This thesis aims to understand the risks faced by organizations operating in Northern Sweden when making decisions about digitalization. Through empirical analysis and discussion, the study investigates the influence of hindsight bias on risk perception and the decision-making process. The findings indicate that there is an arguable elevated level of hindsight bias is observed among all participants, with varying intentions behind this bias. One specific case highlights the influence of external decision-makers and the implications of their expertise. While an organization is acting in good faith by seeking advice from individuals of expertise as external decision-makers, who prioritize utility-maximizing choices, it exposes the organization to potential non-perceivable risks. The study reveals that individuals tend to overlook the risks associated with digitalization until they face tangible implications. However, the perception of risks is not artificially altered by expertise level, but rather triggered by occurrences. Moreover, the study identifies a pattern of elevated levels of hindsight bias, primarily in terms of foreseeability, coupled with a motivation for self-esteem. This pattern emphasizes the lack of communication regarding digitalization risks, which contributes to overconfidence and myopia in the decision-making process. The empirical analysis supports the notion that positive perceptions of digitalization and a failure to acknowledge possible implications result in individuals overseeing risks. Consequently, organizations in Northern Sweden run the risk of overconfidence and oversight if they fail to question the basis of their digitalization decisions or the motives and biases of their employees involved in the decision-making process.  In conclusion, this thesis reveals that the risks faced by organizations operating in Northern Sweden when making decisions about digitalization include a failure to perceive digitalization risks due to preconceived positive perceptions, which affects both employees and decision-makers, concluded from a two-perspective investigation. This behavior puts organizations at risk of overconfidence, particularly in the context of hindsight bias. Finally, the study responds to a research question inquired by past research and confirms that overconfidence reduces the availability of risks in the case of Northern Sweden.

Organizations are increasingly adopting the cloud to meet their business goals more cost-effectively. Cloud benefits like scalability, broad access, high availability, and cost-effectiveness provide a great incentive for organizations to move their applications to the cloud. However, concerns regarding privacy data protection remain one of the top concerns for applications migrating to the cloud. With various legislations and regulations mandating organizations to protect personal data, it is required that cloud applications and associated infrastructure are designed in a manner that provides adequate data protection. To achieve this there is a need to understand various data protection legislations, regulations, and risks faced by the cloud applications and various security controls that can be put in place to address those. Smart homes equipped with health monitoring systems have the potential to monitor the health of elderly people in their homes. In such homes, sensors are employed to monitor the activity of individuals and leverage that information to detect anomalies and raise alarms to the caretakers. However, hosting such a system in the cloud has potential privacy impacts, since health data is treated as sensitive privacy data in many regulations.  This thesis is conducted based on a use case of the deployment of an elderly health care monitoring system for municipalities in Sweden. I analyzed various regulations and privacy risks in migrating such a health monitoring system to the public cloud, the regulations captured are specific to the use case where the e-health data of Swedish citizens is captured in the cloud. The study also highlights various data protection approaches that can be employed to address the identified concerns.  In the thesis, I highlighted that data residency, data control, and the possibility of data leakage from the public cloud are among the top concerns for the municipality. I also listed various applicable data protection regulations and legislation, with “Swedish law for public access to information and secrecy” having a crucial influence on privacy data storage. I evaluated various data protection approaches to alleviate the above concerns, which include access control, anonymization, data splitting, cryptographic measures, and leveraging public cloud capabilities.

This thesis explores women's travel experiences through the lens of feminist theories, focusing on women's safety during travel. It examines how gender norms and patriarchal system may affect women’s mobility and interactions with other cultures, all while being firmly rooted in a variety of feminist viewpoints. Historically confined to domestic roles, women have resiliently reclaimed their right to travel and freedom, leading to a rise in solo female travellers. Incorporating a feminist perspective, the study delves into the complexities and triumphs of these experiences, using image analysis and interviews for comprehensive data collection. The findings reveal a lack of safety for women travelling solo in particular in certain regions of the world, highlighting the concerns and risks that remain prevalent, underlining the urgent need to address the safety of female solo travellers. / <p>2024-01-19</p>

Older people living with frailty are at a higher risk of medication-related incidents due to frequent hospitalisation, complex health needs and polypharmacy. There is evidence that identifying patients at high risk of hospital readmission can enhance the impact of interventions to prevent readmission. However, there is insufficient evidence of the role of medication in readmission in this vulnerable patient group, and what pharmacists can do to reduce readmissions. This research used a mixed-method approach to examine the association between medicines-related risks and readmissions, and the pharmacists’ interventions thought to be important by key stakeholders to reduce readmissions. Medicines-related risks such as polypharmacy, potentially inappropriate medicines and high risk medicines did not have a strong association with repeated hospital admission in multivariable logistic regression. Patients who had multi-morbidities, and non-supported discharge, had a higher risk of repeated hospital admissions. A consensus survey study with three iterative rounds identified a list of pharmacists’ interventions viewed as high priority for reducing readmissions in frail elderly patients. The interventions with the highest scores included medicines reconciliation at discharge, on admission, preparation of discharge summary, provision of tailored patient education about medicines and inter-disciplinary working in ward rounds. A systematic intervention development method was used to further develop an intervention, underpinned by the theoretical domains framework. There is a need to further explore the role of medication-related risks in contributing to readmission using other validated tools and larger datasets. This could be used to inform development of future risk stratification tools to identify high risk patients in order to target interventions to maximise its impact. / University of Bradford and Sheffield Teaching Hospital studentship

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Foster care case managers are responsible for the wellbeing of foster youth in the foster care system. Teens (ages 13-17) in foster care are most vulnerable to serious risks, such as sex trafficking. Such risks have been heightened by the advent of internet-based technologies that connect foster youth with unsafe others at unprecedented frequency and speed. This thesis examines how case managers tackle the challenge of online safety as it relates to adolescents in the foster care system in the United States. I conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with case managers who worked with foster teens (ages 13-17) within the past 5 years. After each interview, I transcribed the recording and conducted qualitative data analysis to identify emerging themes. I found that foster teens face numerous online risks with sexual-related risks (e.g., sex trafficking) and contact-related risks (e.g., unsolicited contact) being most prominent. However, case workers may not be prepared to address all of these challenges because of lack of online safety training and support from foster parents. Also, case workers are overburdened with many responsibilities that make online safety a secondary priority. This thesis identifies the gaps in which case managers are trained and highlights the need for more support to handle online safety challenges. Therefore, this thesis recommends that the foster care system must place a higher priority in establishing support groups and collaborative training among foster parents, case workers, and foster children to fully manage foster youth online safety.

Youth in the foster care system experience unique and challenging situations online, such as higher risks of inappropriate messaging (e.g., sexting) and unwanted solicitations from strangers. As a vulnerable group of adolescents, foster youth often use online platforms as a resource to express themselves and seek support over their sexual experiences online. This thesis analyzes how foster youth seek support online for their sexual risk experiences, including sexual abuse, sexting, and sexuality. To understand how adolescents (ages 13-17) in the child welfare system seek support for these experiences, we conducted a thematic analysis of 541 individual posts made by 121 different foster youth on an online mental health peer support forum. The majority of the foster youth used the platform to seek support online over their traumatic sexual experiences involving sexual abuse (42%), sexting (31%), and sexuality (28%). Approximately 9% of foster youth used the platform to connect with others for sexting. As a result of seeking support online and connecting with others on the platform, they shared personal and intimate details about themselves and their experiences and, unfortunately, also encountered unwanted sexual solicitations while doing so. Our research highlights the importance of providing safe spaces for foster youth to seek support and advice regarding their sexual risk experiences online. Trigger Warning: This thesis discusses sensitive topics, such as sexual abuse and sexuality. Reader discretion is advised.

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