PharmaPOST: People, Organization, Strategy and Technology in the Pharmaceutical Industry 

This project is part of the MTO research programme, initiated and sponsored by NUTEK (Swedish Board for Industrial and Technical Development). The MTO programme is aiming at finding and disseminating ways for Swedish companies to improve their organizational performance and competitive position considering aspects of strategy, organizational structure and business processes, information technology and the people being affected by change initiatives. Research projects are conducted in cooperation with a variety of Swedish companies in several industries. 

The Viktoria Institute is conducting a study at Astra Hässle, a pharmaceutical R&D company within the Astra group. After an initial study, the course is now set for a full study over a period from May 1998 to December 1999.

Read more and download the publications!

Contact person: Kai A. Simon

Införandet av datoriserade ärende- och dokumenthanteringssystem i kommuner - Hur påverkas personalens arbetssituation och organisationen?
Implementation of case- and document-management systems in city administration - Impact on work-situation and organization

This one-year project (03/99-02/00) is funded by RALF (The Swedish Council for Work Life Research) and investigates the result of implementing a case- and document-management system in the City of Göteborg.

Read the project description! (in Swedish)

Contact person: Ulrika Josefsson

Genres of Organizational Learning 

This research project is focusing on organizational communication, investigating the potentials of new infrastructures and new media to enable organizational learning. The project will evolve around issues how communication and dialogue can be/is implemented to promote learning and distribution of competence. As starting point of this effort, Volvo's use of Internet, both internally and externally (including customers and suppliers) will be in focus, especially how this technology may enable the kind of learning that emerges out of conversation and dialogue. Based on empirical studies we will identify the characteristics of genres of organizational learning, and knowledge distribution. 

Approach: The project will refine the concept of genre as it has been used by Yates and Orlikowski to analyse and describe practices of organizational communication, and how these change when new media and technology is introduced. The main focus will initially be how Internet technology and Intranets change communicative practices. The study will then continue to adress design issues. 

Timeplan: The projects first phase is running from January 1998 to December 1998. It will the continue for two more years. 

Project members: Jan Ljungberg, Magnus Bergquist, Peter Holm and Dick Stenmark.

Funding: The project is funded by the Volvo Research Foundation.

Contact person: Stefan Ohlson

DigiComm: A legal study of Digital Commercial Communication

The purpose of this project is to study the way modern telecommunications have altered the way in which small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) communicate while conducting everyday business. While the focus of this study can be popularly termed as electronic commerce, the name of this project has been chosen to more truly reflect its objectives. While studies of electronic commerce should also include the impact of artefacts such as the facsimile and telex machine this project is concerned mainly with computer based communication. Studies have shown that the growth of electronic commerce is extreme. New, digitally provided, goods and services are being developed and sold. The shape of business is changing rapidly. While the technological obstacles are often quickly mastered the legal solutions are often insufficient or inadequate. The aim of this project is to take a holistic view commercial digital communication and identifying the potential pitfalls. The reasons for this are twofold: First to enable companies to make better risk evaluations and second to promote research in these areas. The pattern of communication will be broken up into four stages. Each stage will be identified and analysed both separately and in relation to the whole process. The study will look at the modes of communication and the legal issues concerned. The four stages of commercial digital communication: 1. Marketing/Offer 2. Negotiation/Contract 3. Transfer of goods, services and payment 4. Breach of contract. Each stage will be viewed from the viewpoint of the seller, buyer, consumer and government.

Contact person: Mathias Klang

EUROMAP

Euromap is part of the European Telematics Application Programme and funded by the European Commission within the 4th Framework Programme. One aim is to investigate the state of research in language engineering in several countries. Another important aim is to investigate the need of language engineering in industry, and disseminate results from research and at the same time promote the potential benefits of language engineering. Visit the Euromap-site at Viktoria.

Contact persons: Jan Ljungberg, Stefan Ohlsson, Karin Söderberg