Background: Performance measurement as a management control tool has received considerable academic attention. As the number of inter-organisational relationships, such as customer-supplier relationships, increases, there is a new scope for performance measurement as a management control tool. In order for a company to assess the effectiveness of its supplier relationships it has to define, measure and evaluate variables that are critical for the success of the relationship. The role of management control, and thereby of performance measurement, has increasingly been discussed in theory. However, empirical research in this area is still somewhat limited.

This study is about conception in the evaluation of financial assistance within the social services. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how social workers reason about variation, conception and local norms and its significance in the evaluation process. To reach this purpose we have conducted semi-structured interviews with eight social workers in which different themes were discussed and reasoned about. In order to understand and analyze our results we have studied/used the knowledge about tacit knowledge and street-level bureaucracy. Our results showed, as previous research states, that social workers do have conceptions about clients.

The aim of this study was to examine, in the work against bullying how collaboration between the school counselor and other professions is described by the different professions within the student health team as well as how they describe that the different competencies involved in such teams shapes problem definitions and solutions. The student health (swedish- elevhälsoteamet) team of which the study is based on consists of different professions such as school counselors, school nurses, special education teachers, school psychologists and school principles. We have interviewed representatives of all the above mentioned professions with the exception of school psychologists using a qualitative research design. In this study we have chosen to focus on two student health teams from two different primary schools located in a middle-sized municipality in southern Sweden. We have analysed the results using new institutional theory and the terms domain and power. The main conclusion of the study is that school counselors themselves feel they have a specific knowledge regarding bullying but have difficulties in capitalizing on it while collaborating with the other professions in the student health team.

The reason why this study has been made is the fact that a substantial part of students in the upper secondary school changes their field of study, during or after their first year. The aim of this study is to find out the reasons behind such changes as well as finding out the affecting factors. The study has been made in two steps, first quantitatively by a poll study and the second step is qualitative by interviews. This research has been made in both private schools and municipal schools, with the ambition to search for differences between these two separate school forms. The study shows that no general differences can be found in a comparison between them.

On the night of the 26th December 2011, large parts of southern Norrland were struck by the storm ?Dagmar? that caused serious damage to the forests. In the past 10 years wind damage has become a hot topic after several major storms. Forest companies own 25% of the Swedish forest and thus influenced largely by wind damage. The main purpose of this study was to examine whether forest companies attitude towards preventive wind damage actions were changed after the storm ?Dagmar?. The result was developed by doing interviews with two forestry companies.

This paper is a statistical examination about how the European Parliament views questions about equality between women and men. It focuses on how the members understand gender equality depending on ideological standpoint, nationality and gender. In other words, it focuses on whether the politicians have different point of views depending on which parliamentary political group they belong to, which member state they are coming from or which gender (man/woman) they have.Equality between women and men is a complex problem. This paper is concentrating on two questions; the problem about setting up a European gender institute and the problem about gender mainstreaming.The examination, which is a statistical examination about how politicians were voting in both questions, shows that all variables, ideological standpoint, nationality and gender, are determining factors for their voting behaviour in questions about gender equality. Ideological standpoint is the most important variable, second in place is gender and the least important factor is nationality..

Abstract This report is our bachelor thesis. Our work has taken place at a galvanising company in Sölvesborg. The company faced major changes, of which one was a computerisation process. The new system could involve changes in work practice and in specific tasks, affecting the workers. If the coming system was to support work, from the production personnel?s perspective, we felt a legitimate participation in the development and design of the future work practice, was a requirement that was not met. During our ethnographical studies we noted that conflicts arose between production and administrative -personnel.

The purpose of this study was to exam the possible differences in the experienced self-confidence and motivation among the elite players in bandy and amateur players in bandy. In addition, any differences between boys and girls within the same area to be studied. A total of 112 athletes participated of whom 52 of them classified as elite players and 60 amateur players, with 62 boys and 50 girls. The athletes filled at one point in the questionnaires The Sport Motivation Scale, Harter?s (1980) ?competence scale? and The Sport Confidence Inventory.

Work-Life Balance (WLB) is defined as the ability to manage both work-life and non-work life successfully. WLB can be evaluated by examining individual?s experience of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and Family-Work Conflict (FWC), both of which can be assessed by a questionnaire developed by Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996). The aim of this study was to explore if responses to the questionnaire, the amount of time spent on studies, household chores and sick leave, were gender related or not, among civil-accountants students. The survey included 138 respondents (74 woman and 64 men).

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting women. The treatment of breast cancer may lead to forcing the woman to remove her breast. The breast is a symbol of femininity and sexuality for many women. The purpose of this literature-based study is to describe women's experiences of altered body image and sexuality after mastectomy. This may provide a better understanding of the nurse in responding to these breast cancer patients.

The aim of this study was to examine the relations between women?s perceived stress off the job (dependent variable), responsability for household chores, emotional support, number of children living at home, neuroticism and age (independent variables). Comparisons between the present sample and two independent samples from previous research were made with regard to perceived stress and neuroticism. The sample of this study consisted of 186 women working in the fields of health care and geriatric care. The results showed that perceived stress correlated positively with neuroticism and number of children and negatively with emotional support, though the effectsizes for number of children and emotional support were fairly small.

The study aims to show how the publicity surrounding the Sweden Democrats have been during November in 2012 when polls for the party rose. The method that has been used is quantitative content analysis and a total of 215 articles from tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet are encoded. The period of the encoded material has been in November 2012 and the variables have been designed to answer how much publicity Sweden Democrats have received during that period, any topic that the articles touched on, the actors that have been cited, if players have received criticism or praise, how the party looked like and if certain words were used in the articles.The theories of the study are based on agenda setting, priming, ?The spiral of silence? and democratic role of the media. They concern, among other things, how media sets the agenda for what people think is important and how after being exposed to something, subconsciously creates a feedback about the phenomenon.The results show that the Sweden Democrats have received much negative publicity at a time when their poll numbers increase, which goes against the established truth that says that positive publicity is beneficial to the parties while the negative publicity is adverse..

To be able to protect themselves from credit risk, the banks must constantly check the performance of  the companies they have lent money to. There are many mathematical models for predicting financial distress. These models use accounting-based ratios, which often are historical and not representative for the present situation. This study describes how the banks do in practice to find signals of insolvency in time and the variables they are observing for doing that.In addition to financial reports which the company sends in to the bank at least once a year, also the relationship between them and information from different information  agencies are of great importance to track  signals of insolvency. Poor profitability is the primary cause of insolvency.

Objectives. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the personality variables Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC), Negativ affect and Social inhibition (the D-personality), and health behavior and attitudes toward keep-fit measures.Methods. The participants in this study were 170 embloyees at a regional social insurance office in a midsize town in the south of Sweden. Scales concerning health behavior and attitudes toward keep-fit measures were constructed and the participants completed these scales as well as those of MHLC and D-personality.Results. Participants with strong beliefs that other people, such as doctors or family-members, are responsible for their health, showed a more positive attitude as to keep-fit measures than those with a belief that health is controlled by themselves.

This master thesis takes its point of departure in the conflicting worldviews of modernism and post-modernism. As traditional segmentation theory springs from the modernist worldview, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of the complexity regarding market segmentation for lifestyle brands in contemporary society, where the consumer is often claimed to be post-modern. The research was conducted in Malmö and Lund and involved 25 Converse users as respondents. The methods used in this thesis starts with observations as a sampling technique in order to locate the respondents. Short interviews and photo documentation followed.