Browsing Ph.D. theses (MPP/LPF) by Title
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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) -
(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) -
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) -
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) -
Managing and Researching Inclusive SchoolsRatner, Helene (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis examines “reflexivity” as the key theme for understanding how Danish school managers work with the currently influential political vision of including students with special needs in the common school (educating children aged 5-16). Despite repeated attempts to realize the vision of inclusion, the number of students referred to special pedagogical services, and thus segregated from the common school, has continued to grow, especially since 1995. There is a widespread consent that this development is due to the schools’ practices and socially constructed categories of “special needs” and “normalcy.” Pedagogical scholars and recent policy initiatives posit that schools can achieve the much-wanted cultural change towards inclusion if teachers reflect (more) on their mindsets and practices. When advocating inclusion, scholars often refer to school managers as “leaders of meaning construction,” thus emphasizing their importance in facilitating cultural change. Existing knowledge practices are depicted as too “durable” with the unintended side-effects of segregation and budget overruns, and school managers are, following, encouraged making teachers change their practices through (self-) reflexivity. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8459 Files in this item: 1
Helene_Ratner.pdf (2.848Mb) -
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Abstract: Offentlige forvaltninger verden over har været præget af voldsomme reformbølger de seneste 20-30 år, og den private sektor er i stigende grad blevet inddraget i den offentlige serviceproduktion. Privatiseringer og udliciteringer kendetegnede således forvaltningspolitikken i mange vestlige lande op gennem 1980erne og 1990erne. De mange reformtiltag er i forvaltningslitteraturen kendt under betegnelsen New Public Management. En af de senere udviklinger i den moderne forvaltningshistorie er fremkomsten af offentlig-private partnerskaber (OPP). OPP har i dag fået en lignende udbredelse som de tidligere privatiserings- og udliciteringstendenser. De fleste vestlige landeforvaltninger har således forsøgt sig med OPP, og i forvaltningslitteraturen har antallet af publiceringer om emnet været hastigvoksende de seneste cirka 10 år. Trods den store udbredelse, i såvel teori som praksis, skorter der imidlertid med klassifikationer, endsige definitioner af OPP begrebet. Denne afhandling har to centrale formål. Det ene er at afdække OPP begrebets mangetydige betydninger. Det gøres ved at kortlægge hvordan begrebet bliver anvendt i den internationale forvaltningslitteratur. Analysen viser at begrebets grænser er slørede, og at betegnelsen OPP bliver anvendt om en mangfoldighed af offentlig-private samarbejdsformer dækkende over uformaliserede netværksbaserede relationer såvel som stærkt formaliserede kontraktstrukturer. På baggrund af analysen inddeles forvaltningslitteraturen i en række strømninger. Dermed skabes et overblik over feltet som ikke eksisterede forud for analysen. Denne del af analysen munder endvidere ud i en ny måde at klassificere og definere forskellige typer OPP på. OPP er et relativt ungt forskningsfelt. En markant barriere for udviklingen af feltet har været manglen på anerkendte klassificeringer/definitioner. Begrebsdefinitioner er en forudsætning for teoriudvikling. Ved at afdække OPP begrebets mangetydige betydninger, og ved at udvikle nye måder at klassificere og definere OPP på bidrager denne analyse væsentligt til den fremtidige teoriudvikling om OPP. Afhandlingens andet formål er at afdække hvad der kendetegner samarbejdsrelationerne i idriftsatte OPP-projekter. Det er en udbredt opfattelse blandt praktikere såvel som forskere at OPP bebuder noget kvalitativt nyt relativt til de fordums tiders privatiseringer og udliciteringer. Der findes således en udbredt teoretisk diskurs om at OPP indebærer tætte og tillidsbaserede samarbejdsrelationer, dialog og fokus på processer frem for output. På trods af sådanne udbredte forventninger og antagelser om samarbejdsformens karakter, så er der forbavsende få systematiske empiriske studier af hvordan samarbejdsrelationerne ser ud i praksis. Ved empirisk at kortlægge samarbejdets karakter i fem britiske OPP-projekter udfylder afhandlingen derfor et vigtigt hul i den internationale forvaltningslitteratur. Analysen bidrager til litteraturen på to centrale måder. Den viser, for det første, at forventningerne om kvalitativt anderledes samarbejdsrelationer ikke bliver indfriet i flertallet af de analyserede cases. Det forventede skift fra hierarkiske, kontrolorienterede principal-agent relationer mod fladere, tillidsbaserede principalprincipal relationer ses ikke i praksis. For det andet ses der dog alligevel stor variation i den måde hvorpå samarbejdet udmønter sig i de forskellige cases. Den ene case udviser således mange af de førnævnte samarbejdskarakteristika som typisk bliver kædet sammen med OPP. Analyseresultatet peger på, at samarbejdsrelationernes kan udmøntes væsensforskelligt indenfor den samme type kontraktstrukturer. Dette peger videre på, at formelle strukturer kun giver en begrænset indsigt i samarbejdets karakter. For at få en dybere forståelse af OPP, er det derfor nødvendigt at gå bagom kontrakten og analysere hvordan samarbejdsformen udspiller sig i praksis. Der identificeres endvidere en sammenhæng mellem samarbejdspraksis og partnerskabsperformance. De cases som involverer de mest tillidsbaserede og tætte relationer ser samtidig ud til at være de cases, der præsterer bedst. Analyseresultaterne har implikationer for OPP litteraturen og ledelsesmæssige implikationer. For det første giver resultaterne anledning til at revidere den eksisterende teoretiske diskurs om OPP. Der er en tendens i litteraturen til at forbinde bestemte samarbejdsstrukturer med bestemte typer samarbejdsprocesser. Resultaterne her indikerer at disse to dimensioner ikke følger hinanden. Dernæst peger resultaterne på at ressourcer og ledelsesmæssig opmærksomhed med fordel kan rettes mod de løbende samarbejdsprocesser, da dette kan få betydning for samarbejdets udfald. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7734 Files in this item: 1
Gudrid_Weihe.pdf (4.007Mb) -
Hoffmann Pii, Kathrine (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The patient-centred approach is expanding in the Danish healthcare system. This approach strives to organize treatment and care so that it takes departure in the individual patient’s personal values, wishes and motivations. The intention behind the approach is to offer more effective and more ethical treatment and care. The patient-centred approach assigns to a great extent the responsibility for individuals’ state of health and improvement to the individual patient. But what challenges does the approach pose for the professionals who work with it? In this thesis, I seek to explore the organizational and managerial problematics that the patient-centred approach implies in a case from the vascular specialty in the Danish healthcare system. The research question that I explore in the thesis is: How is preventive capacity and responsibility built and distributed in patient-centred prevention practices? URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8884 Files in this item: 1
Kathrine_H_Pii.pdf (3.555Mb) -
En analyse af coachingsdiskursens genealogi og governmentalityHede, Tobias Dam (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Formålet med denne afhandling er at undersøge coachingdiskursens genealogi og ”governmentality”, dvs. dens historiske formationer og normative basis som ledelsesmodel og praksisregime. Problemfeltet formuleres igennem det såkaldte ”symmetriproblem”. Den væsentligste udfordring heri er spørgsmålet om, hvordan en coach kan bistå et andet menneske med at åbne sig for og vende sig imod det, der er væsentligt for den enkelte selv, og det fællesskab, han eller hun definerer sig i forhold til. I det perspektiv er symmetriproblemets analysestrategiske funktion at være samlebetegnelse for tre ”problematiseringslinjer” i coachingdiskursens genealogi og governmentality, der konstituerer sig igennem diskursive strategier for: 1) Ledelse, 2) erkendelse og 3) subjektivitet. Ud fra det perspektiv besvarer afhandlingen følgende research question: Hvordan problematiseres, idealiseres og tilegnes coaching som samtalekunst og ledelsesdisciplin på baggrund af symmetriproblemet? Afhandlingens formål og problemfelt vil i det følgende blive udfoldet i en mere generel indledning ud fra fem overskrifter: 1) Motivation af problemfeltets tilblivelse, aktualitet og relevans; 2) analysestrategisk greb; 3) genstandsfelt; 4) erkendelsesinteresser og forskningsbidrag, samt 5) analysestrategiens disposition og empiriske design. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8279 Files in this item: 1
Tobias_Dam_Hede.pdf (5.700Mb) -
A Penrosian History of Fiberline CompositesKorsager, Ellen Mølgaard (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: My dissertation tells a history of Fiberline Composites a small Danish producer of reinforced plastic. The purpose of telling this story, which stretches over 25 years from the company’s founding in 1979 to 2004, is to discuss the process of growth. In The Theory of the Growth of the Firm economist Edith Penrose seeks to explain this process and she proposes that it is best studied through historical analysis of the individual firm. This is the case, she argues, because firm growth is a path-dependent process of accumulating and exploiting resources and because every firm exists in a specific context of time and place. The firm’s available resources are exploited, or put to service, as a response to the (productive) opportunities that the firm sees and as Penrose notes the theory of the growth of firms is basically an examination of the changing productive opportunity of firms. Penrose describes productive opportunity as a subjective phenomenon. She notes that when the firm acts on such opportunities it will base its decisions on the company’s own self-conception and image of context. As such these concepts are the key to explaining the growth process of the firm. The object of my dissertation is to discuss the connection between the process of firm growth and the self-conception and image of context of the firm. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8999 Files in this item: 1
Ellen_Mølgaard_Korsager.pdf (1.466Mb) -
En socialpsykologisk analyse af forholdet imellem selvledelse, ledelse og stress i det moderne arbejdslivGroth-Brodersen, Signe (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Afhandlingen rejser et kritisk perspektiv på individualiseringen af sundhedsfremme ud fra en diskussion af ledelse af selvledelse i det moderne arbejdsliv. Det er karakteristisk for den eksisterende danske og internationale forskning i selvledelse, at der er gennemført en begrænset empirisk udforskning af selvledelsens funktion og virke i arbejdslivets praksis. Det er i særlig grad empirisk underbelyst, hvordan variationer i forholdet imellem selvledelse og ledelse indvirker på forekomsten af stresssymptomer. Et nyere dansk empirisk projekt placerer selvledelse, beskrevet som en særlig form for selvorganiseringskompetence, i en positiv position i forhold til at håndtere det grænseløse arbejdsliv. Det grænseløse arbejdsliv beskrives her som det at have frie grænser i forhold til organiseringen af ’arbejdstid og arbejdssted’. Disse resultater udfordrer tidligere studier indenfor arbejdslivsforskning, hvor man i højere grad har set selvledelse koblet sammen med stress og stigende krav til individet (Phil-Tingvad, 2010; Allvin et. al., 2011, Lund & Hvid, 2007). I den internationale forskning beskrives selvledelse som ’Self-Leadership’. Self-Leadership handler om en særlig form for selvkontrol, hvor individet giver sig selv feedback og er selvmotiverende (Neck & Hougton, 2006; Manz & Neck, 2004). Self-Leadership er en teori, der arbejder med selvledelse uden en konkret kobling til arbejdslivet. Teorien beskæftiger sig derfor ikke med selvledelsens sammenspil med ledelsen og herunder betydningen af ledelse som relevant kontekstuelt parameter. Selvledelse bliver set som en eksistentiel form for egenledelse.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8626 Files in this item: 1
Signe_Groth-Brodersen.pdf (1.643Mb) -
Et mixed method studie, der belyser læringskonsekvenser af et lederkursus for et praksisfællesskab af offentlige mellemledereMoesby-Jensen, Cecilie K. (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The English title of this dissertation, which in the outset was an integrated part of a larger intervention study on the effects of team manager training, is: Social learning and shared practice. A mixed method study showing the learning consequences of a training course for a community of practice of public middle managers. Due to the growth of the elderly population in Denmark and, simultaneously, the fact that a large part of Danish health care workers soon face retirement, in addition to the challenge regarding the recruitment and the holding on to employees in the public health care sector in Denmark in the coming years, this sector is confronted with the task of creating and sustaining sought-after workplaces and one way of doing this is by organizing the work in a efficient and attractive way for the employees, for instance in compliance with the idea of teamwork. This entails change, education and learning, and this dissertation investigates, in a case-study, the social learning consequences of a training course for middle managers in the Danish health care system, and thus poses the research question: What are the intended and unintended learning consequences of the training course ”Managing teams”?.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8049 Files in this item: 1
Cecilie_Moesby-Jensen.pdf (3.331Mb) -
Omtydningen af melankolien og manien som bipolære stemningslidelser i dansk sammenhæng under hensyn til dannelsen af det moderne følelseslivs relative autonomi. En problematiserings- og erfaringsanalytisk undersøgelseGudmand-Høyer, Marius (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Afhandlingen har to formål. For det første undersøges hvorledes det blev muligt at de to sygdomsnavne mani og melankoli samt de tilstande de har refereret til i løbet af et bestemt tidsrum, omtrent sammenfaldende med det 19. århundrede, kunne forskyde sig i forhold til tidligere overleverede bestemmelser af en ganske anden art. Hvor tidligere problematiseringsformer i vid udstrækning forbandt disse sygdomslidelser med en fuldstændig galskab stående overfor en der var mere begrænset, udforskes det således hvordan og i forbindelse med hvad melankolien og manien senere kunne finde sammen i et nyt fællesskab omkring stemningen som en særlig artikulationskategori. Det blev her tale om et fællesskab hvori manien og melankolien grundlæggende afgrænsedes og artikuleredes som bestemte sindssygdomme under hensyn til følelseslivets område og hvori de indbyrdes primært kom til at adskille sig bipolært ved det opstemte (lysten, nydelsen, det behagelige) overfor det nedstemte (ulysten, smerten, det ubehagelige). I denne sammenhæng var den førhen definerende afsindighed ikke længere en betingelse for de maniske og melankolske tilstandes sygelighed, men var derimod blevet en ofte forekommende stemningskongruent fremtrædelsesform. Afhandlingens andet formål er på denne baggrund at skildre centrale dele af den historiske baggrund for den særegene fremmedgørelsesfigur der er kommet til at høre til det moderne begreb om psykisk sygdom. Der synes her at være blevet tale om en form for fremmedgørelse der ikke forudsætter den intellektuelle forstyrrelse som førhen kunne sætte den gales sensus privatus udenfor fornuftens forudsatte sensus communis. I stedet er trådt en om sig selv bevidst fremmedgørelse fra et eget sædvanligt selv indenfor rammerne af et fællesskab som både før og efter forrykkelsen er lige så alment som det moderne følelsesliv i sin relative autonomi. Det empiriske materiale for denne historiske undersøgelse består i det bredest mulige udvalg af offentliggjorte ytringer der med herkomst i en dansk sammenhæng i perioden 1800-1900 tematiserer manien og melankolien som psykiske sygdomme. Den analytik som bringes i anvendelse overfor dette materiale er den historiske problematiserings- og erfaringsanalyse, hvilken afhandlingen samtidig præsenterer i sin hidtil mest udviklede form. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8704 Files in this item: 2
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Change management challenges in the Danish police reformDegnegaard, Rex (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Since its commencement in January 2007, the Danish police reform has been a hot topic in the media, at universities, dinner parties, and in waiting rooms. The general perception of the police reform is that it is a failure. During 2008, the reform has been subject to much public debate, which has linked many unfortunate cases of police neglect with the police reform. Furthermore, the public debate has created a picture of a police not in control and with the reform to blame. Given this troublesome context of the police reform, the question which everyone is asking is: why did it go wrong? Along with the question of: whose fault was it? The current thesis does not provide one single answer to the chaotic situation surrounding the police reform. Neither does it place the responsibility of the unforeseen consequences of the police reform. Rather, this thesis focuses on unforeseen consequences of the reform in regards to change management and organizational implications. This thesis is submitted as a doctoral thesis at Copenhagen Business School in completion of a three-year Ph.D. study. The thesis is the result of a longitudinal research study on change management challenges in the Danish police reform. The study rests on a multi-sited methodology compromising an array of research methods such as interviews, field studies, presentations, meetings, written document studies, etc. over the course of the three years’ duration of the study. The study draws from different strands of literature, primarily change management literature and institutional literature, including resource dependency theory. The research question, which guides the thesis, is as follows: What are the change management challenges and the organizational implications of introducing a reform, which has a functional-rational logic of modernization and efficiency to the Danish police, which is a strongly institutionalized organization? The research question has been answered through the analysis, which is divided into three sections: - Change management in the reform, - Content of the police reform, and - The external control of the police. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8008 Files in this item: 1
Rex_Degnegaard_endelig.pdf (4.848Mb) -
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Abstract: Der findes en lang række bud på, hvordan man kan tænke om og arbejde med strategi. På trods af den tilsyneladende rivende udvikling indenfor det strategiske forskningsfelt gennem de seneste godt 50 år står virksomheder dog overfor en enorm udfordring, idet en overvejende del af strategiske initiativer fejler. Den manglende evne til at eksekvere strategier har den konsekvens, at det begrænser en virksomheds vækst og dens tilpasningsevne og konkurrenceevne, hvorved både virksomheder og samfundet som helhed går glip af en enorm værdiskabelse. Manglende eksekvering betegnes derfor af nogle som den største barriere for succes og vigtigste årsag til skuffede forventninger. På trods af ovennævnte har den hidtidige forskning indenfor strategi primært koncentreret sig om udviklingen af strategier fremfor eksekveringen af dem. Populært sagt har eksekveringen af strategierne i forskningen primært kun fået ’plads på bagsædet’, hvor den bagvedliggende tankegang har været, at eksekvering mest af alt bare har skullet fikses efter formuleringen af strategien. Dermed har metoder og problemer i relation til strategieksekvering fået langt mindre opmærksomhed end dem, som anvendes indenfor strategiudvikling. Med henblik på at opnå en større forståelse for ’strategieksekvering i praksis’ har afhandlingen besvaret, hvorfor danske virksomheder ikke lykkes med at eksekvere deres strategier. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8826 Files in this item: 1
Mark_Holst-Mikkelsen.pdf (1.910Mb) -
Four Cases from Danish Monetary HistoryRavn Sørensen, Anders (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this dissertation I examine the historical relationship between Danish national identity and monetary organization, defined as the Danish currency kronen and the Danish central bank Nationalbanken. The ambition of my analysis is twofold: firstly, I aim to understand the role of national identity in legitimating Danish monetary organization. Secondly, I analyze the importance of the Danish currency and Nationalbanken in the construction of national identity. As such, the dissertation focuses on the mutually configuring relationship between monetary legitimacy and national identity. Following ideas from organizational institutionalism, one of the basic assumptions in the dissertation is that all organizations, including central banks, must be aligned with, or at least not contradict, the values, norms and symbols of the surrounding national culture. To analyze this potential alignment historically in a Danish context, national identity is applied as an analytical concept that conditions the actions and decisions of organizations placed in a national setting. In the dissertation, national identity is understood as the continuous reproduction and interpretations of the cultural elements of the nation as well as individual identification with these elements. This definition of national identity allows for an analysis that involves more than how monetary organization become legitimate. Every attempt to align kronen and Nationalbanken with national identity constitutes, concurrently, a reproduction of national identity. Thus, while a central bank and national currency might require alignment with national identity to be perceived as legitimate, monetary organization also reproduces and bolsters national identity. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8975 Files in this item: 1
Anders_R_Sørensen.pdf (3.539Mb) -
The Social Productivity of Cartographic Crisis and Transitions in the Case of SEEITBrenneche, Nicolaj Tofte (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The long term transition to sustainable energy systems is already having an impact on how energy research and innovation is being organized. With ambitious European and national goals for energy system transitions, a new transition complexity challenges established domains of expertise and other established actor domains. Thus, system transition complexity opens up for a broad range of new relational problems which transgress established definitions of expert domains and which areas of expertise ‘belong’ to energy research and which actors are relevant for energy research and innovation. As an example hereof, the long term prospective of transformed energy systems actualizes a need for combining expert domains and actors within energy efficient buildings with expert domains and actors within the modeling, planning and management of energy systems of various kinds. Many other examples could be listed illustrating how energy research as a complex field of knowledge production and innovation confronts a new, open transition complexity, which transforms the landscapes of energy research. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8784 Files in this item: 1
Nicolaj_T_Brenneche.pdf (3.858Mb) -
The Economic and Artistic Constitution of a Social PhenomenonWymann, Christian (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
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en analyse af diskussionen omkring indførelse af EPJ på en hospitalsafdelingSchnack, Morten (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to analyse how the implementation of electronic patient records (EPR) may affect cross-disciplinary clinical practice in a particular hospital department. The thesis presents a modified discourse analysis, a technology analysis, and some reflections on power. Using nineteen interviews of doctors and nurses in the Paediatric Department of Hvidovre Hospital, it emphasizes those actions in relation to the implementation of EPR that may either hinder or foster cross-disciplinary co-operation between doctors and nurses. The general pattern is that EPR fosters mono-disciplinarity, even though the management’s ambitions in regard to EPR had been to foster crossdisciplinarity. The overall conclusion of the thesis is that EPR has the capacity to open a space for cross-disciplinarity. The changes in the documentation practices of the doctors and the nurses that follow from the implementation of EPR have also brought changes in their communication and decision-making processes. This can be seen especially when they prepare for regular rounds, during rounds, and in the subsequent documentation of rounds. Also, the changes in both the structures of communication and the processes of decision-making do not seem to result in fundamental task slippage between the doctors and the nurses because the doctor maintains ultimate authority and responsibility in regard to diagnosis, prescriptions, and treatment plans, while the nurses remain responsible for patient care (nursing) and keeping the doctors informed. Like the paper-based patient record, EPR expresses the rationality of medical science but, unlike the paper-based patient record, the doctors no longer hold a monopoly on the expression of this rationality. The thesis focuses on the spaces of conduct that arise as a result of the managing doctor’s political intention to use the transformation of patient record technology as an occasion for managers and professionals to reconsider how they have hitherto organized the routines and tasks in the department. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7129 Files in this item: 1
morten_schnack.pdf (5.242Mb) -
On the production of the stress-fit, self-managing employeePedersen, Michael (København, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Routine work‐process, lack of self‐management, and long work‐hours have traditionally been the main topics of discussion within the occupational stress literature, constituting the primary factors that make people breakdown and burn out. But within the last couple of years, this discussion has expanded its focus from issues concerning the disciplinary work‐space. Increasing attention is now being placed on the problems related to the burgeoning interest in employee empowerment and self‐management in contemporary work‐life. In short, how stress relates to self‐management. These working conditions, which put a great deal of emphasis on the subjectivity of the employee and the ability of the employee to self‐manage in a pursuit of an organization’s goals, are thus no longer regarded as something that decreases stress, but rather as something that evokes it. However, as this thesis argues, one can regard stress as more than a crisis we are faced with in our work‐life. It is also an element that co‐produces what it is to be a efficient employee‐subject within this work‐life. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology of flows and machines, this sketches out how stress among self‐managing employees, and in particular the manner in which stress is reduced to a matter of individual coping, can be viewed as an organising process that separates, joins and codes the ontological fabric of our lives. In this regard, certain modes of existence centred on stress issues and the coping strategies of individuals are themselves produced as an individual responsibility for maximizing one’s own productivity as a self‐managing and committed employee. As I will argue, the production of this mode of existence of the employee‐subject revolves around the assumption of an employee subject that is able to tune its feelings, desires and thoughts in to a life of productivity without breaking‐down their body and soul. In fact, the potential break‐down of stress should act as an internal limit for personal productivity, as a way of rebooting to an ever more efficient self‐management. All in all, we can therefore talk of a production‐process revolving around the presumption of an always fitter, happier, more productive employee. The questions raised in the investigation of this particular form of production of subjectivity are: what notions of subjectivity as a productive resource are we presented with when not only self‐management but also the management of the stress this self‐management might entail becomes an underlying foundation for a flexible and efficient organization? What can an employee think, do and hope for under such circumstances? What are the dynamics that drive such a notion of subjectivity? And with what necessity does this notion set itself forth? All in all, the claim made in the thesis is that for this fitter, happier, and more productive employee, dealing with oneself and stress are primarily matters of individual responsibility and personal development. But by turning stress into matters of individual responsibility, happiness and productivity, one thereby misses some of the underlying ontological processes working within selfmanagement theories and practices. These processes are pre‐personal or preindividual in the sense that they outline ways we can be produced as individual subjects. These not only produce stress as a possibility for any particular individual to assume, they also convert stress‐issues amongst employees into matters of being unable to adequately contribute towards the organization, leading in turn towards an understanding of these issues as something best handled if employees can improve their own coping abilities. If they can better their own self. We can hence talk of a commitment machine that produces a zone of indiscernability between the subjectivity of the employee and the efficiency of the organization connecting up with a coping machine that frames problems within this zone as a matter of personal problems regarding one’s subjectivity. The coping machine serves to reinforce the production of the self‐managing employee by making the employees themselves each responsible for learning to take control of their own passion for working in the organization. The employee has to be passionate and committed, of course; but they now also have to distance themselves from this passion and commitment in order to perform well at their tasks. These passions are simultaneously considered both essential and problematic: the employee is both part of an ideal state and a pathological condition. The coping machine makes this pathological condition into a problem of personal commitment rather than making it a task for questioning how the production of the pre‐individual zone of indiscernability between the work and the employees’ subjectivity is itself set up by the commitment machine. In other words, the coping machine produces a mode of existence wherein stress results from an overemphasis, on the part of the employees, upon the commitment towards their work and from a failure to deploy the most appropriate selfmanagement technologies. The thesis can thus be said to be guided by three ambitions in its unfolding of this tune in, break‐down and reboot motion. First of all, to give an account of the inherent modes of existence produced within the contemporary organizational ideal of the committed self‐managing employee. This is done through a reading of various discussions about the management of employee subjectivity ranging from the self‐leadership literature focusing on self‐management as intrinsically motivating and enjoyable through to discussions of incitements to self‐manage and commit as a subtle ways to encroach and exploit the employee’s personal subjectivity to contemporary discussions of the new nature of capitalism and its focus on the active living forms of knowledge as the key to value‐production. The second ambition is to address a prevalent paradigm within the occupational stress and stress‐management literature, namely that of coping, as a reinforcement of this demand for a committed and self managing employee. This is done through a reading of some of the most influential scholars within stress and coping and best‐sellers on stress‐management. The third and final ambition is to describe this movement of reinforcement, or tune in, break‐down and reboot movement, through the Deleuzian notion of machines that in various dynamic ways produce and regulate ways of being or modes of existence. Consequently, it will be suggested that the nuts and bolts making up the relation between self‐management and stress is part of a mode of existence that sets up certain expectations about the problem of stress and the enterprise of dealing with stress as an individual productivity and enjoyment issue: being fitter, happier, and more productive rather than being regarded as part of the pre‐individual collective endeavor that constitutes us as these very subjects. Today in self‐management these machines of commitment and coping might produce us as a fitter, happier, and more productive subject. But this very machinic production that unleashes and confines our subjectivity as employees depends on an extremely unstable pre‐individual force. Tapping into this force always means that the foundation of these machines are themselves vulnerable and fragile, or as Deleuze might put it: we do not know yet what we are capable of as this fitter, happier, more productive employee, we do not know were the preindividual forces that animates the machines of commitment and coping might bring us, so we must tune in, breakdown, and reboot to find out. Besides a short introduction and a first chapter that highlight some of the most important notions in the thesis, such as self‐management, stress, subjectivity, modes of existence, pre‐individual forces and social machines, the thesis consists of three parts. The first part running from chapter two through five, is called Machines and Maps. Here I discuss the concept of machines as it is developed by Deleuze and Guattari. Of particular interest is their notion of a social machine. Also crucial is what a machinic approach in general implies when analyzing an object of research and how this approach is utilized to understand the production of subjectivity in contemporary work‐life. The second part Self‐management and the Commitment‐machine runs from chapter six to eleven. Here I outline two machinic indices of a self‐management, namely the ‘subjectivity’ and ‘commitment’ and the machinery that drives them; the commitment machine. In the third and last part Stress and the Coping‐machine, which runs from chapter twelve to fifteen, I shift my focus towards the two machinic indices of stress: ‘the somatic subject’ and ‘the coping processes’. I end up with a description of the coping machinery that drives these indices and how this machinery connects up with the commitment machine resulting in the production of the stress‐fit self‐managing employee. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7761 Files in this item: 1
Michael_Pedersen.pdf (1.515Mb)