The “stage model” is a criticized but well-used segmentation method for categorizing firms into different export development stages based on their perceived export barriers. However increasing presence of born global firms and lagging exports, particularly in the Swedish tech industry, require an updated segmentation tool. Export intensity, export experience and psychic distance to foreign customers are identified as alternative indicators of a firm’s perceived export barriers. The extent to which these variables can predict perceived export barriers of firms is tested. Collected data from 30 Swedish SMEs consisting of both born globals and traditional exporters within the tech field suggest that none of the three variables is a sufficient indicator of perceived export barriers on its own. Instead, each variable explains different export barriers to different degrees. The results indicate that each SME chooses its unique path of export development, making it difficult to establish a standardized stage model for modern SMEs.

Using a clinical sample of 63 girls aged 5 - 16 years, the Psychoanalytic Rorschach Profile (PRP; Burke et al., 1988), a measure of drive, ego, and object relations functioning, was examined for differences between sexual abuse (SA) victims and distressed but nonabused (NA) peers. The hypothesis that the SA group would evidence more pathological, less developed levels of drive, ego, and object relations functioning than the NA group was not supported. Limitations of the use of archival data are discussed. The effects of controlling for the number of responses (R) in Rorschach research were examined by comparing entire protocols of a clinical sample of girls from 5 - 16 years of age to shortened versions which included only the first one (N = 89; R = 10) or two (N = 17; R = 20) responses to each blot. Of 12 PRP scales compared, differences between the R = 10 and entire protocols were found on 5 variables, but when R was increased to 20, only 2 differences remained. Support was given for the notion of uniform Rorschach administration in which 2 responses per card are solicited.

This study examines the phenomenon of the usage of e-commerce in relation to firms’ internationalization process. Consequently, the study investigates risks and psychic distance in relation to prior research within International business, Internationalization and e- commerce, while focusing on the latest era of academia, namely “Internetalization”. The study investigates how e-commerce and its tools reduce perceived risks associated with firms’ internationalization process and what challenges Swedish SME’s identify while using e- commerce as a tool for internationalization. The study takes a qualitative, multiple case study approach focusing on Swedish SME’s operating in foreign markets within the retail industry. The findings indicate that e-commerce has the potential to generate international market expansion for Swedish SME’s. Further findings show that e-commerce and its tools are leveraged by Swedish SME’s to source, access and exchange valuable information whilst reducing perceived risk related to internationalization since it gives SME’s access to essential information needed for further expansion. Two main challenges are identified. Firstly, trustworthiness and secondly transforming gathered information into valuable information and knowledge. Consequently, the main challenge identified in the internationalization process of Swedish SME’s, resides in coping with the underlying presence of “psychic distance” or “virtuality trap”.

M.Cur.

M.A. / The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Act was passed in 1995 and the TRC started its hearings in 1996. The purpose of the TRC was to promote national unity and reconciliation by establishing as complete a picture as possible of the human rights violations that had occurred during the apartheid era and to offer reparations to those who had been affected, as well as to grant amnesty to those who had committed these human rights violations. The TRC had to appoint people to help carry out its functions and deliver a report about human rights violations. Most of the people employed by the TRC to help carry out these functions were South African. Furthermore every South African had been involved in the past in one way or another, purely by being a South African. In this project the author explores, analyses and interprets the experiences of some of the people who were employed by the TRC. The focus of this project is to find out whether being employed by the TRC and having to listen to the stories being brought to the TRC exposed anyone to the possibility of developing what is called secondary traumatisation. This kind of traumatisation is different from the traumatisation that the people relating the stories had gone through during the apartheid years. This kind of traumatisation is said to develop from being exposed to traumatised people.

[pt] Partindo da premissa de que o trabalho com grupos sempre esteve em íntima relação com o contexto sócio-político-cultural e suas transformações, esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de, dentro de uma perspectiva teórico-histórica, realizar uma investigação psicanalítica sobre os grandes grupos da contemporaneidade. Para tal, inicialmente se debruça sobre as dicotomias que polarizaram as relações indivíduo-sociedade nos séculos XIX e XX, criticando o individualismo moderno para, em seguida, apresentar visões mais integradas dessas relações através das teorias sociológicas de Georg Simmel e Norbert Elias que foram ainda fundamentais para a construção do arcabouço teórico da grupanálise. Na sequência, a pesquisa dedica-se ao surgimento da psicologia das multidões na França no século XIX, passando à investigação da sociedade de massas, do homem-massa e da psicologia das massas freudiana, característica do século XX, até chegar aos grandes grupos no século XXI. Tendo como pano de fundo as mudanças históricas ocorridas ao longo desses séculos revela como foram sendo construídas diferentes visões sobre um mesmo tema – as multidões/as massas/os grandes grupos – processo que, no momento atual, privilegia a discussão do conceito de inconsciente social. O inconsciente social é fruto de pesquisas recentes de um grupo de psicanalistas e grupanalistas e vem se constituindo como importante ferramenta teórico-clínica nas investigações sobre conflitos entre grandes grupos, traumas massivos e transmissão psíquica transgeracional em sociedades. / [en] Based on the premise that the work with groups has always had a very close relationship with the social, political and cultural context, and its transformations, this dissertation aims to develop a psychoanalytical investigation on the large groups of contemporary times, from a socio-historical point of view. In order to do so, it first looks into the dicotomies that polarized individual-society relationships in the 19th and 20th centuries, criticizing the modern individualism. Next it presents more integrated viewpoints of such relationships through the sociological theories of Georg Simmel and Norbert Elias, which were fundamental to the construction of the theoretical framework of group analysis. In the sequence, the research focuses on the emergence of crowd psychology in France, in the 19th century, moving into the investigation of mass society, mass-man and Freudian mass psychology, characteristic of the 20th century, and finally reaches the discussion of large groups in the 21st century. Taking historical changes as background, this dissertation shows how different views of the same phenomenon were built – the crowds / the masses / the large groups –, a conceptual development that, nowadays, favors the concept of the social unconscious. The social unconscious is the offspring of recent researches by a group of psychoanalysts and group analysts and has been a significant theoretical-clinical tool in the investigations of conflicts amid large groups, massive traumas and transgenerational psychic transmission in societies.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. February 2016 / South Africa is regarded as one of the most violent countries in the world. Colonialism and apartheid laid the foundations for a divided and segregated society where violence was accepted as a legitimate means of conflict resolution in order to ensure the domination of one racial group over all other groups. As social and economic inequalities have become more entrenched in South African society, criminal violence has escalated. However, the nature of violence in the country has changed from political violence to criminal violence. Against this backdrop of violence and associated trauma, the South African Police have the insurmountable task of trying to maintain law and order. The science of traumatology is a burgeoning field; traditionally empirical research has focused on the responses of primary trauma victims. However, in recent decades the secondary effects of traumatisation on those who counsel the victims of primary trauma, has received significant attention. Located within the South African Police Service, is an often forgotten secondary group of professionals who assist the police officials through assuming the roles of occupational and forensic social work. The profession of social work is inherently stressful and demanding, especially in a country like South Africa, where social problems are ubiquitous and pervade every facet of South African society. Furthermore, a particular occupational stressor significantly impacting on these social workers as they investigate child abuse or provide counselling for a police officer, is secondary traumatisation. The questions arise: firstly, how these social workers are affected by the amount of traumatic material to which they are exposed by the very nature of their work, and secondly, what coping strategies they employ. It was therefore deemed imperative to explore the effects of secondary traumatisation experienced by these social workers in the South African Police Service in order to understand and ameliorate the negative effects of secondary traumatic stress. Furthermore, social work supervisors can enhance the quality of care their social workers provide to clients if they are adequately supported. It was therefore also considered necessary to explore the stressors these social workers experience and to identify the necessary support mechanisms appropriate to such therapeutic endeavors. The primary aim of this study was therefore to explore the nature and extent of secondary traumatic stress experienced by social workers employed by the South African Police Service. The research design adopted for this study was exploratory, descriptive and correlational, while the research methodology employed was a hybrid of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. As this study involved an in-depth analysis of a bounded system comprising social workers employed at SAPS, the research was considered a case study. The study comprised two phases: In the first phase questionnaire booklets containing seven standardised research tools and open-ended questions, were administered in group settings. In addition, questionnaires were posted to social workers who were not able to attend the group meetings along with a self-addressed envelope. The research tools measured the nature of secondary trauma exposure, levels of secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion satisfaction, burnout, coping resources and dimensions of the work environment. Two hundred questionnaire booklets were distributed and 128 usable questionnaires were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data, through the use of statistical programmes, SAS and SPSS. In the second stage of the study, 30 participants who participated in the first part of the study and who indicated that they were willing to be interviewed, were purposively selected. A structured research tool was used to guide the interview in order to explore the participants’ perceptions and experiences of secondary trauma while working for SAPS. The interviews were conducted either face-to face, telephonically or through Skype. The qualitative data that emerged from the interviews were analysed through the use of Atlasti, a qualitative computer programme, which assisted the researcher in the thematic analysis. Through the process of incorporating qualitative techniques, the researcher also made use of reflexivity when analysing the qualitative data. In total 128 social workers participated in the study, of whom 102 were occupational social workers while 26 were forensic social workers, all located within South Africa. The extent of exposure to secondary trauma varied substantially between both occupational and forensic social work when considered as separate divisions, as well as within each discipline. This variation manifested in frequencies and duration of cases. In the interviews forensic social workers identified particularly traumatic cases as those where the sexual abuse was severe or the child had died as a result of extreme abuse. In comparison, occupational social workers identified some of the worst cases they had dealt with as cases where the police officers became disabled; and where they were required to deal with police suicides and police family murders or femicide-suicides. Most participants presented with high or average levels of secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma as well as with moderate and low levels of burnout. Furthermore, there was a strong positive correlation between levels of secondary traumatic stress and burnout. The majority of participants experienced average levels of compassion satisfaction from their work. Participants identified various coping strategies and resources incorporating different individual dimensions, namely, physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual. Participants showed high levels of resilience and findings indicated that resilience was negatively correlated with vicarious trauma. There were numerous significant differences between the different ranks of the participants. Participants of higher rank reported greater trauma exposure and had significantly higher secondary traumatic scores. Coloured participants experienced significantly lower levels of vicarious traumatisation than Black participants. Furthermore, there were numerous statistically significant differences apparent between the forensic and occupational social workers. Forensic social workers manifested significantly higher levels of vicarious trauma than occupational social workers, and forensic social workers had greater distortions regarding self-intimacy than occupational social workers. In addition, forensic social workers presented with lower coping resources and lower levels of resilience than occupational social workers. Participants also experienced below average levels of satisfaction within the work environment at SAPS. The results from the work environment scale showed that in particular the relationship aspects in the work environment were problematic and that colleague support levels were below average. There were also significant differences in work satisfaction levels between Black and White participants. These findings enhance understanding of trauma in racially polarised societies. Multivariate analysis revealed the complex relationships existing between the numerous variables in the study, further contributing to the theory of trauma in divided societies. Two structural equation models were developed to show the relationships of the variables measured in the study which were identical apart from the vicarious trauma variable which was separated to incorporate beliefs about self and beliefs about others. The models revealed that coping mechanisms moderated the relationship between traumatic stress exposure and vicarious trauma (self) and that such mechanisms moderated the resilience and burnout relationship. These findings of the study highlight the need to involve social workers at SAPS in the drafting and implementation of a self-care policy which would help to promote empowerment and responsibility of social workers for their own mental health. Recommendations for social work policy, education, practice, supervision and support as well as future research are also provided. / MT2017

[pt] O presente estudo compreende uma análise das implicações da transmissão psíquica geracional e dos principais processos intersubjetivos de um grupo familiar, envolvidos no adoecimento do corpo de um ou mais de um membro deste grupo. Os conteúdos em relação aos processos intersubjetivos existentes na família, tal qual a história familiar pela transmissão psíquica de um legado, foram fundamentados e articulados com a concepção de corpo e adoecimento somático, resgatando as importantes contribuições freudianas e as pesquisas de autores contemporâneos aos estudos da psicossomática psicanalítica. A relação entre grupo familiar e o adoecimento do corpo foi analisada através de um estudo de caso. Com base em um roteiro, transcrevemos as entrevistas com uma família mineira, de classe média baixa e oriunda do meio rural, cujos membros apresentavam múltiplos adoecimentos como câncer, pressão alta e diabetes em várias gerações. Analisamos a história familiar pelo processo de transmissão psíquica geracional e estudamos a intersubjetividade familiar pelos processos psíquicos presentes no grupo diante do adoecimento somático. Observamos uma estreita relação do adoecimento de um ou mais de um dos sujeitos do grupo familiar com um baixo investimento libidinal no vínculo e a incidência de um fantasma herdado de outras gerações, alimentado pelas fantasias dos sujeitos e incorporado na doença de alguns membros. A discussão dos temas família e adoecimento do corpo contribuiu para a compreensão do sentido do adoecimento dado pelo grupo familiar. Este sentido permitiu entender a função do adoecimento enquanto condição de unir os laços fraterno, paterno e materno entre os membros, resgatando, principalmente, a função da figura materna, desinvestida e perdida na história familiar. / [en] This study analyses both the implications of the generational psychic transmission and the main intersubjective processes of a family group which are involved with the sickness of the body of one or more group members under study. The contents regarding the existent intersubjective processes in the family as well as the family history through the psychic transmission of a legacy were well-founded and articulated with the conception of body and somatic sickness, recovering relevant Freudian contributions and researches developed by authors contemporary to psychoanalytical psychosomatics studies as well. The relation between family group and sickness of the body was analyzed by means of a case study. Having a script of questions as base, interviews given by a low middle class family coming from a rural area of Minas Gerais state and whose members presented multiple sickness such as cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes in several generations were transcribed. The family history was then analyzed by taking the process of generational psychic transmission while the family intersubjectiveness was studied by taking the psychic processes present in the group facing somatic sickness. A close relation between the sickness process of one or more subjects of the family group and the low libidinal investment within the link was found as well as the incidence of a phantom inherited from other generations, nourished by the subjects´ phantasies and incorporated in some members´ disease. The discussion of the theme family and sickness of the body contributes for a better understanding of the meaning given by the group to the sickness process. This meaning made it possible to perceive the sickness function as a condition for uniting fraternal, paternal and maternal bonds among members, mainly restoring the function of the maternal figure, which was disinvested and lost in this story.

La pédopsychiatrie est actuellement traversée par un débat important : alors qu'elle a généralement eu pour projet d'accompagner le travail de subjectivation des enfants qui lui sont confiés, sa démarche est aujourd'hui remise en question par le retour des modèles médicaux classiques qui connaissent un renouveau grâce aux recherches effectuées dans les champs des neurosciences et de la psychologie cognitive. A l'intérieur de ce débat, la discussion porte essentiellement sur les conceptions sous-jacentes à la lecture de ces troubles à partir d'une controverse qui remet en scène l'opposition psychogénèse / organogenèse, curabilité / incurabilité, des troubles mentaux chez l'enfant. Notre démarche s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un dispositif chargé de l'accompagnement et du soin d'enfants bénéficiant d'une intégration scolaire dans des classes spécialisées de l'éducation nationale. Ces enfants présentent des troubles importants de la personnalité et du comportement pris dans des "dysharmonies psychotiques" ou des "dysharmonies d'évolution", associées à des retards mentaux. Dans ce travail, il est envisagé que les retards du développement intellectuel correspondent ici à des tableaux d'apparence déficitaire qui relèvent essentiellement des contraintes cognitives exercées par les processus psychopathologiques mis en jeu dans ces cadres nosographiques. La mise en évidence de compétences cognitives préservées, chez ces enfants qui montrent par ailleurs des profils déficitaires, permettrait de préciser la composante dysharmonique des troubles du développement, et d'apporter un nouvel éclairage quant à la nature de ces troubles. D'autre part, l'observation de profils cognitifs, plus ou moins spécifiques de chacune des entités nosographiques concernées, pourrait révéler les liens de continuité entre les processus cognitifs et les processus psychiques, et faire apparaître des contraintes cognitives caractéristiques des processus psychopathologiques sous-jacents. Cette démarche permettrait d'étayer la réflexion portant sur le projet de soins par une connaissance approfondie des liens entre processus psychiques et processus cognitifs. / Child psychiatry is at present crossed by an important debate: whereas its project has generally been to support the work of subjectivation of the children entrusted in its care, today its approach is challenged by the return of classical medical models which experience a renewal of interest thanks to the research carried out into neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Inside this debate, the discussion essentially revolves around the conceptions that lie under the interpretation of the disorders, from a controversy that brings again into play the opposition psychogenesis / organogenesis, curability / incurability of the mental disorders in the children’s. Our approach falls within the scope of a system which is in charge of the support and care of children who are benefiting from integration into specialised classes of state education schools. These children show important personality and behavioural problems which are part of “psychotic disharmonies” or “evolution disharmonies” combined with backwardness. In this work, it is expected that the intellectual development retardation corresponds to apparently deficient pictures which are the products of cognitive constraints exercised by the psychopathological processes at work in these nosographic contexts. Bringing to the fore preserved cognitive abilities among these children, who in other respects show deficient profiles, would enable to specify the disharmonic component of the development disorders and shed new light on the nature of these disorders. Moreover observing cognitive profiles, more or less specific to each nosographic entity concerned, could reveal the links of continuity between the cognitive processes and psychic processes, and bring to light cognitive constraints which are characteristic of the underlying psychopathological processes. This approach would enables to back up our reflections upon the care project thanks to a thorough knowledge of the links between psychic processes and cognitive processes.

O presente trabalho se propõe a apresentar uma sistematização teórica de minha experiência clínica enquanto psicanalista, no atendimento com pacientes que, após a remissão de doenças graves tais como diversos tipos de câncer que podem afetar a medula óssea (leucemias e linfomas), apresentavam-se como se ainda estivessem doentes, remetendo-se à doença como se esta fosse um acontecimento atual, identificando-se, em seu discurso, como doentes. Apresentamos dois casos clínicos que estavam com a doença em remissão há mais de dois anos e que foram atendidos em uma instituição hospitalar. O nosso objetivo é possibilitar a compreensão dos processos psíquicos envolvidos nos referidos casos clínicos. Estes atendimentos nortearam a formulação de uma hipótese clinico-teórica. Esta hipótese refere-se à possibilidade de estudar o problema clínico a partir do paradigma conceitual do trauma em Psicanálise, especialmente na acepção desenvolvida por Freud após 1920, com a formulação do segundo dualismo pulsional. Paralelamente, é realizado o percurso teórico que visa discutir a permanência dos pacientes atendidos no lugar de doentes, o que nos conduz à apresentação de um capítulo referente aos paradoxos envolvidos na remissão de uma doença orgânica. A articulação teórico-clínica é baseada em textos de Freud e Ferenczi, além de psicanalistas contemporâneos que têm estes autores como referência. Nesta articulação percorremos os seguintes pontos conceituais: a) a experiência do adoecimento; b) o conceito de trauma e efeito traumático para a Psicanálise; c) as teorias das pulsões; d) o trauma após 1920: as neuroses traumáticas; e) ganho secundário; f) a hipocondria em Freud; g) os paradoxos da cura em Danièle Brun e em Freud; h) sobre o trabalho do luto e da elaboração. A partir da articulação entre a clínica e os conceitos teóricos realizamos a discussão de nossa hipótese clínico-teórica. O percurso teórico-clínico realizado permite verificar que o problema clínico evidenciado pode ser entendido, conforme nossa hipótese clínico-teórica, a partir dos desenvolvimentos de Freud a propósito das neuroses traumáticas, em conjunção com o entendimento de que mesmo algo que era almejado pode não trazer alívio ou realização, mas sofrimento, conforme visto nos paradoxos envolvidos na remissão da doença. O percurso que partiu da clínica nos permite afirmar que o trabalho psicanalítico com pessoas que são acometidas por doenças orgânicas deve contemplar não somente a importância da elaboração psíquica de todo o processo de adoecimento que afeta o corpo, mas também, o que ocorre psiquicamente após a remissão da doença que traz a necessidade de elaboração, pois muitas vezes será no só depois, que estes aspectos poderão ser constatados / The following academic work proposes to present a theoretical systematization of my clinical experience as a psychoanalyst, upon service to patients who, after the remission of severe illnesses such as multiple types of cancer which can affect the bone marrow (leukemia and lymphomas), presented themselves as if they were still sick, referring to the illness as if it was a current event, identifying themselves, within their speeches, as sick people. We present two clinical cases of ones who had had the disease in remission for more than two years and they were cared at a hospital institution. Our goal is to facilitate the comprehension of the psychic processes related in these referred clinical cases. These services have guided the formulation of a clinical-theoretical hypothesis. This hypothesis refers to the possibility of studying the clinical issue from the trauma conceptual paradigm within the Psychoanalysis, especially from the approach developed by Freud after 1920, by formulating the second drives (Trieb) dualism. At the same time, it is done a theoretical trajectory that aims to discuss the attended patients stay at the sick patients place, which conducts us to the presentation of a chapter referring to the paradoxes related to the remission of an organic disease. The theoreticalclinical articulation is based on Freuds and Ferenczis texts, as well as contemporary psychoanalysts who also have these authors as reference. Within this articulation we have scrolled the following conceptual points: a) illness experience; b) the concept of trauma and traumatic effect to Psychoanalysis; c) drivers (Trieb) theories; d) the trauma after 1920: the traumatic neurosis; e) secondary earn; f) hypochondria within Freud; g) the healing paradoxes in Danièle Brun and Freud; h) about the work of grief and the elaboration. From an articulation between the clinic and the theoretical concepts we have discussed our clinicaltheoretical hypothesis. The clinical-theoretical path accomplished allows us to verify that the evident clinical problem can be understood, according to our clinical-theoretical hypothesis, from Freuds developments about traumatic neurosis, in conjunction with the understanding that even something that was desired cannot bring relief or accomplishment, but sorrow, as seen at the paradoxes related on the sickness remission. The path that started with the clinic allows us affirm that the psychoanalytical work towards people that are affected by organic diseases should include not only the importance of the psychic elaboration of the whole illness process that affects the body, but also what occurs mentally after the illness remission that brings the elaboration need, because for several times it will be at deffered action, that these aspects will be able to be determined