Mid Sweden University

The aim of this study is to explore whether trends in sustainability and digitalisation from the 1980s until today have left any significant practical or epistemological footprints on the quality management paradigm. The study design consists of a mixed-methods approach that applies a data-mining methodology and content analysis to the digital archives of eight scientific journals: six within the quality management (QM) domain and two with a focus on operations management (OM). The data set contains an unbroken time series of over 12,000 research paper abstracts, the first of them published in 1980, giving the study a coverage of almost 40 years. The findings show that sustainability came onto the scholarly scene in 1996 and has since become an increasingly popular research area. In regard to digitalisation, the story is quite different, as the concept is currently absent from the scholarly QM and OM literatures. However, a search for information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) revealed that these topics have been gaining attention since the 1980s. However, it was found that QM research only addresses one part of digitalisation, omitting several interesting dimensions. One example is that the QM and OM literatures address IS mainly in relation to standardised guidelines and business processes within organisations. At the same time, we found a handful of studies combining QM and topics related to modern digitisation, like social media. 

Background: Stakeholders in health and social care are implementing digital solutions to facilitate person-centred care for citizens. One problem is choosing which digital solution to implement. Ordinary cost-benefit analysis implicates the measurable parts of the value, leaving the immeasurable without any trace in an analysis. Results: We used design thinking to design a framework that implicates what to add as valuable factors on individual, organisational, and governmental levels. The design is based on empirical material from workshops and literature reviews on systems thinking, quality management, and value factors. The valuable factors at an individual level could include independence, autonomy, and empowerment, and the factors at the organisational level accessibility, competence, and independence. On a central level, the factors are related to person-centred care and its value proposals, such as autonomy and independence. Conclusions: While conducting a cost-benefit analysis, focusing on a standard definition of the value concept is essential. The designed framework needs to be dynamic due to the broad range of welfare technology. The created rubrics cube model, including strategic, organisational-operational and individual levels, should be used by decision-making groups as a flexible foundation. Forthcoming research will test this framework, including the proposed scale for measurement and focusing on welfare technology for older citizens.

During the pandemic, physical meetings were supposed to decrease as much as possible to avoid the virus to spread. Before the pandemic, the physical meeting favoured social care and home health care in Sweden. One solution was to digitize as many of these meetings as possible. Therefore, we investigated this transition in a web survey, including questions with predetermined and open-ended answers. The web-survey was sent to co-workers in home health care and social care in a middle-seized municipality in Sweden. The results showed that not all meetings could be transformed, like meetings with citizens with hearing or cognitive impairments. Challenges related to the transformation were instability in technical equipment, the professionals’ and citizens’ knowledge of handling technical equipment, and access to technical equipment support. Despite this did the co-workers digitize meetings whenever possible, adding operational and problem-solving attitude to the transformation. Due to this study’s limitation, like respondents from one municipality and the pandemic’s length, we intend to investigate further and understand the development of the transformation and how knowledge in the area increases.

 With e-commerce expanding worldwide, not least during the current COVID-19 pandemic, our planet's consequences and society are becoming more visible. Therefore, it is critical to cultivating a business environment where companies in the digital market integrate sustainable business models. To further understand this area, we conducted a systematic literature study to describe the current knowledge about the challenges and solutions facing sustainable e-commerce and its business models. Based on 32 peer-reviewed articles published within the last three years, we categorised them into five focal areas of sustainability in e-commerce: (1) production, (2) logistics, (3) waste & recycling, (4) business & resellers and (5) the consumer's perspective. The results show that production should focus on digitalisation to become more intelligent and efficient, e.g., when it comes to energy consumption and decreasing waste. Current literature amplifies the last delivery route as attractive to create sustainability for logistics. The third category results add to the discussion on collecting information on how to use packing sustainably. The results show that businesses and resellers focus on sustainability, implying investments in new technology, changes in behaviour, and innovative business models. One result from the consumer category demonstrates the importance of online information related to sustainability since it affects the customers' behaviour. Suggestions for future research are to investigate the effects of e-commerce when increasing online product information and focusing on information as an essential aspect of increasing sustainability. 

Speech and language loss is the most common disease for stroke survivors. The process of relearning communication skills is difficult and a time taking process. Technology-enhanced systems (TES) can be useful in speech and language relearning, however, the acceptance and usability of TES for stroke patients have been a matter of concern and more research is needed in this area. This study is therefore aimed to explore the factors that might influence the acceptance of technology-enhanced speech and language relearning after stroke. A systematic literature review was conducted to determine the technology acceptance factors. To ensure the state of the art in the given field, 97 articles written from 2016 to April 2021 were retrieved with a search string aligned to the research question. After applying the exclusion criteria and quality assurance, 13 articles were selected for inclusion. An overview of selected articles, their chosen methodology, and main findings from the articles was presented in a pre-defined table. The results show that patients’ physical and cognitive condition, the intensity of relearning exercises, native language, the involvement of friends and family, technical assistance and training, selection of hardware and usability of the graphical interface are important factors for acceptance of TES. Stroke patients tend to use TES. Independent living, treatment in the home environment, and improved quality of life are the major motivations for use of TES. However, TES should be tailor-made and a user-centre approach should be adopted. Finally, proper education and training are essential not only for the patients but for the speech therapists and patients’ relatives and friends as well.

This position paper gives better insight about the role and importance of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) for independent living and re-learning for older adults. Sensing Technologies are the paradigm shift for transforming conventional healthcare practices into the smart, and self-assisted activities, which are envisioned for today's medical world. Internet of Things (IoT) and IoMT are the interrelated technologies for promoting independent living and re-learning practices. In this paper, re-learning is defined as the process for adults to recover useful instrumental activities of daily living skills that have been lost after an impairment.

Data providers share open government data (OGD) to be transformed by intermediaries into products and services (solutions). OGD is believed to lead to many benefits. However, OGD is not reaching its expected level of reuse, which can come from a lack of awareness, interest to fulfil the user’s needs, or novel perspectives to understand them. This paper presents a set of design principles to develop tailored mixed methods that capture activity-based information needs of users which could be satisfied by building information products based on OGD. The produced insights can help data providers and intermediaries to realign ideas of solutions to the user’s information needs. The set of nine design principles are developed using design science research and are based on previous research and empirical testing. They have been implemented with two groups of users and three groups of data providers as participants of, respectively, face-to-face and digital workshops. The design principles and the produced insights were evaluated with practitioners. Implications for practice are that starting with the users’ information needs can open a broader range of solutions and potential paths of OGD reuses, while following the design principles can help the practitioners cope with the fuzziness of the information needs and ideation process. For research, we propose a novel method that goes beyond the exclusive data provider-intermediary interaction to study new paths to improve the realization of OGD benefits.

This position paper argues for further research within person-centered healthcare using digitization and systematic process within the fields of information systems and quality management. The included state of art shows the existence of both digital applications and innovation, whereas there is lack of knowledge on how to engage users, especially when it comes to older citizens. Besides the digital application, we should focus on developing related systematic processes to increase both organizational value and patient value.          Understanding user-design and development are necessary prerequisites to engage in digitalization and is also key to transformation in health care.

Syftet med denna rapport är att belysa digital teknologis påverkan på innovationsarenor. Vi har inom ramen för Interreg-projekt SMICE deltagit i arbetet med skapa innovationsarenor och då använt oss av digital teknologi. Den digitala teknologiin har använts för att främja deltagandet på innovationsarenor genom att erbjuda personer som har långt till dessa eller har andra förhinder från att kunna delta fysiskt. Vi undersökte detta genom fyra olika fall där den digitala teknologin användes på olika sätt för att säkerställa deltagande på distans och genom att verifiera våra resultat med experter inom området. Våra resultat analyserades baserat på tidigare kunskap inom öppen innovation samt distanslärande och resultatet visar att digital teknologi är en resurs att räkna med när det gäller att skapa innovationsarenor. Resultaten visar också att det finns utmaningar med att använda digital teknologi såsom: identifiera digital teknologi som kan stödja processerna, lära sig använda teknologin, inkorporera teknologin i processerna och att stödja andra aktörers teknologianvändning.Vi ser fram emot att digital teknologi används mer vid skapande av innovationsarenor och att forskningen fördjupas för att det blir ett sömlöst deltagande för alla deltagare. 

In our daily work life, we use a wealth of information, including a category of information produced as a part of products and their life-cycle phases, named digital technical information (DTI). Manufacturing organizations focus more often on the product than on DTI, because DTI’s impact seems almost invisible, despite its crucial role to the product and its life-cycle phases, development, production, maintenance, and destruction. Hence, the aim of this thesis is to describe DTI’s benefits and the research questions: “What are the benefits of the DTI?” and “What are the perceptions of how to measure benefits of DTI?” The thesis contains five studies related to identifying and measuring DTI’s benefits. The empirical material is based on semi-structured interviews and group interviews within five organizations and a survey among manufacturing organizations in Sweden.

I used three characteristics of the DTI and two pairs of previously known benefit categories to analyse the benefits. The analysis shows that the benefits are recognized in the particular product’s life cycle phase where the DTI is published. However, the DTI continues to offer benefits in the product’s other life cycle phases. In relationship to the product, the benefits evolve from supporting an individual product to supporting more general product lines or all products and a more complex product is said to increase DTI’s benefits. DTI’s structure adds benefits as synthesized or aggregated DTI, where the DTI is synthesized or aggregated automatically or manually. The categorization predetermined benefits related to the change are less numerous than the emerging benefits. The predetermined benefits are strategic by nature, and the emerging ones are mainly used to achieve operational goals. 

Measuring DTI’s benefits is of importance for a formal comparison of its development and is of special interest for managers. Perceptions from the initial stages on how to measure show that to establish common interpretations among the stakeholders of the measurement process is of importance, especially when it comes to what is viewed as a benefit. The benefits are viewed as intangible by the respondents, which creates difficulties when one is evaluating, using conventional measurement methods. The only perceived way to measure is when DTI reduces co-worker’s workload and efficiency is achieved. 

The thesis’s contribution to academia consists of the analysis of DTI’s benefits, showing details of the relationships between the DTI and its benefits. For practice, the contributions focus on the systematic evaluation process, which can be used for further development of the DTI and comparison of the evolvement of the DTI itself and relating to other resources. One proposal for future research is to use the analysed benefits and compare various approaches to digitizing DTI, e.g. Industry 4.0. Another proposal is to list, in detail, various ways on how to measure DTI’s benefits and their usefulness. The latter can positively impact on any intangible benefits due to the general approach we have established of how to measure those benefits.

Digital Teknikinformation (DTI) används ofta i arbetslivet och beskrivs som information som produceras för att stödja en produkt i dess livscykelfaser, utveckling, produktion, underhåll och destruktion. Tillverkande organisationer fokuserar oftare på produkten än på DTI och dess roll är nästan osynlig, trots sin avgörande roll för produkten i dess livscykelfaser. Därför är syftet med denna avhandling att beskriva nyttan med DTI. Forskningsfrågorna är: "Vilka är nyttorna med DTI?" och "Vad är uppfattningarna om hur nyttorna av DTI kan mätas?” Avhandlingen innehåller fem studier relaterade till att identifiera och mäta DTI:s nyttor. Det empiriska materialet är baserat på semistrukturerade individuella- och grupp-intervjuer hos fem tillverkande organisationer och en enkätundersökning bland tillverkande organisationer i Sverige.

Resultaten visar att DTI skapar nyttor inom respektive organisation. Nyttorna har analyserats i förhållande till tre av DTI:s egenskaper och två välkända nyttokategorier. De flesta av nyttorna anses uppstå i produktens livscykelfas där DTI publiceras, samt ett antal nyttor i andra av produktens livscykelfaser. I förhållande till produkten utvecklas nyttorna från att stödja en enskild produkt till produktlinjer eller organisationens alla produkter. DTI:s struktur supportar aggregerad och återanvänd DTI, vilket t.ex. ger upphov till nyttor baserat på statistik. Av nyttokategorierna fördefinierade och framväxande nyttor ses de fördefinierade används för att nå strategiska mål.

De framväxande nyttorna var fler till antalet och stödjer organisationens operativa mål. Beslutsfattare har användning för mätningar av DTI:s nyttor, speciellt för kommunikation och jämförelse av, bl.a., DTI:s utveckling. Studierna visar att gemensamma tolkningar är viktigt vid mätningar, t ex av vad som betraktas som nytta. De identifierade nyttorna betraktas ofta som omätbara av respondenterna, vilket medför svårigheter när det kommer till att genomföra mätningar. Den föreslagna mätmetoden blir därför att mäta de nyttor som skapar effektivitet, t ex när DTI kan minska mänskligt arbete.

Avhandlingen bidrar till akademin genom att synliggöra detaljer om DTI:s nyttor via den gjorda analysen. Dessa detaljer visas genom relationen mellan DTI och dess nyttor. Avhandlingens praktiska bidrag är underlag till utvärdering av DTI:s nyttor, vilket kan användas för styrning och vidareutveckling av DTI. Ett förslag på framtida forskning är att använda de analyserade nyttorna för jämförelse vid olika ansatser till digitalisering, t ex Industri 4.0. Ett annat förslag är att undersöka detaljer i mätmetoder av DTI:s xviii nyttor och dess användbarhet. Detta förslag kan ge ytterligare underlag för mätning av de så kallade omätbara nyttorna.