AbstractAuthors: Åsa Höjer, Karl WijkmarkTitle: The intercultural communicator. A study of cultures? influence on communication.Level: BA Thesis in Media and Communication StudiesLocation: University on KalmarLanguage: SwedishNumber of pages: 67Date of seminar: 2009-01-15Advisor: Jens CavallinKey words: Intercultural communication, culture, Hofstede´s cultural dimensions, anxiety and uncertainty, self-confidence, high and low context, verbal and nonverbal communication, Telenor, Pakistan, Scandinavia.Case company: TelenorPurpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what cultural differences, regarding communication, that are present between Scandinavia and Pakistan. Furthermore the purpose is to illustrate which factors that are important for personnel working for Telenor, that are about to work in a foreign culture, in order to create effective intercultural communication.Methodology: The following study is a case study that has used a qualitative methodology with interviews conducted via e-mail. To be able to interpret and understand human experiences and situations a hermeneutical approach has been taken.

Title: Internal Communication Approach ? A study of the internal communication-channels of the ICA Administration. Background: The ICA Administration is in the process of generating an organizational change with the purpose of improving their external communication. The internal communication, on the other hand, has been put aside and is missing guidelines at the present.  Since the ICA Administration does not know how the staff uses the internal communication-channels they cannot optimize nor develop them. As the literature shows, it is important to choose the channel that is most appropriate for the type of information that it is meant to communicate. Choosing the wrong channel, or using it wrongly, can bring problems consisting of the staff experiencing to receive less information than needed in their daily work. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and describe the internal communication between the employees of the ICA Administration from the existing communication-channels and their usage. Method: Through the initial interviews with the staff, the internal communication-channels of the ICA Administration were determined.

This essay is a study of the market strategies and situations in the telephone business. Our problem was to examine the telecom companies´ strategies to stay competitive and cope with the new VoIP technology. We chose to do a qualitative study and four telephone interviews were made with Swedish and Dutch companies. We investigated three different categories of companies in the market; industry leaders, cable companies and broadband companies to get a broad view of the market. The theory chapter is based on different strategies that companies have to or can apply to get ahead, stay or survive in a hypercompetition.

Purpose The purpose is to analyze the parliamentary parties political communication in the social media channels before the election 2010.Methodology This essay is a descriptive study from nine interviews of the responsible people in the parliamentary parties. In addition to that two more interviews were done with social media expertsTheoretical perspective This essay is based on two-way communication and communication strategiesConclusions The parliamentary parties use social media as a complement to traditional media. The purpose is to create dialog and to minimize the gap to the voters, but in many ways it is being used as a one-way communication channel.  The parliamentary parties are trying to use the social media channels in Swedish conditions, but in many ways they try to imitate an American used strategy..

This essay is a case study of how two non-profit organizations, in the same line of business work with external communication and new media such as Internet and social media (Facebook and Twitter).Both these organizations are located in different countries and the purpose of the case study is also to find out if the differences in their work methods in communication depend on organizational or cultural differences. The case study was conducted in the organizations Sverige Amerika Centret in Karlstad, Sweden and The Swedish Council of America in Minneapolis, US. A qualitative approach executed through interviews and a qualitative content analysis of the organizations annual report from 2010. The result of the interviews and the document content analysis shows that there are differences in the way these organizations handle their work with external communications and new media. One of the organizations uses new media more actively in their work with communication and through that channel creates a relationship with its external audiences. The theories that has been used for this case study is Organization communication, Intercultural communication, Public Relations and Organization culture. Keywords: external communication, new media, culture and employees..

Globalisation and diversity has increased the presence of different languages in Swedish municipalities. As the local administrative authorities with responsibility for the public crisis management, how are these municipalities coping with crisis communication recipients that are not speaking Swedish? Through an inductive approach, this thesis formulates a theory of crisis communication adaptation by studying Swedish municipalities with a large part of inhabitants with foreign backgrounds. This thesis finds that municipalities that are not adapting their crisis communication to non-Swedish speakers follows a discourse that paints a picture of these recipients as at least understanding the Swedish language. Municipalities that do adapt their crisis communication have drawn lessons from local incidents that complements this discourse.

According to international and national literacy studies (PISA, PIRLS) Swedish boys are inferior to Swedish girls when it comes to reading. There can be numerous reasons to that statement. One is that Swedish teachers require more knowledge about communication as an important component in literacy. In spite of this shortcoming, Swedish girls manage to gain sufficient literacy. Why is that? The aim of this survey was to examine if there were any differences between girls and boys regarding communication skills when they begin in school.The main questions taken in account were:Which differences and/or similarities in communication skills are discernible between boys and girls this particular preschool?How do boys and girls communicate with each other in different room contexts on this particular preschool?           To be able to answer the questions, I adopted observations and audio recordings from children aged five.

The technological progress of the world has had a massive effect on how we communicate with one and other, it also has had an big impact on how companies communicate with their customers and consumers. Today you cannot only communicate a ?promise to your costumers and consumers you also have to ?deliver? what it is you promise. Strategic communication is today not only to market your product but to ensure that your strategic communication is shown even in you innovation, design and product development.  This thesis is conducted in collaboration with No Picnic AB.The purpose of this study was to get an insight in how Swedish companies use their strategic communication. We aim on bringing a new point of view of strategic communication with innovation, design and product development also as a communication channel.

Banks are an important institution for the economy of a society. During the later years the world of banking has changed. Several new actors have entered the market and taken over traditional bankservices as well as new ones. The way of conducting banking has changed with the event of new technology. One of the banks customer segments, the students have also been under a change.

In order to respond to a more complex community planning with increased cooperation and public participation, a common language and a common model to be used as a base for the communication process is needed. The thesis behind this dissertation for a master's degree is that a virtual 3D planning portal would respond to this need. Why and how are explained and described through studies of communication- and perception theory as well as technology and recent research. The introduction concludes that a broad participation and a transparence towards underlying information are important foundations for the coming work with the model. The first four chapters of the theory part show the benefits of using natural signs in our mixed cultural society, instead of the more arbitrary symbols. Using visual landscapes for storing information is motivated by the flexibility of our visual memory and its ability to understand complex connections.

During the last year in the Innovation Engineering Program, at Halmstad University, a degree project was performed that was carried out during Fall semester in 2006 and Spring semester 2007. The project was performed by two students in corporation with LIC Audio AB, a company in Stockholm. The degree project was meant to result in a communication aid for people with a cognitive handicap. The project focused on people suffering from dementia because of the expressed need within this group. This aid should first and foremost help in a conversation between a person with dementia and another person, like a relative or nursing home staff.

 Since the 28thof May the project to develop an internal Innovation Leadership Program (ILP)on Accenture has been running and came to an end in November the same year. The taskwas formed into a master thesis and given to two students at the Royal Institute ofTechnology in Sweden.Since the start the content and structure of the ILP has been established based on the resultsof a theoretical study, a gap analysis and an external and internal benchmarking. The theoreticalstudy focused on articles, books and lectures about innovation, creativity and pedagogy. Subjectssuch as leadership, motivation, reflection and coaching were studied as well, but in a smaller scale.The gap analysis consisted of eleven interviews with people from different career levels withinAccenture and the goal was to establish the view of innovation and creativity among the employees.The interviews also asked about the knowledge the participants had about Technology Lab in orderto get insight of how to improve their communication and cooperation with people in client projects.Internally a similar program was studied called Minority Leadership program, whom will not bedescribed further in this report, to get inspiration. The external benchmarking was conducted onStanford and was very successful.

The potential of information technology as a means to invigorate democratic practise is constantly under discussion. Regardless of the differing opinions as to the most suitable way to utilise IT, there are certain democratic core values that have to be considered. One of these is freedom of information, defined by us as the right of every citizen to seek, obtain and express information. The aim of this study is to explore whether the use of IT as a means to enhance democracy can strengthen the citizens right to freedom of information. As an instrument for analysis we use an article by Jan van Dijk, professor of communication science.

The systems environments of today are often distributed and heterogeneous. These kind of systems have several advantages but also disadvantages. One problem is how to keep them secure.The security problems in these environments are mainly due to the communication between the connected computers. It is relatively easy to tap these communication channels from information. There is also a need for the possibility to secure these channels from modification of sent information and to be able to verify the sender and receiver of information in a secure manner.

Title: Change Communication within organizations ? How perceptions differ between managers and employees in an organizational changeAuthor: Emma Ender & Fanny TeschTutor: Anne-Marie MorhedPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to study and compare different perceptions of change communication between managers and employees within two smaller organizations. We wanted to examine how the communication process within the change was carried out. We also aimed to compare the results with change communication models of Johansson & Heide (2008) and Lewin (1951), and also existing concepts, to see if our result differed from earlier research. Our key questions to answer were: How do managers communicate a change to the employees in two smaller companies? How do the managers think that the employees perceive the information about the change? How do the employees perceive the information about the change? How does change models from previous research correspond to, or differ from the change process?Method/Material: The material used in this thesis consists of a total of twelve interviews with both managers and employees at two small companies.Main results: The main results shows that communicating a change is complex, and that it is difficult to create models and theories for the phenomenon, as each change is unique.