Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

The study deals with the causes of unjustified differences in pay between women and men in the banking sector. The purpose of this paper has been to examine how a gender project implemented in the private banking organizations from a gender-and implementation perspective. The aim of the project examined is to even unjustified differences in pay between men and women in the banking and finance sector. The main issues are: ? How has the project been implemented and what are the real and perceived results? ? How can the opportunities and barriers to successful implementation course with emphasis on gender? The method used is a qualitative study, where the empirical material consisted of focus group interviews.

AbstractTitle:Course:Authors: Advisor: Keywords: Problem formulation:Purpose:Target Group:Theoretical perspectives: Methodology: ResultSwedish leaders abroad ? A qualitative study about culture ?s influence on Swedish leadersBachelor dissertation - Business Administration, LeadershipAmanda Elg and Carl-Johan SaltarskiIngemar WictorLeadership, culture, impact and adjustmentHow can Swedish leaders in multinational companies adjust their leadership to the national culture?The aim of our study is to investigate whether Swedish managers are affected by the differences in national culture that exists between Sweden and the country that they operate in. We want to explore if they adapt their leadership to the culture.Our study is directed towards a target audience of Swedish leaders and other interested parties who wants to increase the understanding of culture ?s influence on an international career and what is required of the leader to deal with the cultural clashes that may rise.We have focused on theories related to differences in national culture and how it can affect the leadership and the organization.The study is of the qualitative type with a deductive approach where the empirical materials are gathered through interviews.Our results demonstrate leaders implementation of culture and leadership to influence the leadership of the national culture in which they operate. We have seen how leaders are affected by the national culture and how the leader adapts to achieve a successful leadership.

The aim of this study is to investigate differences that exist in Estonia and Russia with regard to civil society, democracy and corruption and try to find out what can be possible causes to the vast differences in these two countries. Many political scientists claim that civil society plays a key role in democratic transitions. This paper takes its point of departure in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia and Russia became independent. Since then Estonia has had a flourishing economy which attract many foreign investments, with Sweden as the greatest investor. The country has also managed well to adjust quickly from totalitarianism to democracy.

The loss of habitat is one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity today. Consequences to a species inhabiting fragmented habitats include: group size changes, altered diets and altered foraging behaviours. In my study I observed Colobus anlgolensis palliatus troops living in the forests of Diani, a highly developed area on the Kenyan coast. I looked for differences in behaviours between three troops inhabiting pristine forest patches and three troops inhabiting highly degraded forest areas. I used focal animal sampling with instantaneous sample points.

The debate about women and equality is a very burning issue in the Swedish society today. There are a lot of articles, TV-programs, books and web sites treating the position of female leaders today. There are also a lot of myths strongly attached to our minds hindering the equalization process between men and women.The main purpose of our study was to look at women as leaders and identify potential tendencies in businesses sectors dominated by mainly men or women. We also wanted to find out whether leadership behavior is more or less oriented towards relations- or task in any of the chosen sectors. It was even in our interest to see if our chosen respondents supported the myths in our society about male and female qualities.We interviewed 20 women in four different sectors, two dominated by men (Computer/It, Transport) and two dominated by women (School, Healthcare).

Deregulation on the market for agricultural products leads to a more globalised market with increasing price fluctuations. This, in turn, places the farmer in positions influenced by new risks but also improved opportunities. The farmers are faced by uncertainty in terms of financial outcome. To be able to utilise these new market conditions it becomes increasingly important for farmers to continuously follow the price trend, and to develop strategies how to manage the risks exposed by a volatile market. Farmers with different conditions perceive risk in different ways. Hence, their risk management behaviour will vary.

The purpose of this thesis work is to evaluate how the physical behaviour of a pipe bend is affected by the pipe bending procedure. Effects such as initial ovalization, thinning, thickening and plastic hardening from the bending procedure are examined and the mechanical properties of pipe bends containing these effects are investigated.This has been evaluated by creating a detailed Finite Element model of a pipe that is being bent. Then the differences compared to a bent tube in a virgin state, so called Elbow elements and an analytical in-house program have been evaluated. The virgin state refers to a model of a pipe that is bent from the beginning, thus having a homogeneous thickness and not containing any plastic hardening. The Elbow element is a calculationally cheap element, specially developed for accurate calculations of pipe bends in an initially virgin state.The goal with the thesis work is to get a better picture of what happens to a pipe as it is being bent, how this affects the mechanical properties and to evaluate the possibility to develop an easy method for taking these effects into account when using the Elbow element.This report describes the layout of the work and how the detailed FE-model has been constructed.

PurposeThe purpose of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of how e-commercecompanies within the fashion industry are working with lead times and illustrate andanalyse differences and similarities between companies.Research question- In which ways are e-commerce companies within the fashion industry working withshort lead times?MethodologyThis thesis is based on a qualitative research method in order to achieve a greaterunderstanding of the chosen topic, of how the chosen companies are operating and toprovide room to our own interpretations and reflections. Interviews through telephonewere used to gather the empirical data from six different e-commerce companies withinthe fashion industry.ConclusionsAfter completing the theoretical and empirical analysis it can be concluded that leadtimes are considered essential for all of the participating companies but there is adifference in which way they look at, and how they work with lead times. Somecompanies stressed that short lead times are an important aspect of competition andclaimed that this is something they are constantly working with. For others the balanceand matching of supply and demand was the most important factor rather than toachieve short lead times.

2011 Praktik med examensarbete i idrottspedagogik inom Idrottsvetenskapliga programmet, 15 hpSofia Pettersson (2011). Miljön kring Dalarnas damfotbollsspelare ? Vad påverkar deras möjligheter till utveckling? (The environment surrounding female football players in Dalarna, Sweden ? What factors affect their opportunities to develop?) Bachelor Essay in Swedish. Umeå: Umeå university, Department of EducationThe following study investigated the environment in which female football players in the district of Dalarna in Sweden operate. The aim was to identify the elements that affect the players? ability to develop according to their own potential, values and differences.

The aim of this comparative study is to analyse the French and the Polish regional governance in order to see if there are any differences in their regional ruling systems. Further more I will study their different possibilities in taking part in the European Union regional political market. The shape of the regional systems will be explored both organisationally (study of the institutional entities of the regional construction) and functionally (study of the competencies of the regional body etcetera) to focus on its cause on the regional development. My over all focus will be to find out whether regional rule means differently in the countries France and Poland.Several questions are dealt with and the two main ones are as follows; How do the different structures of the form of government in France and Poland influence the governance on the regional level? Do Poland, as a new member state of the European Union, have what it takes to face the challenges of the new membership; or are there a complex of problems arising from the admittance that prevent its regions from fully taking part in the European regional political market?Some of my conclusions are as follows;There are major differences between the two countries when it comes to their regional ruling systems leading to different abilities in taking part in the European regional political market.

The basis of road investments is to minimize the transportation cost. The forest industry wants roundwood to be available during the whole year. One way of determine which road to invest in is to do a cost/benefit calculation. SCA Forest lacks a uniform approach to determine the utility of a road investment. The goal of this report is to describe how the organization works today and find areas of improvement. The data collection was done through interviews.

The objective of this M. Eng. Diploma work was to validate the new version, CASMO-5M, and compare the results with CASMO-4E, by using the same input in both programs. The tasks that were included in this work was to compare TIP-measures, k-effective curves (warm), k-effective curves (cold), the effect of void on k-effective, the isothermal temperature coefficient (ITC), the moderator temperature coefficient (MTC), damping ratio calculations, internal effect in a fuel bundle of a BA-rod, the speed of BA-out burn, impact of xenon, falling control rod, margins and isotopes.The TIP-measures showed that the differences were small for all reactors, at most, 6% nodal improvement by C5M (Casmo-5M) for Oskarshamn 3. The warm measurements of k-effective showed that C5M had a higher value for all cycles of Oskarshamn 1, 2 and 3 in comparison to C4E (Casmo-4E).

This thesis discusses the differences between an automated and design centered layout process. The work has beenconducted at CBG Konsult AB, a service provider of multilingual solutions, translations and localization.The purpose with this work was to investigate some limitations and issues with the layout process involving the languagefamily XSL used for automated layout at CBG Konsult AB..

Background: Employees acting towards company goals and having a strong desire to remain in the organisation are very important for the success of a company. In order to generate such organisational commitment of the employees, the knowledge about what motivates and satisfies them is essential. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse the factors which motivate employees, under consideration of individual characteristics. Limitation: Age, gender, marital status, work area, position and the years a person has been working in the company represent the individual characteristics examined in this study. Realisation: Literature research as well as a practical survey consisting of mail questionnaires and personal interviews were carried out in order to best serve the purpose of this thesis.