In the new media society, social media has become an important part of many organizations' daily lives. Organizations, whether public or private, must be where their audience is and many times, these can be found on social media channels like Facebook. Leading researchers in the fields of crisis communication and relationship management believe that social media is a great tool for managing relationships between an organization and its' public, whether it's before, during or after a crisis.The purpose of this study is to examine how the Karlstad municipality use Facebook to manage civic relations before, during and after a crisis. The municipality's approach will be compared to the citizens' experiences of the municipality's communication in different stages of a crisis.The theoretical framework used in this essay is the research on crisis communication and relationship management. How these two frameworks can be integrated with social media like Facebook, is an important part of understanding how the Karlstad municipality make use of Facebook to manage civic relations and communicate before, during and after a crisis.The empirical study consists of a qualitative interview, two qualitative content analysis and an online survey.

The purpose of this study was to explore how interpersonal relationship can be affected by groing up in a New Religoius Movement such as Jehovah?s Withnesses and how it has affected them both in their youth and today. The aim was also to explore if there were people in the respondents' environment that was significant to them during their childhood and which support our respondents have received if they were in need of it.We have not found any previous research on children's social relationships within the Jehovah's Witnesses. We therefore believe that this study is of high relevance to both society and also for all the professionals who come into contact with these children. To discover a child in need, knowledge about how their social environment looks like is crucial.

Electrolux Laundry Systems is the world leader in manufacturing professional laundry equipment.The machines are used in the hotel sector, elderly care, in multifamily houses, laundry bars, and incommercial and institutional laundries.If there is oil or grease left in the clothes after washing may the heat from the dryer cause a chemicalreaction. This reaction may, under certain circumstances cause a fire inside the drum. Competitors toElectrolux has developed its own systems that extinguishes fire inside a tumble dryer and customershave expressed desire to purchase a fire-extinguishing system. Therefore, the project team receivedthe task by Electrolux to develop a fire-extinguishing system that extinguishes a fire in a tumbledryer.The purpose of the project has been to develop a system that both detects and responds to fire in anindustrial tumble dryer to meet the competitors and to satisfy customers' requirements.The goal was to develop a fire-extinguishing system for Electrolux Laundry Systems and develop afully functioning prototype.The project began with information searches on a variety of methods to both detect and extinguish afire. Subsequently, a number of different methods were used to develop a final solution and make aprototype.The result of the project is a fire-extinguishing system that extinguishes a fire inside a dryer.

Library and information science (LIS), being a research area characterized by theoretical discord and definition disarray, provides an interesting field of inquiry. Its content, boundaries, scope and superior identity are not clearly stated. This Master s thesis focuses on a thus far unexplored perspective on the discipline: a conceivable statistic and causes- and- effect relationship between the LIS students appreciated identification with the superior identity of the discipline, and the chosen vocational direction within the field. This relationship is examined through testing a working hypothesis on the results of a major quantitative questionnaire survey. The theory behind our research derives mainly from Thomas Kuhn and Richard Whitley.

There has been a dramatic increase in long-term sick leave in Sweden, which largely depends on occupational stress. Occupational stress applies particularly in relationship-intensive jobs, which means that the individual works with a lot of contact or responsibility for other people. Research has shown that attachment is relevant to the choice of coping style and perception of stress in the workplace. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between attachment patterns, coping styles and occupational stress in relationship-intensive jobs and to extend previous studies by adding the variables age, work experience and education in relation to coping styles and occupational stress. The study was in quantitative form in which 186 participants from various relationship-intensive jobs across Sweden participated.

Background and aim: Asperger syndrome is a neuropsychiatric disability which is essentially characterized by impairments in social interaction. Little is known about how these individuals experience social interaction and more distinctly close relationships. Therefore the purpose of this present study is to explore how initiating and maintaining close relationships could be facilitated for individuals with Asperger syndrome. Furthermore how these individuals would like others to behave towards them. By assuming an insider perspective the empirical data is based on the participants own descriptions of their experiences, thoughts and ideas about close relationships.Findings: Most respondents state that they experience difficulties initiating social interaction, the main reason being that they don?t know what they are expected to say or how to act in this type of situation.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to determine how a technolo-gically enhanced shopping tool, synergizing eCRM tech-niques with personalized promotion at the point-of-sale, can increase customer loyalty by considering perceptions of current grocery retailer loyalty programs in Sweden. Methodology: An exploratory research was undertaken in the light of a qualitative method collecting primary data through focus group interviews. Theoretical perspective: The major considerations regarding theoretical aspects, for this thesis, can be addressed by Behavioral/Attitudinal loyalty and Relevance of Promotion. Empirical data: The empirical data, in regards to primary data, was ga-thered based on four focus group interviews. Conclusion: The conclusions of the thesis imply, that in order to make a loyalty program successful, it needs to firstly be conven-ient for the customer; easy to join, and provide an easy and time efficient display at the point-of-sale.

The purpose of this study has been to examine online travel magazines as an information source and as a virtual service scape. The traditional travel magazines are facing a change due to the technological development and the web has become an important platform for both customers and companies. The virtual service scape opens new opportunities for interaction and we found a great interest in examining which possibilities and limitations travel magazines are facing. This study is based on a qualitative approach because we wanted to gain a deeper understanding and a complete picture of our chosen subject. We have completed six interviews; three of them were consultants, one publishing director, one editor and a research student.

The matter of CSR and sustainable products has gained an increased amount of interest in recent years as "green products" are becoming a trend with more "eco"-alternatives in the assortment of many retailers. However, among the increasing number of socially oriented customers, it seems that although they claim an increased demand for these kind of products, its easier to "talk the talk" that to actually "walk the walk". This is due to a discrepancy between attitude and behavior, called the attitude-behavior gap. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to overcome this gap by using three different studies to get a nuanced and reality-based view of the problem. The focus within these different studies is on the potential effects inside the store and how information provided has an effect on perceived credibility and purchase intention.

In the haulage business customers are constantly requesting new features. Hence thedevelopment department must constantly update their system which ultimatelyresults in a variety of versions of the system. The large number of versions creates acomplexity which often reduces product quality and extends the developmentlifecycle time.The work on the following thesis has taken place at Scania?s Fleet Managementdepartment, which develops tools for hauliers to track their vehicle fleet in real time.The purpose of this thesis was to examine how Scania can handle an increasedamount of versions of the Fleet Management System which Scania expect will be seenin the future. The investigation was conducted by preparing a number of differentscenarios that formed the basis for a discussion of what these different scenarioswould mean for different parts of Scania?s business.

The number of products offered by retailers has increased immensely during the last two decades, which has resulted in an increase of naming decisions having to be made. The importance of product names has become more significant for retailers offering their products online, as these are more visible to the customer in comparison to products offered offline. Consequently, it is of great value for retailers to gain knowledge about how a product name affects the customers' perception of the product. The purpose of this study is to examine whether product names affect customers perception of the relevant products in the online environment. This has been illustrated by applying the following theories to the relevant product names; meaningful and meaningless brand names as well as concrete and abstract words.

Information technology (IT) penetrates more and more areas in the community. The Commission for Information Technology is of the opinion that the use ought to be widespread but states that this is not yet a reality. Differences exist between groups, e.g. between women and men. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine how female university students enrolled in two different programmes experience and use IT and to compare this with society's picture of the relationship between IT and women.

The species in the genus bumblebees (Bombus) are important pollinators. In the world there are 250 bumblebee species and there are 34 species in Norway. The purpose of this study is 1) to assess changes in the species composition of bumblebees in twenty different places in Norway that have been inventoried first one time between 1939-1960 and the second time in 2012, and 2) to relate species richness and distributions to current landscape composition with the aid of orthophotos. In this study, I have used regression analyzes on the different bumblebee species that were present or absent at the inventory, using the premises of the following variables: low or high altitude, latitude, longitude and seven different types of land use (farmland, building/plots, open land/pasture, forest, wetland and open or snow-covered ground above the tree line) to see if there was any relationship between each species and the different variables. I have not analyzed what the landscape looked like at the first inventories and therefore we cannot say whether it has changed and if that is why species number has decreased. This would be interesting to study further and to see if there is any relationship between landscape changes and bumblebee?s species decline.

Title: Social Media ? And customer interaction in smaller firmsSeminar date: 2011-06-10Course: Information Logistics, D-level.Authors: Marie Stenhammar and Ulrika CarlssonAdvisor: Jaime CamposKey words: Social Media, Web 2.0, Co-creation, Viral marketing, Word of Mouth, smaller firmsPurpose: This paper aims to describe the relevance of social media to smaller firms, the challenges and opportunities they face and what strategies they use, in the interaction with their customers.Methodology: The study is qualitative in nature and has an abductive approach. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with chosen companies and Internet observations.Theoretical perspectives: Social Media, Web 2.0, Co-creation, Viral marketing, Word of MouthEmpirical foundation: The study takes its empirical base from in-depth interviews with representatives from the small companies and internet observations connected to these.Conclusions: Smaller companies have great interest in social media. They preferably use Facebook, blogs, YouTube and Twitter. Their strategy is mainly to be very active and update their social media regularly.

The awareness regarding environmental issues is increasing and as a result a large number of products are eco-labeled. This enables the consumers to make enlightened environmental decisions when purchasing products. Eco-labeling is no longer for products only, but also for services like hotels. It?s difficult to determine what it actually means to eco-label a hotel and what kind of benefits it includes.