Projectification in the healthcare and education industries in the context of social sustainability: "Everyone finds their balance sooner or later"

• Main Author: Anna Caroline Wagner 1988-
• Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Verkefnastjórnun; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/43110

Projectification is one the largest buzzwords and trends of our time. This research investigates how projectification has manifested in healthcare and education institutions in Iceland in the context of social sustainability. The education and healthcare industries in Iceland are mostly publicly financed and among the major cornerstones of the services offered to citizens. These institutions are largely modeled according to the needs of an industrialized society, while the projectified society has different needs and expectations which apply additional demands on these industries. This research thesis uses a qualitative approach, with 15 semi-structured interviews, to arrive at an understanding of how projectification has manifested in these institutions and how projectification has influenced and informed social sustainability within those two industries. The researcher used a case study approach, open coding the interviews to arrive at conclusions concerning the participants’ experiences in their respective workplace. The study findings incorporate the reality that individuals within the healthcare and education industries experience projectification and the demands of a projectified society on a daily basis. However, they are not always met with appropriate institutionalized support from their organizations and, thus, they carry the load on a personal level, leading to less social sustainability. Additionally, this study found that social sustainability initiatives are often added on top of a regular workload and were not approached with a clear project management methodology, thus, they paradoxically led to less social sustainability than was originally the case. Keywords: projectification, social sustainability, education industry, healthcare industry Verkefnavæðing er eitt helsta tískuorðið og ein af helstu stefnum samtímans. Í þessari rannsókn er það skoðað hvernig verkefnavæðing birtist í heilbrigðis- og menntastofnunum á Íslandi með tilliti til félagslegrar sjálfbærni. Mennta- og heilbrigðisgeirinn á ...