The aim of this thesis is to clarify the affect that preferential and regional trade agreements have on the World Trade Organization (WTO), as being establisher of the international trading regime. The essay is an explanatory literature study, which strives to answer the following questions:Are regional and preferential trade agreements a threat or a complement to the WTO?Is an undermining of the MFN principle weakening the WTO?How do regional trade agreements made by the EU affect the future of the WTO?The empirical material is to be analyzed using an explanatory framework, which is based on neo-liberal instutionalism, theories on regime changes and a game theoretical approach, using prisoner?s dilemma. I will employ the EU-ACP relation, the Cotonou agreement to exemplify how an agreement of this kind can have an influence on multilateral trade. The result shows that preferential agreements do have an impact on the WTO, one that is fairly negative in scope.

During year 2007 ClaraHälsan Ltd bought the company health service Solstahälsan in Karlstad. The wide merger of the two health services the problems arose around the employees? employment agreements when certain parts of the agreement differ. At a transition of a company, in this case a health service, the rights and obligations for the employees will pass on to the new employer according to directive 2001/23/EG who came in force in the swedish legal system in year 1995. The former employer is only responsible vis-à-vis the employees ?for economic obligations related to the time before the transition, the code of protection of employment 6 b §.

This essay seeks to analyze the consequences of modern information and communication technology for collective action within the framework of social movements. With references to the protests in Seattle 1999, the essay argues that the emergence of distributed collective action is closely related to the use of technology, for example cell phones and Internet. This distributed collective action can be characterized by its decentralized and self-organizing features, forming a global pattern emerging from local interactions. Whereas contemporary theories of collective action can be ´stretched´ to fit these aspects, they lack analytical tools to describe and analyze such systems. Further, their rejection of classical crowd theory is problematic, since it contains valuable insights.

Föreliggande uppsats behandlar lönesättning på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Lönesättningen i Sverige är inte i vidare utsträckning reglerad i lag. Grunden för lönesättningen är att det råder avtalsfrihet och att det är upp till arbetsmarknadens parter att genom kollektivavtal reglera området. Kollektivavtalen innehåller olika typer av reglering avseende arbetsgivarens lönesättning, exempelvis anges ofta minimilöner samt utrymme för lönehöjningar vid lönerevision. Avtalen innehåller dessutom oftast lönesättningsprinciper för hur löneutrymmet ska fördelas mellan enskilda arbetstagare.

Bandura definierar (1997) outcome expectancy som individens skattning av sannolikheten att ett beteende ska leda till ett specifikt utfall. Utöver individens skattning av sitt eget beteendes följder (individual outcome expectancy), är hennes bedömning av sin grupps möjlighet att nå ett specifikt utfall (collective outcome expectancy) en del av begreppet (Riggs & Knight, 1994). Studien syftar till att undersöka huruvida arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy, locus of control och collective efficacy predicerar outcome expectancy. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med 102 deltagare från olika yrkesgrupper. Resultatet visade att arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy och locus of control samvarierade med individual outcome expectancy och att collective efficacy predicerade collective outcome expectancy.

In this thesis, the impact of collective ratings on customers? perception of a product is examined. The empirical data comes from an experimentally designed survey where the effect of collective ratings is measured in the setting of a traditional advertisement for a feature film. In contrast to what previous research would suggest be to the expected outcome, the authors of this paper concludes that in comparison with alternative designs of advertisements, there are no measurable advantages of including collective ratings in advertisements from the marketers point of view. We find two explanations to the result: (1) people tend to self-report that they are more influenced by collective ratings than they actually are, and (2) the advertisement which lacked a rating could be as attractive due to cultural interpretations of white spaces..

AbstractCities are once again becoming the locus of economic, social and political processes. The effect of these processes on the city is two-fold: one one hand they threaten to fragment and dislocate the city and the actors within them, on the other hand they give actors within cities new opportunities to react and mobilize resources towards different strategies of integration. The latter gives rise to what Patrick Le Galès calls the collective actor-city. The aim of this thesis is to explore the notion of the city as a collective actor in a swedish context by utilizing Le Galès theory of european cities as collective actors in an abductive case study on the city of Malmoe. By utilizing Le Galès five dimensions that make up a collective actor I analyze interviews conducted with city officals aswell as documents produced from the city wide plan of action Welfare for everybody.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate emotions and collective identity in the handicraftmovement. Which are the collective identities of craft movement, and is it possible to speak ofan over all collective identity among the handicraft people? I will also examine the emotion workboth on individual and group level.Eight qualitative interviews were conducted to achieve the aim of this thesis. Research haspreviously drawn attention to handicraft from a gender and a historical perspective but neverfrom an emotional one. The theoretical framework derives from an emotion sociologicalperspective where Collins interaction rituals, emotional energy and Hochschild?s emotionmanagement is the main theses.

This thesis concerns agreements for the exchange of information relating to tax matters between Sweden and the previous tax havens Monaco and Liechtenstein. Monaco does not apply any tax on income or capital for individuals and Liechtenstein has strict bank secrecy, both aspects are supposed to be counteracted by similar agreements. The purpose is to investigate whether the entered agreements increases transparency and effective exchange of information in accordance with the OECD´s objectives in the area. Furthermore, is there any regulation in the agreements that can be seen as potentially loopholes to avoid the exchange of information and if so; may these loopholes be justified in any way?OECD believe that the tax havens favorable tax regulation is resulting in harmful tax competition and they identify lack of transparency and lack of effective exchange of information as the main reasons.

The aim of this work is to gain understanding of how predictions and images of future are created and maintained and how they are changed in society. An interdisciplinary approach to cultural and social aspects is used to examine how collective images about future are created. The distinction between collective images and private images is problematised. The subject matter is extracted from a previous explorative examination about Do It Yourself and OpenSource culture which are concepts of collective learning. That work is described in the foreword.The question ?How is a collective image about the future created?? is central for this paper.The interdisciplinary approach is a cross reference synthesis of philosophies, educational studies, film studies, strategicstudies and future studies.

The first purpose of this thesis is to investigate if, how, and why the perceived collective identity in the town of Karlskrona has changed. Collective identities can due to their socially constructed nature change rapidly in light of new collective experiences. The reason for suspecting such a change in Karlskrona is the immense impact that the change in the global economy, according to Saskia Sassen, has on cities. By interviewing politicians and media representatives from Karlskrona the perceived identity is drawn. The second purpose of this thesis will then be to test if the identity as it is perceived by Karlskronas habitants differ from the one that town officials present through city marketing.

Declining union memberships are a fact in both Sweden and Finland. At the same time, the autonomous labour market parties and the high membership rates are the most significant factors for the two countries compared to Europe and the rest of the world. These two factors have in turn been developed and strengthened since the beginning of the twentieth century. By autonomous labour market parties I refer to the fact that the labour market parties themselves through collective bargaining are agreeing on the labour market conditions, without interference from the government.This paper is therefore taking it's stance in the question of what happens with the autonomous labour market parties when the membership rates are in decline. With this in mind, this paper describes the judicial development, the collective agreement and labour market structures, the legal consequences of Collective agreements and the opportunities of industrial and sympathy action in both Sweden and Finland. The two countries' systems of labour law have caught some negative attention, hence two of the most discussed cases of recent years are given some attention as well. The collective judicial conditions are very similar in both Sweden and Finland regarding the labour market main actors' collaboration, the collective agreement structures and legal consequences and the opportunities of industrial and sympathy action.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to study how the hotel chain Radisson SAS works with prolonged customer relations with their business clients, with other words the clients that have business agreements with them.Methods: This study will contain an inductive approach and qualitative methods. The qualitative research method is in the shape of a deep interview with the sales manager of Radisson SAS and qualitative interviews of chosen business clients to the hotel.Results: The results of this investigation show that business clients are controlled by what kind of agreements their company has.The companies sign agreements with hotels and hotel chains that are able to satisfy big parts of their needs, if not all of them.With the help of flexible solutions, a well known brand, and good relations, Radisson SAS has made sure that their business clients have prolonged their agreements.They are a global hotel chain near transports, and business clients feel secure with Radisson SAS..

The main subject for this essay is victimization at work. The first question concerns victimization and the responsibility of the employer when bullying and harassments occur. The second question regards agreements between the employer and the employee, where the latter is paid to quit the employment because he or she is subjected to victimization, but also if any specific group of employees is especially affected. The purpose of the essay is to create understanding and clarification within current law, but also awareness of the possibilities where employers can create agreements with employees in order to make them finish their employments. In order to manage finding information some labour market parties were asked questions about their experiences of victimization at work and agreements among their members or employees.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the Dakota conflict in 1862 affected the Swedish immigrants in Minnesota and how the collective memory was shaped in that particular group of people. To examine the contents of the collective memory this essay uses the theories of Halbwachs on collective memory as well as Orm Øverlands theories on creating an identity and ethnic memory in USA since the concepts of collective memory and the process of creating an identity is connected on a basic level. The essay compares the collective memory created by the Swedish-Americans with the collective memories of the Dakota Indians and finds indications that both ethnic groups have a highly traumatized memory of the conflict. However the difference between the two groups is that the Indians have both positive and negative memories of the conflict while the Swedish-Americans only have negative memories. Furthermore the essay finds that the fear of Indians that was present in the Swedish-American ethnic groups can be traced back to events of the Dakota Conflict.