The purpose of this study is to examine the popular cultural form of television within the field of gender studies. The study focuses on the representation of masculinities in the American television series The O.C. This is done by using textual analysis to gain information from the first and the second season of The O.C. The theoretical framework used is based on Judith Butler and R.W. Connell.

Social policy has now received an increased attention in the European Union. The European welfare states experience a high level of unemployment, which the EU now tries to handle through the European Employment Strategy (EES). The core of this essay is whether the welfare institutions of the European member states are integrating through an institutionalization process or not. Within the EU four different types of welfare models can be identified: the Scandinavian, the Continental, the Southern and the Anglo-Saxon. The welfare models differ in the institutional settings e.g.

The aim of this study is to enhance the knowledge of target and performance management?s effects on the judiciary. In the past decades there have been a number of reforms in the general public sector of many countries. The management philosophy often used to describe these public sector reforms is called New Public Management (NPM). One main theme has been an increased focus on the management control systems, for example a greater emphasis on target and performance management.

Researchers and practitioners have recognized the need for ?transforming? every policy of the company into a competitive advantage tool. Thus, both the pricing approach and the supply chain practices of the firm have emerged as an important determinant of success. In this study, however, we are not only interested in these two aspects, but also in a third one-namely cultural conflicts as an obstacle and challenge. The interaction of the tree factors is extensively presented against the backdrop of Skanska and four of their closest Polish suppliers.

Background: Brand strategy tends to become an important management issue. It is therefore interesting to reach a greater understanding about how companies work to make their existing brands stronger. The purpose of a brand is to influence the customers? view of the brand image. The literature is insufficient concerning how leaders handle the process of repositioning a brand, in order to change the brand image.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the meaning the reading group of the public library has to a number of users. To fulfill the aim the following three questions have been formulated: 1) What do a number of users expect from the reading group of the public library? 2) Which approach/attitude or approaches/attitudes do a number of users have to reading and to talking about reading? 3) How do a number of users experience the ongoing reading group?The research is founded on qualitative interviews with five users that take part in three different reading groups in public libraries. The theories that are used is the theory of three so called strategies - the pragmatic, the traditionalistic, the emancipatory ? and the theory of flow.

The global market is becoming increasingly integrated and to keep up with growing competition and to achieve even greater success, companies expand to foreign markets. Previous studies have shown that the concept of psychic distance has an important impact on international performance regarding small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The aim of our study is to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of how psychic distance influences export performance regarding Swedish SMEs. Through a single case study of a Swedish SME, we chose to research three different markets in three different continents. Our findings show that psychic distance influences export performance through export marketing strategy and active learning.

The lifecycle of fashion products get shorter and shorter. Companies in the fashion business needto make sure that they can offer their customers the right products, in the right quantity at theexact right time. The competition on the fashion market today is tough and if companies aregoing to be successful they need to have access to the most reliable suppliers, and also offer theircustomers products with high quality to attractive prices. It is therefore of highest importance toevaluate and choose the right sourcing strategy. Product category and type of organisation aresome of the factors that will determine which strategy that is most appropriate.

Arbetsförmedlingen is the Swedish national authority responsible for the work politics, and its main purpose is to create and build a solid and sustainable job market.Economic crises together with changes in the society and in the organization over the past few years mean that the unemployed individuals that come in contact with Arbetsförmedlingen are no longer a homogenous group. A lot of effort is put into helping those who may find it difficult to enter the work environment, such as youths (19 ? 26 years old), people who have been unemployed or on sick leave for a long period of time, people with disabilities or immigrants who are newly arrived in Sweden.A harder social and economic climate can lead to frustration among the unemployed which mean that security measures at the offices has had to become adjusted. Local offices now have a public area where they have meetings with their clients and a locked open plan office space to which the public have no access. Working within an open plan office environment can cause health problems, mostly due to the constant background noise that comes from people having conversations on the phone, or with each other.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the target to convert the Swedish military aviation industry towards working within the civilian sector was planned and implemented parallel to the target of building a world-class military aircraft. A number of Government bills have been studied, bills directly connected to the JAS-project as well as bills dealing with civilian project ?s for the military aviation industry. The first group includes bills dealing with the JAS-project ?s role in the overarcing defence policy, as well as the Government ?s bill specifying the guidelines for the JAS-project.

Mitt syfte med projektet är att vitalisera stadsdelen Husby i nordvästra Stockholm. Bryta upp zonerade områden och addera fler och varierade funktioner som definierar nya stråk, länka samman omtyckta områden och överbrygga platser som upplevs otrygga. Sammantaget ger det förutsättningar för ett mer levande stadsliv som attraherar fler att vilja bo, bo kvar och göra bostadskarriär i Husby.Centrala begrepp i projektet är mångfald, trygghet, flexibilitet och hållbarhet. Jag har arbetat med att identifiera, bevara och utveckla kvaliteter i kombination med att öppna upp befintlig bebyggelse som präglas av upprepning, slutenhet och rationella byggmetoder samt addera ny bebyggelse för att få en större mångfald och ett mer flexibelt utbud av både lokaler, bokaler och bostäder men även genom att analysera och bearbeta områdets struktur. Fokus har legat på de trafikseparerade miljöerna och hur de kan vidareutvecklas genom att bland annat addera gångvägar och skapa nya stråk längst tillfartsgatorna och samtidigt bevara kvaliteter som de nivåseparerade korsningarna mellan gångvägarna och bilvägarna erbjuder med säker skolväg och en trygg bilfri miljö för barnen..

The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are two parties with different ideological background. The parties have different opinions in issues of public and private matters. The Social Democratic Party profiles it self, through the local and national party programs, as a party for solidarity and security. The Moderate Party, on the other hand, profiles it self through their programmes as a party with a possibility for the individual to shape his or her own life. Through a survey on members in the local government, and two key persons at national level, the view of municipal self-government has appeared.

Background: During the 2000s, there has been an increased interest in studying business management and strategy implementation with customer focus in public organisations. To achieve business goals it is important to continuously work with strategies to meet customerdemands for increased efficiency and service. Purpose: The aim of the essay is to examine how to work on strategy implementation in a municipal real estate company from a management perspective in order to achieve overall goals. Method: The study?s methodology is a case study based on qualitative telephone interviews that were conducted with representatives in managerial positions from various levels of the company.

The purpose of this paper is to study how the TV program Border Security: Australia?s FrontLine (Gränsbevakarna Australien) can be seen to reproduce networks of human and non-human actors. The aim is thus to investigate how boundaries between nations are upheld and how people, as a consequence, are discoursively categorized and what preconditions this create for people?sidentity- and meaning-making practices.The theoretical and methodical framework is built upon Bruno Latour?s work on Actor-Network-Theory, and discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault. The empirical material consists of two episodes of the TV program.

Studies have shown that stress is common in the nursing profession.Purpose: The aim was to investigate nurses' experience of stress in the work environment at the University Hospital in Uppsala and how nurses deal with this stress and whether the perceived stress experienced affect patient safety and in what way. Method: The study had a descriptive, qualitative design based on nine interviews. The selection criteria for the study was that participants were nurses and that they had worked at least one year within the profession and that they had experienced stress in their work environment. Data from the interviews was analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method by Graneheim and Lundman. Results: The analysis resulted in three categories: "Stress in the workplace?, "stress management" and "patient safety? and showed that all participants had experienced stress repeatedly in their workplaces.