as means of efficiency, but that would require a more pragmatic approach, from developing the tools, to implementing them. Teachers mainly believed digitalization to increase the workload. The conclusion is that the downside of including digital tools overweighed the upside. The main issues teachers mentioned included indirect threats to teacher autonomy and student equality. These threats sprung out of the economic efficiency teachers believed digitalization to muster. Digitalization could be used as means to create efficiency in teaching and administration, however, not when schools are steered by a neoliberal market fundamentalism. Questions rose on how the teachers’ education prepare its students for working within this reality, and how the style of teaching could adapt to the increased opportunities digital tools provide. Furthermore, considering the current state of the world with an on-going pandemic, how will the attitudes towards digital tools and digitalization be in a near future?

Bakgrund: Användandet av PMS och olika styrmedel är föremål för ständig diskussion. Ett populärt verktyg inom styrning är det balanserade styrkortet, som kombinerar finansiella mål med ickefinansiella mål. Dessa mål fastställs och verkställs utifrån en organisations strategi. Hybrida organisationer är organisationer som har flera olika målsättningar, och har visats ha svårighet att identifiera sina mål inom det balanserade styrkortets perspektiv. I den svenska kontexten är en typ av hybrida organisationer kommunala bostadsbolag. Tidigare studier har efterfrågat vidare forskning om användandet av PMS i hybrida organisationer, varför en studie av omfattningen av kommunala bostadsbolags användning av det balanserade styrkortet kan bidra till forskningsområdet. Syfte: Skiljer sig omfattningen av redovisningen av de olika dimensionerna kopplade till det balanserade styrkortet mellan kommunala och privata bostadsbolag? Metod: Studien har applicerat en kvantitativ metod där vi, i linje med tidigare studier, tillämpar en kvantitativ innehållsanalys som består av 30 kommunala bostadsbolag och 30 privata bostadsbolag årsredovisningar. Studien bygger på en deduktiv ansats där en hypotes formulerats utifrån befintliga teorier. Erhållen empiri har använts för deskriptiv statistik, korrelationsmatrisen samt OLS-regressioner för att beskriva omfattningen av redovisning utifrån det balanserade styrkortets olika dimensioner. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att det finns vissa samband mellan kommunalt ägande av bostadsbolag och omfattningen av redovisningen av de olika dimensionerna i det balanserade styrkortet. Kommunalt ägande visade signifikant negativt samband med omfattningen av det finansiella perspektivet och interna-processer-perspektivet i det balanserade styrkortet. Av kontrollvariabler för storlek visade endast materiella anläggningstillgångar positiva signifikanta samband med omfattningen av redovisningen. / Background: The use of PMS and various management control systems is the subject of constant debate. One popular tool is the balanced scorecard, which combines financial and non-financial goals described in several different dimensions. These goals are set and executed dependent on the strategy of the organisation. Hybrid organisations are organisations which have several different goals, and have shown difficulty in identifying what their goals are in the context of the balanced scorecards various perspectives. In the context of Sweden, one type of hybrid organisations are municipal housing corporations. Earlier studies have requested further research regarding hybrid organisations and their use of PMS. This study aims to contribute to this area of research by studying the extent of municipal housing corporations use of the balanced scorecard. Purpose: Does the extent of the reporting of the different dimensions in the balanced scorecard differ between municipal housing corporations and private housing corporations? Methodology: The study applies a quantitative method in which we, in line with earlier studies, apply a quantitative content analysis which consist of 30 municipal housing corporations and 30 private housing corporations. The study is constructed with a deductive approach where a hypothesis has been formulated by existing theories. Obtained empiricism has been used for descriptive statistics, correlations matrix and OLS-regressions to describe the extent of the reporting of the different dimensions in the balanced scorecard. Conclusion: The results of the study show that there exists some relation between municipal housing corporations and the extent of the reporting of the different dimensions in the balanced scorecard. Municipal ownership showed a significant negative relation with the extent of the financial perspective and the internal processes perspective. For the control variables regarding size, only fixed assets showed a significant positive relation with the extent of the reporting.

This study is about the upcoming challenge Sweden face with a population that grows older and in need of elderly care. The challenge lies in that municipality, as it is today, won’t have the personnel to care for the elders. The study presents two problematic factors that need change for the municipality to be able to guarantee reasonable living standards according to social laws. The first factor is the decreasing profession attractiveness that makes it hard to employ personnel. The second factor, which the study focuses on, is the fact the caregivers are overrepresented in the social insurance office statistics of personnel on sick leave. We choose to focus on the caregiver’s work environment to get a perspective on the problem. To be more exact the study focuses on finding a covariance between experienced New Public Management and Sense of coherence. Our second focus is to see if there is an underlying relation between the experienced New Public Management reforms and the three parts of Sense of coherence; meaningfulness, comprehensibility and manageability. A third focus is to see if the relationship is influenced by the caregivers’ age and work experience. Our main findings are that experienced New Public Management has both positive but mainly negative effect on caregivers’ sense of coherence and therefore on caregiver’s health. Our conclusion is therefore that New Public Management can be seen as a factor for care givers high ratings in the social security offices statistics over sick leave from work.

University culture is seen as University culture is seen as one of the main obstacles to the successful implementation of the process of strategic university management. Although existing organisational approaches of changing processes give theoretical insight, they fail to consider the cultural perspective and how change can be implemented successfully. This article focuses on cultural approach and therefore introduces a cohesive cultural model to the Higher Education (HE) context. It will be shown how this paradigm can be used in strategic management processes at universities and how it can support them. It therefore offers an approach that is applicable to the practice of university management. / Universitätskultur kann als eines der Haupthindernisse für die Implementierung von strategischem Management an Universitäten angesehen werden. Vorhandene Ansätze der Organisationsforschung betrachten zwar Veränderungsprozesse, diskutieren die Rolle der Organisationskultur jedoch nur am Rande und fragen nicht nach dem Wie der Umsetzung einer solchen organisationalen Veränderung. Dieser Artikel betrachtet strategisches Management an Universitäten aus einer kulturtheoretischen Perspektive und überträgt das kohäsionsorientierte Organisationsmodell auf den Hochschulkontext. Es wird gezeigt, wie dieses Modell strategische Prozesse unterstützen kann, so dass es einen praktischen Nutzen für das Hochschulmanagement bietet.

Sverige har en vision om att digitalisera samtliga delar av den offentliga sektorn, med målet att uppnå en god hälsa och välfärd för hela befolkningen. De verksamheter som allt mer blir föremål för digitalisering är bland annat verksamheter som handlägger ärenden om ekonomiskt bistånd. Syftet med denna undersökning är att försöka få svar på hur digitaliseringen av ansökan om ekonomiskt bistånd påverkar det sociala arbetet och klienterna. För att få svar på detta har vi skickat webbenkäter till 15 olika verksamheter för ekonomiskt bistånd i Sverige. Resultatet visar att handläggarna övervägande ser positivt på den digitala utvecklingen där de menar att handläggningen blivit enklare och mer effektiv. Det framkommer även att handläggarna blivit tilldelade fler klienter än tidigare där tiden med varje enskild klient har minskat. En begränsning som är framträdande gällande digitaliseringen av ansökan är att enskilda som inte har tillgång till de digitala verktyg som krävs blir hänvisade att ansöka via pappersansökan. Våra resultat visar att digitaliseringen kan bidra till ett mer effektivt och för klienterna mer lättillgängligt socialt arbete men som behöver utvecklas för att kunna inkludera alla medborgare i det svenska samhället. / Sweden has a vision of digitizing all domains of the public sector, with a goal of achieving good health and welfare for the entire population. The organizations that are increasingly becoming the subject of digitalization are, among other things, those that deal with financial aid matters. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the digitalization of the application for financial aid affects the social work and its clients. To answer this, we have sent out web surveys to 15 financial aid organizations in Sweden. The results show that the social workers for the most part are positive concerning the digitalization since the application process has become easier and more efficient. The social workers express that they have been assigned more clients than before and that they have gotten less time with each individual client. One prominent limitation regarding the digitalization of the application is when individuals who do not possess the digital tools required to apply have to apply via paper application. Our results show that digitalization can contribute to social work being more efficient and easily accessible for clients. Thus, for it to be accessible for the whole Swedish population more development needs to be done.

Syftet med studien har varit att med fokus på organisationsförändringar undersöka vilka bakomliggande orsaker som ligger till grund för hur en Region i Sverige arbetar med införandet av egna slutenvårdsplatser inom abstinensvård, utifrån de nationella målen för god vård och hur införandet av sådana vårdplatser kan komma att påverka vården. Genom att analysera Regionens egen utredningsrapport tillsammans med den revisionsrapport som externa konsulter skapat på uppdrag av Regionen, har denna kvalitativa fallstudie bidragit till en övergripande bild av bakomliggande orsaker som ligger till grund för beslutet. För att ge en fördjupad förståelse för dessa bakomliggande orsaker har studien kompletterats med en intervju där områdeschefen för Regionens beroendevård har bidragit med sin kunskap inom området. Resultatet tyder på att upphandlad abstinensvård kan försvåra säkerställandet av vårdens kvalitet, då det är problematiskt för den offentliga sektorn att kontrollera och utvärdera vård som tillhandahålls av privata vårdgivare. / The aim of the study has been to focus on organizational changes to examine the underlying causes of the Regions decision to implement a new unit for withdrawl treatment, based on the national goals for good health care and how the implementation of such new unit can affect provided care. By analyzing the Regions own enquiry report along with a review report made by external consultants on behalf of the Region, this qualitative study has compiled a general comprehension of underlying causes that the decision to open a new unit is based upon. For a deeper understanding of the underlying causes a supplementary interview took place with the area manager of the withdrawl treatment in this Region, who added knowledge to the study. The result indicates that outsourced health care can lead to difficulties in ensuring the quality of good care, because it is problematic for the public sector to control and evaluate care provided by private care givers.

New Public Management has been the prevailing governance model in public sector administration since the late 1980s. In 2005, OECD-DAC member states adopted the resultsbased management model ‘Paris Agenda for Aid Effectiveness’, building on new public management theory and values. The aim was to achieve more effective aid by coordinatingand harmonising donor efforts, aligning development interventions and funding, supporting national ownership and propelling a result- and accountability culture by demonstrating achievements.Despite its worthy ambitions the Aid Effectiveness Agenda has paradoxically failed todeliver on its own outcomes. The results-based management framework underpinning theagenda has proven to be highly complex in methodology, interpretation and application. The framework is laborious and burdensome, diverting time from ‘ordinary’ work and risking a bureaucratization of the development aid sector. The ‘measurement fever’ has grippeddonors and agencies alike, and is now mainly driven by donors’ domestic accountability concerns, rather than the real needs of developing countries. More alarmingly, it has not onlyhad numerous unintended consequences but also outright adverse effects. This in turnen dangers long-term human development.This study sets out to explore to what extent the results-based management framework, based on new public management theory, has been a suitable management model to achieve aid effectiveness in the development aid sector. It departs from the governance theories of Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) and assesses whether New Public Service couldbe a fitting alternative governance model. The study utilizes the realist review methodology,specifically the CMO-configuration, in order to explore how context and mechanisms interact and how this affects the outcome. This study has through its aggregative and configurativeambition explored 26 scholarly articles in the time frame of 2011 to 2021 in order to draw conclusions.The review has found that the results-based management framework does not support the underlying theory of change that is imperative to achieve the Aid Effectiveness Agenda.Contextual factors are found to impede implementation, although due to being under research edit is difficult to determine to what extent. Further, none of the five mechanisms ofthe Paris Declaration can neither fully nor partially be said to contribute to ‘aid effectiveness’as defined in the Aid Effectiveness Agenda. Rather, the review has found that the literatureall point to numerous adverse effects of its implementation.This study concludes that the New Public Service governance model, at least intheory, could prove to be a more suitable management model for the development aidsector. Since the sector is neither linear nor predictable as the business sector for whichthe framework was developed, it is not surprising that adverse effects abound. Especiallysince the development aid sector is highly complex with a multitude of actors, politicalincentives and not least challenging implementational environments. In contrast, New Public Service places the citizen at the centre and aspire at buildingdemocratic citizenship and community through citizen participation and dialogue. Such analternative governance model built on democratic theory and participative epistemologyhas the potential to democratize governance practices by replacing the vertical top-downprincipal-agent dynamics of new public management with more horizontal forms of citizeninvolvement, co-determination and mutual accountability. New Public Service stresses the‘serving not steering’ aspect of governance, which would open up for a more authenticdiscourse of recipients owning development in their own society and setting the direction.No systematic review has previously been carried out to assess governance models inrelation to achieving the Aid Effectiveness Agenda. In fact, there is very little research onwhat has worked or not regarding the agenda. This thesis sets out to fill this gap and tocontribute to the discussion of governance models on a theoretical level. It is also anempirical contribution to applied development management regarding insights about whatcontexts and mechanisms affect aid effectiveness.

Research problem and objective: NPM had an uneven distribution throughout Europe during the 1980s. The NPM system has had a major impact on the public sector and the libraries. By analyzing eight European library legislations this bachelor’s thesis aims to see what NPM characteristics are visible, how the legislations differ from each other and discuss if the democratic mission is inhibited by NPM. Method: A qualitative content analysis. Use of the four sociopolitical models by Sapir (2006), a tentative hypothesis by Hood (1995) and previous research by Kann-Christensen (2011), among others. Key results and arguments: The legislations that show a high NPM impact are those from England/Wales, Northern Ireland, Denmark, and France. Those that show lower impact are those from Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Norway. Libraries in countries with multiple national borders may have a more accessible library service. The sociopolitical models can only predict the impact of NPM to some degree. Commercial services counteract the equal access to information. Conclusion: The study has led to the main conclusion that NPM could have an inhibiting effect on the democratic mission of libraries, but the risk is low if libraries and librarians stay true to their democratic values.

In this master's thesis, we investigate the meaning and significance of professional networking to Swedish librarians in their everyday professional practices. In addition, we explore the relationship between librarians' networking needs and the needs or expectations presented by their institutional context (i.e. the workings of their specific library organization or, more broadly, the library sector and work life). The study consisted of 1) a pre-study through an online survey directed to librarians at seven public libraries and four research libraries in Sweden 2) qualitative interviews with 21 public and research librarians recruited through the pre-study survey and 3) an additional interview with the chair of the Swedish national library association (Svensk Biblioteksförening). Overall, participants in the study rated the importance of their professional networks highly. When asked the significance of professional networks to everyday professional practice, the responses given by the interviewed librarians favored explanations in terms of 1) knowledge provision and learning, 2) interlinkage of library organizations with the goal of raising the standards of library service and 3) as a means of providing both professional and organisational support. Many of the study's participants also reported an expectation that they should network, citing either a direct expectation from library management or general trends in contemporary Swedish work life. Librarians' professional networking needs were related by respondents to characteristics of their institutional context, where some librarians pointed to factors such as sparse staffing or budget constraints as creating a need for professional support networks. This is a two years master's thesis in Library and information science.

The diploma thesis aims to examine and compare public sector structures involved in managing the deals under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP)/Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the UK and Spain as well as application of Public-Private-Citizen Collaboration (PC2) framework within the two systems in the era of post-New Public Management. The spread and use of knowledge and skills capacities and the overall ability of the national institutional models to protect the public interest in an effective and efficient way is assessed together with openness and transparency of PPP programmes using the Web 2.0 tools able to reach and engage citizens in the process of implementing the policy and procurement of individual schemes. Special attention is paid to the ways in which the private sector entities on the one side and citizens on the other can approach the public authorities and influence the shape and features of the partnership and its results. PPP has been widely used for financing of investments into the public infrastructure in many countries in Europe and elsewhere. Through PPP, private sector is invited to take care of financing, construction or modernization and subsequent maintenance of certain public assets over the life of the contract that usually lasts about 30 years. The programmes of...