Browsing Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy (MPP/LPF) by Title
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Abstract: English summary: The paper analyzes the Danish university system, using a property rights/organizational economics approach. Particular attention is devoted the complicated agency problem in the system. The paper recommends more differentiation of pay structures within the system, more use of tournaments, less multi-tasking, and more use of precise and objective measures of output performance. Key words: Economic organization of universities, decision rights, agency problem. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6386 Files in this item: 1
wp 4 2004.pdf (210.1Kb) -
la Cour, Anders (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
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Two European Case StudiesVestergaard, Jakob (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Evaluating Clients’ Personality Traits in two Danish Rehabilitation OrganizationsMik-Meyer, Nanna (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper explores how two Danish rehabilitation organizations textual guidelines for assessment of clients’ personality traits influence the actual evaluation of clients. The analysis will show how staff members produce institutional identities corresponding to organizational categories, which very often have little or no relevance for the clients evaluated. The goal of the article is to demonstrate how the institutional complex that frames the work of the organizations produces the client types pertaining to that organization. By applying the analytical strategy of institutional ethnography I elucidate how the two rehabilitation organizations local history, legislation, structural features of the present labour market and of social work result in a number of contradictions which make it difficult to deliver client-centred care. This exact goal is according to the staff one of the most important goals for ‘good’ social work. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6434 Files in this item: 1
wp14-2005.pdf (201.8Kb) -
Governance and control in research evaluationHansson, Finn (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Organizations perform evaluations in order to demonstrate their trustworthiness to the outside world and to produce knowledge for use by the management of the organization. In the planning and application of specific evaluations in the organization, different participants or stakeholders very often disclose different, hidden or conflicting agendas. In recent years, the use of evaluations in organizations has grown rapidly and we have witnessed the rise of a new bureaucratic instrument in the realm of knowledge production in organizations, viz., internal evaluations. Such evaluations produce a set of data as part of the evaluation process and the long-term impact of this new systematically organised set of data on organizational activities are normally not taken seriously into consideration when the use of evaluations in organizations are discussed. Said differently, evaluations have become a major factor in the management of organizations, but the academic literature on internal evaluation very rarely discusses the impact of this instrument on the long term behaviour and activity of members of the organization. This lacuna in the literature persists despite the well known fact, established by numerous studies of organizational sociology, that people tend to adapt to external behavioural demands especially when related to power relations in the organization. keywords: research evaluation, governance, social control, publication counts. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6309 Files in this item: 1
wp14-2004.pdf (142.9Kb) -
(Re)assembling work in the Danish PostMogensen, Mette (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The well-being of employees is currently a central matter of concern both in public and private companies. If employees do not feel well, in the last instance they might experience a burn out or fall ill from stress and thus add to the highly costly yet ever growing number filling up the statistics of this modern epidemic. In short, well-being is key to productivity. For sure this is not a new story, but at the core of organization and management theory: how to best organize the human resources of production balancing off the need for increased productivity and the preservation of physical and mental resources of the worker? In contrast to classic principles such as Taylor’s scientific management, it seems today generally agreed that well-being thrives when work is organized by principles of ‘flexibility’, ‘learning’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘creativity’. However, at the same time workplaces and organizations are under an enormous pressure towards standardization and optimization. This dissertation investigates empirically competing or intersecting ways of organizing well-being and productivity, with an analytic outset in the work task, departing from historically generated, however still prevalent, dichotomies and normativities of standardization and flexibility respectively. The empirical case of the dissertation is the organization of postal work in a big and formerly publicly run distribution company in Denmark. Based on an ethnographic field work and the employment of an auto-photographic method, the dissertation investigates how the current and simultaneous efforts of standardization and flexibility configure the well-being(s) and productivities of postal work. The theoretical framework is primarily informed by Actor Network Theory and the dissertation attend to a detailed investigation of how well-being and productivity are enacted in the daily work practices and the constant shifting/delegation going on between the inscribed postal worker of work tools, standard procedures and management programs on the one side and the routinized bodies of the postal workers on the other. Most of the time this results in ‘working compatibilities’ silently enacting bodies-with-standards that are both productive and well. At other times, however, controversy and conflicts arise, pointing to the fact that the presence of multiple modes of organizing are not always productive. The empirical chapters departs from selected auto-photographs that prompt different unfoldings of the way postal work is organized – or sought organized – and the way well-being and productivity arise as effects of these organizations. In this unfolding the analysis proceed on a tension between phenomenological and actor-network theoretical readings of empirical material creating a patchwork-like assemblage of postal work. This involves a stitching together of highly mundane, corporeal practices and material such as bicycles and kickstands, personal experiences, the researcher’s interpretations, the technical scripts of electric bikes, the norms of postal workers, the discourse of management and the political-economic developments of European postal markets. Through the empirical chapters, the dissertation depicts postal work not as a story of standardization versus flexibility, but as a constant ‘juggling’ and balancing act between them. This is not a story of humanization or the opposite, it is both at once. It is not a story of stabilization or perpetual change, it is both at once. It is a story of the hanging-togetherness of an organization that displays multiple versions of well-being and productivity as well as multiple controversies as a result of this. Depending on the stakes one has in this complex organizational set-up, whether one is the postal worker, the local manager, the HR consultant or perhaps the customer, preferences will differ, and indeed this is an important discussion. What is the better way to organize postal work? The analysis presented in the dissertation will not deliver the answer to this, but hopefully make the discussion a more qualified one, by displacing old truths. Having as point of departure and final emphasis a heuristics of the work task, the thesis aims to contribute to a specification of organization theory, HRM and work environment theorizing, which otherwise tend to have lost its primary object: work. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8589 Files in this item: 1
Mette_Mogensen.pdf (9.923Mb) -
Åkerstrøm Andersen, Niels (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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kvalitetsbedømmelse af forskning, når vilkårene for vidensproduktion forandresHansson, Finn (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
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En systemteoretisk analyse af offentlig meningsdannelseVallentin, Steen (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: .."the thesis tries to show how – with the appearance of the themes ethics and democracy – new conditions have evolved for the administration of the Danish pension fund investments. It should be emphasized that the thesis not only aims to provide a description of the Danish debate about ethical investments; it makes a separate contribution to systems theory. This contribution consists in a general presentation of Luhmann’s theory (chapter 2) followed by discussions of Luhmann’s concepts of risk (chapter 3), morality and ethics (chapter 4) and public and public opinion (chapter 5). In theoretical terms the contribution of the thesis lies in showing how Luhmann’s systems theory can be used to describe and analyze public opinion formation in general and the debate about the Danish pension fund investments in particular. The thesis focuses on Danish developments but international developments are not ignored. To put Danish developments into perspective, a part of chapter 1 focuses on developments surrounding ethical – or socially responsible – investments in the US and the UK. Matters of definition, historical developments and praxis forms are presented and lead up to an overview of key events in the domestic debate. It is argued that the Danish debate – unlike the very individualistic anglo-saxon debate – has focused on collective matters. The debate has focused on institutions which make investment decisions on behalf of many – often hundreds of thousands of – people, institutions which do not operate in a free market setting. A brief description of Danish developments is followed by a summary of and further reflexions upon the analytical arguments of the thesis. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7131 Files in this item: 1
steen_vallentin.pdf (2.310Mb) -
the importance of "open house strategyTangkjær, Christian (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Raffnsøe, Sverre (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: I never became interested in philosophy primordially or originally. There is no source event or transformation that I can recall as being the defining moment. Stating ‘It began here!’ would be misleading… I am not even certain that I originally attained an interest, or even that I still am interested in philosophy as a privileged object of investigation and investment ‐ an aim in itself. There are, however, moments and situations in my life where an interest in philosophy has appeared or is necessarily forced upon me; these are times when philosophy appears as a seemingly unavoidable and essential questioning of fundamentals,– as a ‘basic’ need. This being said, it can be annoying as well as cumbersome. Philosophy as a ‘basic’ need makes itself felt as an estrangement that has always already taken place. It takes the form of a “Schritt zurück” in which one pulls away from, problematizes and reconsiders the given, including the given sense of community, its presuppositions and even the given self. As now, where I find myself writing this at a seaside hotel and consider whether I would prefer to stroll to the restaurant and chat with friends rather than continue taking pains to scrutinize and reflect. Incidentally a well‐known ‘philosophical’ ‘solution’ or resort since Hume. Concurrently, however, I sense that this latter choice may be lacking in philosophical substance. In such situations, philosophy becomes equated with a tendency towards seclusion – even with being secluded from myself. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8810 Files in this item: 1
Sverre_Raffnsøe.pdf (257.0Kb) -
Åkerstrøm Andersen, Niels (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
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Bin, Sheng (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
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Stäheli, Urs (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
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Åkerstrøm Andersen, Niels (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
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Exemplified by the transformation of the Danish pine furniture manufacturersLutz, Salla (København, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Dette forskningsprojekt tager udgangspunkt i observationer omkring de danske producenter af fyrretræsmøbler. Siden slutningen af 90’erne har industrien været præget af priskonkurrence som ses dels indbyrdes mellem de danske producenter, dels fra aktører i lande med lavere omkostningsstrukturer. Derudover er slutbrugernes interesse for fyrretræsmøbler dalet betragteligt. I takt med den heraf følgende lavere efterspørgsel på fyrretræsmøbler er de danske producenter i stigende grad begyndt at købe færdigproducerede møbler fra lavprismarkeder som Kina og Østeuropa for at komplementere deres egen møbelproduktion. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7762 Files in this item: 1
Salla Lutz.pdf (1.214Mb) -
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Raffnsøe, Sverre (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
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Monografi om dobbeltheden i tænkning af strategi, dels som vidensfelt i organisationsteori, dels som kunstnerisk tilgang til at skabe i erhvervsmæssig innovationGylling, Martin (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis is a study of processes of commercial artistic creation focusing on the practice of processual strategy in a context of designed strategy. The thesis focuses on the practice of processual strategy, seeing as strategy within the field is primarily understood and practised in a designerly approach. This concerns constructivist and objective thinking which, according to critical voices in organizationstudies, has difficulties explaining how strategic organisation creation gains a processual character. This is the critique that comes from the more poststructuralist positions in research on process theory and strategy, which in these years aims to move focus away from the dominance of designed strategy. I.e. an approach to practice understood as methodological individualism and pragmatic rationality (Chia & Holt 2009; Steyaert 2007; Stacey 2011; Hjorth 2012). Through recent poststructuralist currents in the field of processual strategy thinking and organisational entrepreneurship, for example Chia & Holt’s creation philosophical research in strategy without design and Steyaert’s (2007) thinking on the concept of entrepreneuring; the process theoretical thinking of entrepreneurship and innovation, the aim is to look beyond constructivist thinking of practice in order to understand processual dynamics in strategic work at the level of the organisation. In relation to this thinking the present thesis provides an empirically based discussion of processual strategy with an aim to contributing to the field of organisational entrepreneurship. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8895 Files in this item: 1
Martin_Gylling.pdf (1.873Mb) -
Industrirådet og efterkrigstidens Danmark 1945 - 1958Lind Larsen, Morten (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Velfærdsstaten befinder sig i et vadested. Befolkningen bliver ældre, og finansieringsgrundlaget skrumper. Det giver grundlag for diskussioner om, hvorvidt kursen skal justeres eller lægges radikalt om, og hvordan forholdet skal være mellem rettigheder og pligter i fremtiden. I de aktuelle diskussioner om den danske velfærdsstats fremtid er det et tilbagevendende spørgsmål, hvordan den danske velfærdsstatsmodel er opstået, og hvad der egentlig er dens centrale bestanddele. Den danske velfærdsstats rødder kan naturligvis trækkes langt tilbage, men der er efterhånden enighed om, at de første årtier efter befrielsen står som helt centrale i forhold til den moderne danske velfærdsstats historie. I perioden fra 1945 til slutningen af 1950’erne blev en række væsentlige forudsætninger således skabt for, at den moderne velfærdsstat kunne realiseres i 1960’erne og 1970’erne, hvor omfattende velfærdsreformer blev gennemført og en stor offentlig sektor etableredes. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8399 Files in this item: 1
Morten_Lind_Larsen.pdf (1.475Mb)