A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

This essay will examine in which way festival tourism can affect the physical location of a festival and to operationalize this we implemented a case study of the music festival Storsjöyran. Storsjöyran is a Swedish music festival held annually in the city of Östersund and since the festival, with the accompanying festival week, attract up to 300 000 visitors annually, we wanted to see what impact the festival contributed to from a development perspective of the destination. The method for gathering data has consisted of both qualitative and quantitative approaches and the data was collected via interviews and questionnaires. We also presented various theories about festival tourism and destination development, as well as previous research on urban festivals. The conclusion is that Storsjöyran contributes to a variety of factors which can help Östersund to a destination development and increased tourism.

The object for this study is a company developing and manufacturing vehicles for heavy transportation. The company distributes their products on a global market. Therefore the company is required to have efficient internal production development processes in order to successfully beat the competition. The purpose of this master thesis is to study how this particular company intends to implement their standardized theoretical product development process within their organization and how well it is done. We intend to identify and specify if the process has any unexploited capacity.

This report is a part of a diploma work, conducted as a part of a Master of Science degree. The diploma work consists of a preliminary study, two case studies, a user study, a paper and this report. It was created at the Linköping University for the department of Science and Technology, in cooperation with Unilever Research in the UK, and partly with the EC founded project, Smartdoc IST-2000-28137. Hand-held, mobile devices like Personal Digital Assistances (PDAs) are becoming increasingly popular in today?s wireless world.

The aim of this study is to examine educationalists experiences of play as an educational toolin the work to promote the social development in children with autism.The relevant issue, for this study, is: In what way does an educationalist work with play withchildren with autism? What are the results of using play in the educational work? What arethe possibilities and what are the obstacles in using play in educational work?This study has been carried out as a study of literature in the field and qualitative interviewswith five educationalists that are working in a mid Swedish county.The result of the study shows that educationalists have a positive view of using play in theirwork and are using play in varying ways in their everyday work. Using play as a method intheir work always happens according to the ability and condition of the child. They (theeducationalists) think that play has great opportunity and advance as a method and gives thechildren joy, increase their sense of ability, the base for the social participation in play, andthe development of social skills.There is a certain hesitation among educationalists when it comes to using play as a methodfor children with autism , but the most of the educationalists consider play as promoting thesocial development although the development always will happen at the pace(rate)of thechild..

Each year approximately 2,000 new detailed development plans are accepted in Sweden. When an area is covered by a new detailed development plan, it is often necessary that land has to be acquired to adjust the property units to the new plan. The owner conditions of the property units can usually be adjusted through negotiations between the seller and the buyer. But in some situations, when no agreements can be reached, it is possible to use coercive measures to purchase the land. Compulsory purchases are only permitted when certain legal criteria?s are met.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to find out how leisure educator´s reason about children?s learning and development, and their view of their own role in the process. Four leisure educators were interviewed to answer these questions. The study is based on qualitative interviews, wich means that the interviewer must interpret and understand what the respondents want to say. This is to get a deeper knowledge of the subject. The results show that the leisure educators believe they have a large and important role in children's development and learning.

The postindustrial market increasingly demands service infused products to add more value to the customer in order to be competitive. Much research regarding digitalized services indicates that companies have to be innovative in order to compete on the market. However, companies within different industries face different challenges with digital service development. This study has been conducted because there are little known about the opportunities and the challenges different industries faces with a globalized market. Our research question is what the challenges are and what opportunities does strategic digital service development entails for companies.

Negativ miljöpåverkan i form av föroreningar och koldioxidutsläpp är enorm idag. Men också de stora kostnader som tillkommer när man ska försöka bygga miljösmart. Framtiden kräver av oss att börja utnyttja förnyelsebara råvaror för en hållbar utveckling. Trä anses vara ett miljövänligt material och bör användas som stommaterial i höga byggnader i större utsträckning än det görs idag. De vanligaste stomsystem som förekommer i träbyggnader är pelar-balksystem, skivsystem av massivträ och regelsystem. Dessa tre stomsystem kan sedan kombineras i tre olika byggmetoder: platsbygge, prefabricerade planelement eller prefabricerade volymer.Det finns flera aspekter som påverkar valet av stomsystem och byggmetod, t.ex.

The purpose of my study is to investigate teacher?s perceptions of their mission in the preschool class, and how they work to promote children?s written language development. What methods and working methods they use to awaken curiosity and motivate children to read and write. I am using the qualitative research method to get answers to my questions. I have made four qualitative interviews with four teachers in preschool classes from different schools.My questions are:What conceptions does teachers have about their mission in a preschool class?What different methods and approaches does teachers use to stimulate and wake children?s curiosity for reading and writing development?The theoretical basis for my study is the socio-cultural perspective, where learning occurs in interaction.

Our premiss in this study is the escalating competition in the swedish newspaper market, which have become an issue regarding smaller editions for the newspapers, and some scientist have claimed that this has brought an sensational touch to their news. With this in mind, we have studied if a sensational touch is brought to the two biggest Swedish newspapersAftonbladet?s and Expressen?s first pages. Our purpose with the study is to look into the newspapers development regarding a more sensational newsworthiness on the front page over time. The use of quotes, images and news themes is indicators to measure the development.Trough a content analysis from three different years, 1972, 1992 and 2012 we have measured the data with the computer program SPSS.

In subsequent to Post-colonialism the African nations have dilated into different political directions. While some nations have established well-functioning democracies, others are still under authoritarian regimes. The aim of this thesis is to examine if civil society has an impact on democratic development in West Africa. Therefore the theoretical starting point is Putnam?s theory of social capital, but this study will also examine other possible causal explanations for democratic transition.This study will be based on a comparative analysis of Ghana and Guinea.

Hösten 2011 utsattes vårdföretaget Carema för ett mediedrev, där det på några av företagets enheter, främst på Koppargården, uppmärksammades stora brister i vården. Med utgångspunkt i konceptet employer brand, samt med hjälp av teorierna om psykologiskt kontrakt och social identitetsteori, tittar denna studie på personal på två andra Caremaenheter med syftet att undersöka hur dessa anställda upplevt mediedrevet samt varför de har påverkats på det sätt som de gjort. Tio anställda intervjuades, svaren analyserades med en kombination av induktiv och deduktiv tematisk analys. Resultatet visade att mediedrevet upplevdes som jobbigt men i varierande grad. Många upplevde att deras arbete blev ifrågasatt, att drevet gjorde dem misstänksamma mot nya yrkesrelaterade kontakter och att de blev oroade över företagets framtid.

Varumärkesplacering i digitala spel i samband med belöning och bestraffning harundersökts i denna studie. Resultat från tidigare studier på varumärkesplacering i spelanvändes i utformningen av undersökningen. Tidigare undersökningar av belöningoch bestraffning och dess inverkan på minnet studerades också. Detta kan vara förstagången som varumärkesplacering i digitala spel undersöks i samband med interaktivbelöning och bestraffning.Två versioner av spelet Supertuxkart skapades för undersökningen; den ena medbelönings- och bestraffningsåterkoppling och den andra utan. Deltagare från Kina ochSverige medverkade i experimentet.Undersökningen visade att varumärken med belöning eller bestraffning har tydligaeffekter på deltagarnas memorering av varumärken.