Consumption of everyday products is an unintentional behavior most individuals act out without thinking of it. These products can end up as litter discarded in nature. Littering is an important field to study in order to achieve a sustainable future. Littering has large consequences on the environment, animals, and humans as it contributes to pollution, biodiversity loss and unsafe environments. Municipalities in Sweden have large expenses from cleaning up wrongfully placed litter. It is illegal to litter in Sweden and despite this, many municipalities struggle with high amounts of litter. Strängnäs municipality, Sweden, have acknowledged this problem and are looking for new strategies to change the current behaviors of their residents. Residents in Strängnäs answered a questionnaire regarding their current littering behaviors, their attitudes towards the field and how communication can influence their behaviors to understand which influences are important regarding littering. The aim of this study was to understand what behaviors individuals currently have, what influences these behaviors and how Strängnäs municipality can work more with communication towards the residents. The background and theoretical approach provided and understanding of previous studies on littering, but also the importance of social norms and social environment. The theories used in this study was Social Practice Theory and Cognitive Dissonance Theory. The results from this study were that social norms influence the respondents’ behaviors; however, their current social environment did not tend to have the same influence as their upbringing. Younger residents also tended to litter more than older. The key results were that the individuals who participated in the study were very unhappy with the current situation and the work that Strängnäs municipality currently are doing regarding littering. The respondents thought the city center to be very littered and unsafe, and there was a norm not to tell others not to litter if seen. However, many of the participants did not know what strategies the municipality already used which implies that the communication from the municipality could be improved. This study highlights the importance of communication and information and how these affect individuals littering behaviors through social norms.

According to recent studies, the number of schools that have severely limited or eliminated recess and free-play opportunities is on the rise across the nation. School officials cite the increasing levels of state and federal pressure to perform on standardized tests as the primary reason for this shift away from the playground. The threat of lawsuits and safety concerns are also listed as factors in this change of policy. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the perceptions of directors of schools, supervisors, principals, assistant principals, teachers, and students regarding recess and free play in three East Tennessee school systems. Representative schools were chosen from each system and examined. In addition, results from standardized test scores as provided by the state of Tennessee were examined for the selected schools. The findings of this study revealed that directors, supervisors, principals, teachers, and students were in favor of recess and stated that offering recess and free-play opportunities provided some benefit to students. Even so, two schools in the study had chosen to limit recess and free-play opportunities to varying degrees whereas the third school maintained a policy of recess breaks. In examining the test data, the two schools that had limited recess were found to have lower test scores than the school that had maintained the integrity of recess. Other factors could attribute to the lower scores. The findings did reveal that limiting recess appeared to offer no significant gain in scores just as providing recess did not appear to cause any decrease in test scores. Stakeholders interviewed expressed the perception that the benefits of having recess outweighed any potential threat of time lost in the classroom. Recommendations for further research include repeating this study in other school settings on a larger scale to see if the same results are realized.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has received increasing attention among organizations and in research as the world becomes increasingly globalized and internationalized. However, there is still limited research on how diversity management is performed in organizations and a neglected focus on social sustainability linked to DEI, which underlines the need to further study implemented practices to promote DEI in organizations. Thus, the aim of this study is to broaden the knowledge of how diversity management is performed in organizations. The research questions are (1) What strategies and practices are implemented by diversity and HR managers to integrate DEI in organizations? and (2) How are the results of DEI strategies and practices measured in organizations?  A case study of DEI as a phenomenon was conducted to explore the strategies, practices, and measurements used in organizations to increase DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. A qualitative research method based on semi-structured interviews was used to examine DEI from the perspective of diversity and HR managers in nine organizations. The theoretical framework was based on practice theory.  The empirical findings show that organizations use various strategies and practices to integrate DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. Organizations focus mainly on gender and ethnicity in the context of DEI and the most common practices are awareness training on DEI, bias, harassment, and discrimination. Furthermore, the findings show that most organizations do not use DEI measurements or targets systematically, making it difficult to measure the progress and outcomes of DEI practices. Moreover, there is a need for specific targets covering DEI parameters besides gender and ethnicity, to include other minorities and discriminated groups. This thus requires structured efforts to create measurement tools for DEI practices to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of progress and outcomes of DEI practices.

Background Modern capitalist societies have consumption at the core of their social and economic activities. This is one of the underlying problems that sustainability is facing. In need of solutions and avenues for limiting our footprint and consumption, we turn towards alternative solutions such as coliving as a potential for facilitating sustainable lifestyles in their residents.   Objectives The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate coliving impacts on the sustainability practices of residents within the Swedish urban environment. To do this effectively, the theoretical framework of this thesis will primarily utilize practice theory, as well as institutional theory and clan control theory to a secondary degree, to explore their interactions between coliving social structures and residential agents in terms of following sustainable activities and compare those with a single living household. Through conducting interviews with the residents of the Coliving and single living in line with these frameworks, this thesis aims to explore to a greater degree how the coliving housing model can contribute to more sustainable lifestyles.   Methods A qualitative research strategy was chosen for the study with a two-case comparative study design. To further explore the complexity of the interactions between agents and properties of social structures, data collection methods were utilized, such as semi-structured interviews with residents of coliving and single-living. The analytical approach was conducted through a thematic data analysis method.   Results The Coliving initiative stimulates sustainable lifestyles by creating a set of social structures and cultural rules that promotes interaction, diversity, and sustainable lifestyles. The design of the Coliving initiative activated the most evident and impactful change mechanisms. Specifically, the built environment that is diverse and flexible and facilitates variations of facilities and immense recourses accessible for the residents to interact and use for different moods and behaviors. The recruitment process facilitates a foundation of balance between diversity and like-minded individuals for learning potentials and collaboration. The governance structure of the community-based organization is nonhierarchical participatory, and consensus-based, and the community is self-organized. These features have shown to promote collaboration and interaction between individuals and stimulate sustainable practices. Last, the cultural rules of the community also promote interactions and collaboration, as well as many of the social sustainability principles and anti-consumption practices.   Conclusions The coliving, compared to the single-living, has much more quantitive, qualitative, and diverse set of structures with sustainable properties that brings the residents more or less into the situation where a greening of their corresponding lifestyles becomes a very convenient option.

This thesis departs from an understanding that humanity stands on the cusp of a global crisis, caused to a large degree by the lifestyle choices of humans. Therefore, posing the argument that it is changes in human action, behaviour and lifestyles that are needed to ensure that the development doesn’t continue on its current path. This thesis therefore aimed to explore the new green wave lifestyle, which pertains to people who are choosing to face these challenges head on by actively changing and adopting a self-sustainable lifestyle. To explore this aim, the study utilised a theoretical framework consisting of two main concepts, social practice theory and the concept of lifestyles. The thesis used semi-structured interviews to gather data from individuals who actively made the active choice to change their way of living and adopt a self- sustainable lifestyle. The results show that the new green wavers rely heavily on inspiration from others to make their lifestyle change. This meant that being able to see and be inspired by other people’s alternative ways of living was integral for them to even comprehend the possibility of living a different lifestyle. The results also show that in enacting their new green wave lifestyle the participants chose to partake in alternative practices or enacting practices in a different way compared to how they conventionally might be enacted. Additionally, the results show that the new green wavers encounter challenges in enacting their lifestyle, which relates to a lack of available knowledge of how alternative practices are to be enacted but also the challenges posed by society in terms of legislation and bureaucracy.

Goal-setting is indispensable for effective healthcare management. Yet, literature evidence suggests many organisations worldwide do not know how to formulate ‘SMART’ goals. Evidence of how existing theories work in practice is scarce, and the practices in low-income countries are unknown. Therefore, this research explored how leprosy project goals were formulated to describe the theoretical practice framework of The Leprosy Mission Nigeria (TLMN). Using a case-study design, ten managers were interviewed individually concerning their goal-setting knowledge, experience and perspective; and documented goals of six projects were reviewed. A five-step constructionist thematic data analysis generated eleven theoretical frameworks from the concepts of the emergent core themes of ‘stakeholders’, ‘strategies’ and ‘statements.’ Further theorisation reduced them to one general framework. This revealed TLMN’s goal-setting practice as a four-stage centre-led, top-down, beneficiary-focused and problem-based process. The stages were national preparation, baseline needs-survey, centralised goal formulation and nationalised planning. The outcome was the formulation of assigned, ‘non SMART’ objective statements, which are then used for planning projects. Other theoretical models constructed included a Goal Effects Cycle, ‘SMARTA’ goal attributes and hierarchical criteria for differentiating goal-types. A theory developed from TLMN goal-setting postulates that: ‘Assigned non SMART goal formulation directly results from centralised goal-setting practice and is the predictor of unrealistic project planning.’ Therefore, I propose that goal statements will be ‘SMARTA’ and plans, more realistic and relevant if goal setting is done collaboratively by all stakeholders at all stages of the process. Also, ‘Change-Beneficiary-Indicator-Target-Timeframe’ and ‘Change- Beneficiary-Location-Timeframe’ frameworks are recommended as templates for writing SMART objectives and aims respectively.

Sedan början på 2000-talet har det skett en förvandling i detaljhandelslandskapet. Flera företag har valt att övergå från fysisk butik till att istället bedriva e-handel. I samband med smartphonens ökade användning har detaljhandelslandskapet förändrats ytterligare, där tekniken möjliggjort ett nytt sätt för konsumenter att förhålla sig till shopping. Smartphonen har alltså blivit ett verktyg som tillämpas i konsumenters vardag och tillkommer i flera shoppingrelaterade syften. Tidigare forskning kring mobilshopping kan delas in i två fält; forskning som fokuserar på acceptans, motiv och incitament, och sedan forskning som fokuserar på praktiker och handlingar. Med tanke på att det sistnämnda fältet är så pass outforskat, har denna studie antagit ett praktikteoretiskt perspektiv för att på ett djupare plan kunna analysera hur mobilshopping fungerar i praktiken. Syfte Syftet med vår studie är att få en bredare insikt i hur mobilshopping fungerar i praktiken genom att analysera hur konsumenter använder sin smartphone på olika sätt för att shoppa. Detta genom att anta en praktikteoretisk ansats för att analysera fenomenet mobilshopping. Metod Studien utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där 15 semistrukturerade intervjuer ligger till grund för datainsamlingen. Ytterligare har studien antagit ett praktikteoretiskt perspektiv, där sekundärdata samlats in kring praktikteori som fenomen, både praktikteori kopplat till konsumtion samt praktikteori kopplat till mobilshopping. Uppsatsen utgår således från ett urval som baseras på livssituationen hos de olika deltagarna för att på så sätt kunna se hur dessa skiljer sig åt i deras mobilshopping. Slutsats Uppsatsen visar att en praktik kan se olika ut beroende på vem som utför den då individer är unika i sitt sätt att utföra praktiken. Trots vetskapen kring detta fann vi att det finns vissa likheter mellan vissa grupper med olika livssituation, då vissa hade liknande bakomliggande meningar, brukade samma material och hade jämlik kompetensnivå i sin mobilshopping. Det resulterade i tre olika sätt att utföra mobilshopping på bland våra fem grupper, det vill säga ett målinriktat, strategiskt och vanemässigt sätt. Slutligen kan resultatet i vår studie framöver bidra till en ökad förståelse för mobilshopping som praktik. Studien ger inte bara ökad förståelse inom fältet konsumentbeteende, utan även för detaljhandlare. / Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a transformation in the retail landscape. Several companies have chosen to switch from a physical store to e-commerce. As the usability of the smartphone is increasing, the retail landscape is also under development, whereas technology has made it possible for a new way for consumers to pursue their shopping. Therefore, smartphones have become a tool in consumers' everyday lives and are used for several shopping-related purposes. Previous research on mobile shopping can be divided into two fields; research that focuses on acceptance, motives and incentives, and research that focuses on practices and actions. Given that the latter field is rather unexplored, this study has adopted a practice-theoretical perspective in order to be able to analyze on a deeper level how mobile shopping works in practice. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to gain a broader insight into how mobile shopping works in practice by analyzing how consumers use their smartphone in different ways to shop. This is done by adopting a practical theoretical approach to analyzing the phenomenon of mobile shopping. Method The thesis is based on a qualitative research method where 15 semi-structured interviews form the basis of our data collection. Furthermore, the study has also inducted a practice theory perspective, where secondary data is collected on practice theory as a phenomenon, practice theory linked to consumption and finally practice theory in relation to mobile shopping. The essay is thus based on a selection based on the life circumstances of the various participants and how they differ in their mobile shopping. Conclusion The thesis shows that mobile shopping as a practice can look different depending on who performs it, as individuals are unique in their way of performing the practice. Nevertheless, we found that there are certain similarities between certain groups with different life circumstances. Each group had similar underlying meanings, used the same material and had equal levels of competence in their mobile shopping practices. This resulted in three different ways of performing mobile shopping among our five groups, i.e, goal-oriented, strategic and habitual way. To sum up, the results of our study in the future can contribute to an increased understanding of mobile shopping as a practice. As well as provides increased understanding in the field of consumer behavior and thereby contribute with a clearer approach for retailers. This thesis is written in Swedish.

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Syftet med uppsatsen var göra en jämförelse mellan två kommunala insatser mot hemlöshet, Bostad Först och Boendetrappan. Studien genomfördes i form av en allmän litteraturstudie. Litteratursökningen genomfördes i databasen EBSCO och resulterade i nio utvalda artiklar. All empiri analyserades utifrån Fribergs analysmodell. Två teorier användes för att analysera resultatet, empowerment och kritisk praktikteori. Resultatet visade fler fördelar än nackdelar med Bostad Först och fler nackdelar än fördelar med Boendetrappan. Resultatet visade också att det fanns både likheter och olikheter mellan insatserna där likheterna speglade organisatoriska förutsättningar och hinder medan olikheterna visade på olika arbetssätt med klienterna. Slutsatsen i denna studie var att Bostad Först bedömdes vara mer effektivt för långsiktig lösning av hemlöshet. / The aim of this study was to make a comparison between two municipal social services efforts against homelessness, Housing First and the Traditional Housing Staircase Model. The study was conducted in the form of a general literature study. The literature search was performed in the EBSCO database and resulted in nine selected articles. All empirical data was analyzed using Fribergs analytical model. Two theories were used to analyze the result, empowerment, and critical practice theory. The result showed more advantages than disadvantages with Housing First, and more disadvantages than advantages with the Traditional Housing Staircase Model. The result also showed that there were both similarities and differences between the two social service efforts where the similarities reflected organizational conditions and obstacles, while the similarities showed different methods of working with the clients. The conclusion of this study was that Housing First was assessed to be more effective for a long-term solution of homelessness.

Purpose - This study investigated how practice theory could enhance the Requirements Engineering elicitation process in IS development, focusing on addressing the misalignment between user needs and system functionalities. The research centered on the question: How can practice theory be used to formulate functional requirements specifications in system development? The specific practice examined was the Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment (CMA) at a cybersecurity company. Methodology - This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to collect data from seven participants with expertise in conducting or overseeing CMA processes. The interview questions were based on Schatzki's Practice Theory: teleoaffective structures, understandings, rules, and material arrangements. Thematic analysis was applied to extract relevant themes and patterns. Findings - The results reveal that integrating practive theory in the elicitation stage of RE deepens the understanding of user practices and challenges. It helps to reveal not only the explicit needs but also the implicit and tacit knowledge that shapes user's interactions with systems. Conclusion - The study concludes that practice theory provides a valuable addition to the traditional elicitation step of the RE process. This research contributes to both the practice and theory of IS development by showing how the integration of sociological theories can improve technological processes and lead to the creation of more efficient and user-centered information systems.