The purpose of this thesis is to through the analysis of interviews with finance professionals in listed companies answer the question on what lies behind capital structure decisions, and to see how well the prevailing theories fit the answers. This article is an explorative and descriptive hypothesis creating study. We have used a qualitative method to analyse practice through theory. We have conducted telephone interviews with CFO:s and financial executives in Swedish listed companies on how they reason when they make capital structure decisions. We have then thoroughly reviewed the theory and empirical tests of the theories.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate how librarians approach to the multicultural collection development and which methods they use in providing library materials in minority languages. The questions to be answered are: which methods the libraries use when purchasing library materials in minority languages, how the respondents experience that the minority user groups needs are met in the library and how the multicultural competence of the staff is used in the libraries. For this purpose the qualitative interviews with 6 librarians in Gothenburg are conducted, mainly from the libraries in the immigrant-dense parts of the city, while the study being concentrated on 6 language groups of library users. The study?s theoretical framework is based on theories of multiculturalism, culture, identity and bilingualism.

Due to the increase of the emission of greenhouse gas and climate changes more and more customers demand environmentally sustainable products. The increased demand of sustainable products from cradle to grave is something that has affected the food sector. Many retailers within the food sector feel that they are less or more forced to be environmentally friendly. Nowadays many retailers have chosen to show customers and stakeholders that they want to ?do good? by publishing annual sustainability reports. The Swedish food market has been one of many markets investing in being environmentally friendly.

Homework is and has always been a part of school work. It may take a lot of time from the pupils? leisure. Despite this, you cannot find anything written about homework in the curriculum. How can this be? Is homework necessary and what is its function?The purpose of this study is to find out how a few teachers in primary school reason about homework.  What are their attitudes towards homework and what functions do they see?To get an answer to this I studied literature and research reports, and did four qualitative interviews with teachers who teach grades 1-6.The results show that all the teachers give homework to their pupils, but their opinions about homework differ.

Since the beginning of the new millennium the world?s population has increased exponentially fast. The majority of this growth has been accommodated for by urbanization of the developing world. This in turn has lead to a wide spread of informal settlements. Thus, areas of urban slums, that have risen illegally on the marginal lands within and at the periphery of the formal city.

Abstract This report is our bachelor thesis. Our work has taken place at a galvanising company in Sölvesborg. The company faced major changes, of which one was a computerisation process. The new system could involve changes in work practice and in specific tasks, affecting the workers. If the coming system was to support work, from the production personnel?s perspective, we felt a legitimate participation in the development and design of the future work practice, was a requirement that was not met.

Symbolic resources transform in to social power and material resources through the educational system. This entails that all students should have equal access to it.The essay compares Swedish didactics in ?immigrant? and ?white? schools, all situated in socio-economically underprivileged areas, analysing interviews with eight Swedish teachers about their didactics regarding restricted and elaborated language code.Understanding teacher?s work in the class room requires attention to the intersections between race and class, and of both to the distribution of symbolic resources in general.The essay finds that the practice of the? immigrant? school teachers differs from the ?white? school teachers?. The former are active, providing intellectual tools, scaffolding and driving force while the later choose a more passive attitude, letting students decide for themselves what to do and what goals to reach. Consequently ?white? schools allow the reproduction of unequal distribution of symbolic resources while practice in immigrant schools aim to compensate for disadvantages.Practice seems to win legitimacy by different sets of conceptualisations.

Studies show that activity based costing (ABC) is not widespread in practice even though it has been present in the academic world since the 80's. This thesis examines the reasons for the discrepancy between theory and practice through a case study of a Swedish manufacturing company. The intension is to answer the question of what contributes to the choice of precision in product costing.We found arguments for increasing precision in product costing but not to the extent of a full-scale ABC implementation. The company's estimation of the value of increased precision. In the study three company unique factors were isolated that affected the company's estimation of value; drifting purpose of product costing, historical use of product costing and knowledge about product costing..

Studies show that the performance of Swedish students in the subject of mathematics is to be considered somewhat average. The government has therefore decided to assist with extended project funding to schools on a local level in order to improve these results.Schools will, unlike before, practice teaching suited for the individual needs of students based on their previous experiences, knowledge level, language comprehension and their environment. This is also clearly stated in the Swedish school curriculum.My survey shows how three teachers in primary school actually work towards individualized teaching of mathematics and what methods they prefer. This survey also answered what these teachers considered to be the obstacles and opportunities with individualized teaching methods. The difference in approach of how to practice this has also been documented.The survey, based on interviews and class observations, have been analyzed and compared to previous research and theories in the field of teaching practices.

Foreign invested SMEs have recently become increasingly interested in China. The enterprises are in this report categorized as second wave companies since they follow the footsteps of previous pioneers, of which mostly were larger companies. The ambitions of the SMEs are either to sell products on the ever expanding Chinese market or to utilize the potential of low cost production for global markets. The existing literature is fragmented and solely based on the experience of larger companies. We believe that SMEs are facing new and different challenges, and thus a new generic theoretical frame work is desirable.

The purpose of this study was to describe senior nurses? expectations concerning how a digital information and communication technology systems (ICT) can contribute to the improvement of care leadership and how it can strengthen ties between the school's theoretical world and the practical clinical work-based training (WP) in nursing. The study has a descriptive design with a qualitative approach. The study involved seven leading care nurses. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews.

This study concerns art education, and the importance of creativity in learning. The objective is to examine the use of art education in practice, and the school teacher?s position on this practice.The theoretical basis of the study is rooted in a socio-cultural perspective, and concerns the relationships between theoretical concepts as learning, knowledge and art education.The investigation is qualitative and the main research methods are participant observations and structured interviews.The group studied in this investigation consisted of five active educators, who work at different schools and make use of art-based methods in their daily work.My results show that teachers believe that art education can be used by schools as a gateway to the other subjects. Art is regarded as a form of understanding through which pupils explore their surroundings, challenge their ideas and build skills through interaction with others..

In recent years, Information Technology (IT) has gained more importance in workinglife. More and more organisations has shown an interest about how technology can beused to manage the competence of the employees, and how IT can contribute to thedevelopment of the organisation. In order to achieve this, there is a need for suitabletools to support this process. Even though the implementation of competencemanagement systems (CMS) is a highly up to date question for many organisations,there is a lack of scientific reserach concering this area. This study will contribute tothe research area by examining how CMS is used by employees in daily working life.The manager and the employees in a healthcare organisation in Sweden were observedduring appraisals in order to observe how they used the CMS to evaluate competence.The appraisals were considered a suitable place for studing CMS in use within anorganisation.By using theoretical perspecitves such as the Sociomateriality and Situated Learning,the study can contribute to the knowledge of the entanglement between technologyand working practice.

The advantage and the possibility of keeping track of a number of vehicles to make work practice more effective and smooth is today a favorable choice for Visual Units Logistics customers. We?ve been evaluating the software and trying to take it one step further and letting not only the individual user, but maybe, the company as a whole benefit from its advantages. This has been done by using methods like letting ourselves get to know the software, user case studies, workplace studies, interviews and future workshops. This resulted in a prototype introducing a new function designed with all collected data in mind trying to make the software, Visual Units Logistics, even more effective for the every day work practice of the user.

Although known and feared for thousands of years, rabies remains a real and present threat to thousands of people, especially in low- and middle income countries. In India, rabies is an endemic disease, causing human deaths every year. The primary mode of transmission is through the bite of an infected dog. Fighting the disease in the dog population through vaccinations remains the most efficient way to eradicate the disease. The knowledge of rabies in India is unsatisfactory, as a lot of people lack awareness about the severity of the disease and the importance of washing the bitten area and seeking medical attention for post exposure prophylaxis when bitten by a dog.