The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

There are mainly two ways to transform the design of an existing park. You could either make a replanning of the park, an act that changes the design and the plant material in one swoop. Or you could use the management to change the expression of the park. To be able to develop the parks with the help of management, some form of goal is needed, that can make the management of the park strive towards an expression for the whole park as well as its individual parts. Among the documented goals, for individual parks and park management, which exist in the municipalities today, there seems to be a weak link between the all-embracing goals and the management that is carried out in the parks.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of profitability and capital structure in Swedish quoted companies during the period of 1990 to 2004. Further, the aim is to determine the relationship between profitability and leverage in order to conclude whether the choice of capital structure supports the pecking order theory or the trade-off theory of capital structure. The findings show that return on assets fluctuates between 3 and 11 percent and that return on equity fluctuates between 3 and 22 percent during the period. Further, the leverage and the cost of debt have decreased. This indicates lowered financial risk in Swedish quoted companies in the period between 1990 and 2004.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a difference between the respondent groups preparers and non-preparers position in IASBs question if a reversal of previously impaired goodwill should be prohibited. The background is an exposure draft sent out by the IASB and we examine the answers, in form of comment letters, sent in by the respondents to reach our purpose. Our method is positivistic in the sense that we study already existing theories when we create our hypothesis which gives our assumption about how the result of the respondent?s answers will be. Our data, which we have collected from the comment letters, is qualitative secondary data.

The purpose of this study was to do a narrative survey of the discussion about violence in partner relationships that is held in research literature. The question at issue was: How do research literature discuss violence in partner relationships, with focus on heterosexual relationships? The eight primary documents that have been chosen are written by researchers, professional therapists, National Counsil for Women's protection (Nationellt Råd för Kvinnofrid, NRK) and Swedish Government Official Report (Statens Offentliga Utredningar, SOU). To investigate the theories, discover the similarities and differences between them and how they can complement each other, the documents statements has been analyzed with a dialectic-hermeneutic approach and social constructionism and discourse theory.The research findings showed that the gender perspective theory, the psychodynamic theory and the social psychology theory have a few things in common, but that they on the whole are different and contradict each other. The gender perspective theory dominates the discussion but needs to be combined with the other theories to give a more all-embracing understanding.

Changes in the society engender changes in the practice of the auditor profession. Stricter laws, more detailed recommendations, and demands from the auditor?s clients have increased. The auditor constitutes a profession and therefore it is important that there is a trust since the auditor is the one that certifies the quality of the company?s economical information.

Under tidigt 80-tal växte olika sorter av kommunikationsmodeller fram, bland annat Daft och Lengels, Media Richness Theory. Denna teori var baserad på den tidens kommunikationsmönster. Idag nästan 20 år senare har vi sett explosionsartad IT-utveckling vilket har medfört förändringar i det dagliga kommunikationsmönstret. I denna uppsats undersöker vi om Media Richness Theory fungerar på ny teknik med hänsyn till dagens utökade kommunikationsmetoder. Vi studerar bland annat användnings- och påverkningsmönster ur ett abduktivt perspektiv, det vill säga både kvalitativt och kvantitativt.

In today?s changing environment, creation of projects by organizations has become more common. The problem is, though, that the knowledge of the subject is still limited which causes many projects to fail. This has made it extra important to have a good project manager whocanlead the project in the right direction. While doing this both the project method and the project manager?s motivation are contributing sources.

Tidigare studier har visat att faktorerna KASAM, flow samt prestationsbehov har betydelse för hög upplevd arbetstillfredsställelse. I denna studie undersöks om dessa faktorer även är aktuella under svenska förhållanden. En enkätundersökning genomfördes på 137 anställda på tre olika företag för att mäta om de tre faktorerna kan predicera arbetstillfredsställelse. Resultatet visade att KASAM, och särskilt komponenten meningsfullhet, var en stark prediktor av arbets-tillfredsställelse. Även flow, och särskilt dimensionen inomboende arbetsmotivation, hade ett signifikant prediktionsvärde medan det visade sig att prestationsbehov inte predicerade arbetstillfredsställelse.

We have chosen to focus on the meaning of long-term income support dependency regarding health, goal setting and motivation for the recipient of economical aid. We have chosen to use semi structurized interviews to achieve our goal of reaching the clients experience of long-term income support dependency. The study consists of interviews of six clients whose answers have been analyzed through appliance of Kielhofner´s Model of human occupation, Scheff´s Shame in self and society.   Our results show regarding, 1) the factor health that long-term income support dependency may elevate the risk of illness and less experienced options of possibilities to act. 2) regarding the factor goal setting, that goals may be inefficiently used during social work with long-term income support dependent clients and may result in a disorganized relationship between client and social worker in the sense of making the parties pull in opposite direction. 3) regarding the factor motivation, that long-term income support dependency and the living with the emotion of shame elevates the risk of maintaining a negative image of oneself that limits the willpower to assimilate new knowledge and/or skills.

Through this project -?Projekt Pedadoggen?- I have tested dog training as a pedagogical resource at Daily activities. The study was made together with a group of persons with intellectual and neuropsychiatric disabilities, whose daily activities consist of running a day-care centre for dogs. Each participator of the project trained a dog towards a specific goal. This goal was individually formulated by each participator from his or her specific interest.

Denna uppsats är tänkt som en introduktion till ämnet humor i landskapsarkitektur - ett ämne som ännu inte diskuterats i nämnvärd utsträckning. Den riktar ett särskilt fokus mot humorteorin Benign violation theory och undersöker om teorin kan användas i landskapsarkitektur. Först introduceras de tre tidigaste humorteorierna för att ge en bild av tre huvudsakliga modeller som finns för att förklara humor. Därefter presenteras Benign violation theory och enkätundersökningen som prövar dess applicerbarhet på landskapsarkitektur. Undersökningens resultat verkar tyda på att bilder som stämmer överens med teorins villkor verkligen uppfattas som roliga, men det finns stora felmarginaler och det råder behov av fler undersökningar i ämnet..

This paper analyses what effect an application of a specific poststructural feminist theory has on the Swedish classification system SAB. The purpose is to study if it is possible to open up the current representation of gender towards a more multiple one. The study is both theoretical and empirical. The theoretical part include a short presentation of both classification theory and feminist theory. The study also presents the critic that poststructual feminists submit.

The research this report is based on aims to find out the characteristic features of the marketing tools that are essential for a music artist, and define a successful artist. The thesis arises and discusses how different medias can have an affect on an artists career and on his/hers achievement. To bee seen in the right medias can have an important influence on their career. To be able to answer our aim we have interviewed people who have a solid knowledge about music business, we have also used a qualitative method. The outcome of the research is that there are some indications that show important factors which are essential when it comes to marketing artists.

BackgroundThere are different organizational structures and control and it has been proved difficult to find a combination between these that leads to goal congruence and improved efficiency. An organization can be structured according to hierarchical levels and the decision making can be either centralized or decentralized. Organizational control can be classified according to the amount of rules and balanced scorecard can be used to weld together the structure with the control.PurposeThe purpose is to create an understanding of how two types of structures and control in an organization appears and also to investigate how these differ from one another concerning the balanced scorecard as a control system. We will also investigate how the variables goal congruence and efficiency are affected by the implementation of the balanced scorecard.MethodTo answer the purpose of this thesis we have mainly used the qualitative method since we have studied two organizations thoroughly through interviews on different levels of the organization. The study also has some quantitative elements since we wanted to get a more truthful picture of the organizations.