Browsing Ph.D. theses by Title
-
Jakobsen, Gitte P. (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: With the increasing globalization, new organizational structures, and rapid change the leader has been increasingly individualized and personalized. The leader has been put under pressure to reveal a leadership, in which the personality of the individual leader is increasingly important. Moreover, the individual leader has become central for creating and communicating organizational meaning, and the leaders’ personal conduct, ethics and identity are taken to be symbolic of the organizational brand. Leaders are increasingly publicly evaluated based on how he “tells the story” of him-self and the organization e.g. the extent to which the leader exemplifies and lives the organizational brand. This is reflected in a growing demand for leader development programs with a personal orientation, and psychological oriented development focused on the individual leaders’ personal challenges. Recent theoretical developments in the intersection of critical management studies and narrative identity studies have challenged prior assumptions and approaches, with a departure in social constructivist perspectives leadership is conceived as narrative identity construction embedded in social practice and context. Hence, leader studies turn to investigate the emergence of leaders as processes of identity work in particular contexts, privileging the use of language, social interaction and critical reflexive approaches. This dissertation explores the narrative construction of leader identity in the context of a leader development program, examining the processes and the content of identity work of leaders. Empirically five Danish executives from five different industries have been studied in a three year period, starting with a one-year long leader development program and in two following interviews. The material is analyzed within a theoretical and methodological framework inspired by a combination of social constructivist, discursive, narrative and critical management approaches to identity and leadership research. The narrative analytical framework is based on narrative theory, narrative therapy theorization, and positioning theory, analyzing the thematic, temporal and relational aspects of the five leaders’ narrative accounts. Hence, the analytical strategy analyzes the narrative recourses of: problem stories, preferred stories, storylines, and the negotiation of subject positions used by the five leaders in constructing certain situated leader identities URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7807 Files in this item: 1
Gitte_P_Jakobsen.pdf (1.488Mb) -
A History of Danish School Governing from 1970-2010Grønbæk Pors, Justine (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In Denmark, as in many other welfare states, we strongly believe that problems within the public sector can be solved by means of better management. For quite some years it has been assumed that management leads to more control over and better quality of welfare. Politicians and public servants have therefore been concerned with how the individual hospital, nursing home and school can develop its management. This has created a somewhat strange problem: How is it possible from a position at the top of a governing hierarchy to create management capacity from below? This thesis is about how Danish local government, municipalities, have developed understandings of governing relations between themselves and the public school over the last 40 years. The thesis tracks how municipalities have gradually assigned organizational independence to the individual school and increased their expectations of its self-management.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8355 Files in this item: 1
Justine_Grønbæk_Pors.pdf (4.586Mb) -
Antecedents, processes dynamics and firm-level impactØrberg Jensen, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This PhD thesis addresses one of the most intensely debated phenomena over the past decade within the realm of international business: Firms’ relocation of value chain activities to other parts in the network of multinational corporation (MNC) or to external suppliers/services providers in foreign countries (hereinafter referred to as offshoring), often to destination countries with lower cost structures. Whereas the offshoring of manufacturing tasks has existed for several decades, and has been analyzed in the international business literature, the offshoring of advanced services tasks from developed country firms to destination countries such as India, which offer an attractive cocktail of low costs and highly skilled labour, is a more recent phenomenon. The offshoring of this type of services tasks forms the subject of this PhD thesis... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7741 Files in this item: 1
Peter_d_orberg_jensen.pdf (674.8Kb) -
Does Design Affect Participation?Høgenhaven, Thomas (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Governments in more than 55 countries have signed the international Open Gov-ernment Partnership and are currently implementing open government initia-tives, aiming to make governments and public sectors more collaborative, participatory, transparent, and technology-driven. If successfully implemented, such open government initiatives can improve democracy, efficiency, and innovation. As history demonstrates, it is hard to build sustainable online participation. Merely 25% of online communities gather more than 1,000 members in their lifetime. Most of the other 75 % fail due to lack of participation. Many open gov-ernment communities have shared or are likely to share the same destiny. Giving citizens, companies, and non-governmental organizations the chance to participate in government does not necessarily mean they will do it. Consequently, open government communities face a participation challenge. Current research shows that the design of the community plays a critical role in participation. Some design patterns foster participation while other patterns discourage it. Existing research also demonstrates that insights from the social sciences can be translated into design ideas and thereby help solve the participation problem. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8768 Files in this item: 1
Thomas_Hoegenhaven.pdf (6.382Mb) -
The Contingent Value of Networked CollaborationVaarst Andersen, Kristina (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Co-location of industry professionals often leads to development of collaboration networks, and multiple studies have emphasized the benefits of embedded collaboration. Due to higher levels of trust, embedded collaboration reduces transaction costs and facilitates ready knowledge exchanged. Other studies have pointed to dangers of over-embeddedness. The argument is that too high levels of embeddedness lead to habitual thinking, preferential treatment, and thereby mitigate performance. However, research on the conditions under which embeddedness in different types of collaboration networks primarily yields costs or benefits still leaves much to be investigated.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8352 Files in this item: 1
Kristina_Vaarst_Andersen.pdf (2.825Mb) -
Busquets, Javier (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis is about innovation and power. Human nature has always been expressed by our capacity to innovate and adapt to almost any environment (Bowlby, 1962; Giddens, 1991). In the 20th century, the primary function of business organisations was to invent, produce and commercialise their products and services in different markets. As a matter of fact, business organisations in the last century proved to be the best way of disseminating innovation (Schön, 1971). Currently in the 21st century, there is a call to better understand how new ideas, technology and sources of knowledge are managed, based on the premise that novelty can unfold anywhere and that innovation cannot be considered a linear process consisting of a chain of activities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8164 Files in this item: 1
Javier_Busquets.pdf (3.025Mb) -
Møller Larsen, Marcus (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Offshoring can be defined as the relocation of organizational tasks and services to foreign locations. Increasingly, firms experience that unforeseen costs and difficulties of managing offshoring undercut anticipated benefits; that unexpected challenges of offshoring jeopardize and eventually undermine initial objectives. Guided by the research question—what are the organizational consequences of offshoring?—the purpose of this thesis is to investigate why some firms fail when offshoring and other do not. The thesis consists of four research papers using various datasets and methodologies that investigate offshoring in an organizational context. The first paper investigates how the complexity of offshoring leads to ‘hidden costs’ of implementing offshoring activities. The second paper looks at how these hidden reconfiguration costs influence the process performance of the offshored activity and how this relationship is moderated by the modularity of that activity. The third paper investigates the effect of the organizational reconfiguration of offshoring on firms’ strategies. The final paper studies different strategies of adaptation in offshoring. Taken together, this thesis argues that whether firms relocate activities with the purpose of accessing resources or as a response to political pressures, the process of offshoring presents firms with the challenge of coordinating and integrating offshoring activities in a global organization. The complexities and uncertainties of an organization consisting of a number of offshored activities (in contrast to an organization with only co-located activities) require firms to invest additional resources in coordination mechanisms so that an efficient reintegration can be achieved. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8669 Files in this item: 1
Marcus_M _Larsen.pdf (1.714Mb) -
(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) -
Med udgangspunkt i støtteverbers leksikaliseringsmønstre i dansk og franskHein, Birgitte (Frederiksberg, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Enhver oversætter mellem et germansk sprog som dansk og et romansk sprog som fransk ved, at det ofte er bestemte sproglige konstruktioner, der volder problemer. En af disse konstruktioner består af et støtteverbum og et objekt, der tilsammen danner en semantisk enhed. Da denne konstruktion er hyppigt forekommende, specielt i juridiske og administrative tekster, kan det være af både praktisk og teoretisk værdi at skaffe et klarere billede af, hvordan konstruktionerne idiomatisk opbygges og bruges på de to sprog. Undersøgelsen søger at indskrive sig i en sammenhæng, der vedrører både oversættelse og lingvistisk beskrivelse, ud fra et ønske om at en komparativ beskrivelse skal kunne give en oversætter viden, som han kan bruge i sit praktiske arbejde. De fleste, som har benyttet computer-støttede oversættelser, må være enige i, at det stadig er nødvendigt med kvalificeret menneskelig oversættelse, hvis man skal have en idiomatisk korrekt og brugbart resultat. Der er ganske vist i dag mulighed for computer-støttede ”rå-oversættelser”. Somme tider kan disse oversættelser tjene til for eksempel at give en internetbruger et hurtigt indtryk af indholdet af en web-side på et sprog, som han ikke behersker.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8623 Files in this item: 1
Birgitte_Hein.pdf (776.8Kb) -
Insights from Annual General MeetingsStrand, Therese (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis consists of five empirical studies, all relating to shareholder activism at annual general meetings. The first study concerns the structure and content of general meetings in Denmark and Sweden comparatively. The paper reveals significant differences in the level of activism, with Swedish investors being the most active in terms of proposals, proxy voting, and ‘voice’. The paper takes a legal approach, and discusses divergence in activism levels from the perspective of shareholder prerequisites to engage in monitoring efforts. Further, the paper investigating the topics addressed through questions and opinions. The results show that matters which can be categorized as irrelevant are reasonably rare. This is an important finding, as suggestions to abolish general meetings have often been based on the assumption that general meetings facilitate nothing but irrelevant, time consuming, and costly discussions that serves no monitoring function. The second study analyses the impact of voting power on shareholder activism. We hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between shareholder activism and a measure of the largest shareholder’s sensitivity to increased participation by small shareholders and find that firms’ amenability to small shareholder influence leads to more proposals by the nomination committee, but fewer proposals by other shareholders. We interpret this as evidence that the shareholder elected nomination committees effectively channel shareholder concerns and preempt other kinds of activism. Politicians and companies that desire active shareholders could improve the amenability of firms to shareholder influence by ownership transparency, shareholder committees, and contacts with shareholder associations and other vehicles for collective action... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8460 Files in this item: 1
Therese_Strand.pdf (1.719Mb) -
A study of the Think City electric car developmentStrzeletz Ivertsen, Karin (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
-
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) -
Next Generation Management of Organizational PerformanceKane, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Managers must aspire to understand their organization in a way that allows them to take appropriate actions when necessary and to be able to utilize tools which encourage the organization to behave in a desirable way. The field of performance management deals with these objectives and is becoming increasingly pervasive. However, the author’s personal experience and substantial scholarship suggest that performance management is linked to dysfunctional behavior in organizations. Various current explanations for the link between measurement and dysfunction revolve around observability or knowledge of the transformation process, but seem simplistic and inadequate. This work examines measurement as one representational form out of many others, for example text. It is proposed that the representational form used in performance management practice is implicated with dysfunctional behavior. This demands an exploration of the relevant facets of organizational reality which influence the relationship with various representational forms. After a theoretical positioning, the relationship is explored empirically through onsite visits at two Microsoft Corporation locations in Copenhagen and Redmond. Thirty stories of performance management, based on interviews with senior managers, are presented. The stories provide the basis for establishing a rich understanding of organizational reality and the implications of using various representational forms in terms of dysfunctional behavior. These implications lead to a fundamental rethinking of the form and boundaries of performance management theory and practice, and emphasize the need for a multi-paradigmatic approach to performance management, which is presented. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8015 Files in this item: 1
-
An Inquiry into Subjective and Social Technology at WorkBojesen, Anders (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The Performative Power of Competence undersøger hvad kompetence bliver i en række konkrete arbejdspraksisser. Afhandlingen viser hvordan kompetence ikke blot handler om individuelle eller organisatoriske opkvalificeringsprojekter, men indebærer en social værdidom (om det kompetente og ikke-kompetente) hvilket betyder at kompetence ikke længere kan ses som "et underliggende karakteristika ved individet på arbejde” men må forstås som en dobbelt bevægelse; det vil sige som en samtidig udpegning af et problem (behov for at lære noget nyt) og en løsning (forudsætning for at skabe effektive og attraktive arbejdspladser). Afhandlingen betjener sig af et stort empirisk materiale fra den offentlige sektor der omfatter fire kompetenceudviklingsforløb, gennemført i perioden 2004-2006. Materialet er skabt i et samarbejde med fire konsulenter, hvor forfatteren selv har været til stede og har bidraget til udformningen af kompetenceudviklingsprocesserne. Formuleret kort markerer kompetence en særlig ideologisk tilværelse, der betoner proaktivitet, selvrefleksivitet og en aktiv tagen ansvar for organisationens mål. Et symptom på denne kompetenceideologi er når offentlige institutioner inviterer konsulenter indenfor for at uddanne coaches og forandringsagenter og skabe tværgående teams, der igen har til formål at skabe øget fleksibilitet, tværgående samarbejde og projektorganisering. Kompetencens performative kraft består i den samtidige diagnose af mangelstilstanden og udmåling af den rette behandling. For konsulenten bliver det et problem, hvis vedkommende ikke kan tilvejebringe den rette diagnose og kur, idet intet er værre end at få diagnosticeret et problem uden at få stillet den rette behandling i udsigt. Samtidig hævder afhandlingen også, at det vil være farligt for ikke at sige umuligt endeligt at kurere den mangelstilstand som kompetence producerer. Fx kan modstand mod forandring og kritik af det bestående ikke blot elimineres som kværulanteri, men må ses som væsentlige elementer i transformationen af det selv-skabende, selv-refleksive, ansvars-tagende subjekt. Kompetencens performative kraft legitimerer transformationen af subjektet så længe subjektet finder tilfredsstillelse, ikke i de enkelte afgrænsede kompetenceudviklingsaktiviteter, men i den uendelige søgen efter et kompetent jeg. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7048 Files in this item: 1
-
Japanese Advertisements on the Aesthetic Education of DesireSato, Toyoko (, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: En længdesnitsundersøgelse fra 1969 til 1990 af de japanske stormagasiner Seibu og Parco under den tidligere Saison Groups auspicier (Japan) viser måden, hvorpå betydning udtrykkes og anfægtes som diskurs i det senmodernistiske forbrugersamfund. Kritisk diskursanalyse (CDA) støttet af omfattende, kvalitative interview af agenter og forbrugere har gjort det muligt at udnytte begreberne femininitet og begær, som Judith Butler har beskrevet i forbindelse med performativitet – det domæne, hvor styrke fungerer som diskurs – i reklamekampagner, der fx involverer værker af Ishioka Eiko. Butlers definition af begæret efter anerkendelse er med til at udtrykke, hvordan begæret manifesteres i samfundet, og hvorledes femininiteten har ændret sig over tid. Diskurs fremføres ikke blot som bestående af sprog- og billedtekst, men indeholder også to yderligere dimensioner: produktion, distribution og forbrug samt de sociale normer i en bestemt periode på det sted, hvor de pågældende diskurser er til stede. I forhold til den specifikke case fremhævede Saison Group kunst som en form for symbolsk kapital. Denne symbolske kapital var tæt forbundet med datidens økonomiske og sociale kræfter, og den virkede legitimerende for Seibu og Parco, der var efternølere inden for branchen. Måden hvorpå Parco kombinerede byggemodning og presseenheder med strategisk involvering af forbrugere og folk fra mediebranchen afspejles i begrebet “organisatorisk symbiose”. Succesen er afledt af den bestemte æstetik, der anvendes i deres reklamer. Reklamerne fungerede så til gengæld som en kanal og en slags æstetisk opdragelse i forhold til begær, som effektivt var med til at forme datidens subjektivitet. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8159 Files in this item: 0
-
Thorsten (, )[More information][Less information]
-
Nielsen, Michael E. (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: ‘No amount of preparation could have lessened the shock and revulsion I felt on entering a sporting-goods factory in the town of Sialkot, seventy miles from Lahore, where scores of children, most of them aged five to ten, produce soccer balls by hand for forty rupees, or about $1.20, a day. The children work eighty hours a week in near-total darkness and total silence. According to the foreman, the darkness is both an economy and a precautionary measure; child-rights activists have difficulty taking photographs and gathering evidence of wrongdoing if the lighting is poor. The silence is to ensure product quality: "If the children speak, they are not giving their complete attention to the product and are liable to make errors.” The children are permitted one thirty-minute meal break each day; they are punished if they take longer. They are also punished if they fall asleep, if their workbenches are sloppy, if they waste material or miscut a pattern, if they complain of mistreatment to their parents or speak to strangers outside the factory. A partial list of "infractions” for which they may be punished is tacked to a wall near the entrance. It’s a document of dubious utility: the children are illiterate. Punishments are doled out in a storage closet at the rear of the factory. There, amid bales of wadding and leather, children are hung upside down by their knees, starved, caned, or lashed.’ URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7730 Files in this item: 1
michael_e_nielsen.pdf (1.355Mb) -
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) -
India's national Oil Company and International Activism in SudanPatey, Luke (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
-
Et empirisk casestudie af omstillingsforløb i fire virksomhederBeyer, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: I mange virksomheder eller måske i alle virksomheder arbejder man løbende med forbedrings- og forandringsarbejder, gerne defineret som projekter med fokus på procesarbejde og de resultater, som projekterne forventes at skulle skabe..... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8047 Files in this item: 2
Peter_Beyer_artikler.pdf (9.219Mb)Peter_Beyer .pdf (4.311Mb)