The aim of this thesis is to analyze how small and medium-sized management consulting firms in Sweden work with human resource management during digital transformation. By interviewing companies, this study explores their approach to attracting, recruiting, and developing competence. The results showed that management consulting firms have good access to candidates, made possible by having a strong corporate culture and attractive working conditions - Crucial parts for attracting talent. Social media and networking are frequently used for marketing and attracting interesting candidates. Digital tools and social media showed to be useful during the recruitment process, but personal contacts and networking still play a central role.

Over the period as a student at the Master's Program for Educational Leadership, I have learned thatsometimes the participants School?s management shows concern regarding the purpose of studyingat such a program. The curiosity of what that might devolve upon got me to immerse myself in theapproach to and attitude towards competence development within educational leadership.The essence of what I wanted to examine was how the students from the above mentioned Master'sProgram perceived the treatment they received from supervisors and colleagues and if it waspossible to explain the attitude that the participants in the study reported. I also wanted to examinewhat issues, related to competence development and leadership within the school system, highlightsthe treatment of participants in educational leadership.The results are based on questionnaires and interviews and are divided into four categories; thesupportive, the unaffected, the discouraged and finally a side category to explain how to handle thediscouraged?s lack of support.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the concept of competence within the social services. More specifically it aims to find out how the social workers themselves look upon their own competence in social investigations concerning children. As the study was based on focus groups the main questions were vague at the beginning and were cleared later on during the group sessions.In three focus group interviews in three different municipalities in southern Sweden 11 social workers were asked to discuss this issue. The interviews were then thoroughly transcribed. In the data I identified 9 themes seeming to play a special roll in the discussions about competence: practice; experience; approach; intuition; responsibility; theories, methods and laws; reflection; resources and ethics; specialisation versus integration.The analysis made on these themes was based on two different kinds of perspective; one focusing knowing-in-action and the other focusing the organization framing the competence considered.As a conclusion the 7 first themes can be seen as a definition of the competence used in social investigations concerning children.

The aim of this two-year masters thesis is to look for the Swedish public library´s core business, using theories about competence. The approach is qualitative. It is done by studying the Unesco Public Library Manifesto, the Swedish library legislation, the education in library and information science, two important Swedish library related journals and by asking public librarians about their work and point of view regarding competence.The research shows mainly two sides of the core competence of public librarians: information technology competence and literature knowledge. The conclusion is that the two meet in the idea of mass education, which could therefore be called the Swedish public library´s core business..

The thesis aims to understand how learning processes are affected when an organization split into two separate organizations. The study is designed as a single case, covering a new government agency?s takeover of a core activity from another agency and the use of a purchase-provider split between the agencies, providing the new agency with IT-services. The findings revealed a difference in productive system and knowledge types between core- and IT-activities. The core activity was found to be dominated by explicit knowledge while the IT-activity seemed to be dominated by a mix of explicit and tacit knowledge.

On behalf has a questionnaire been conducted with the aim to find out the members opinion regarding the management of the association. The survey showed that association has a strong position locally and that the forest owners generally are satisfied with the management and the competence among the forest super visors. The main opinion is that the association can improve the communication with the forest owners before as well as after the sale of forest products..

This study is based on my work as a teacher of Swedish language and literature to upper secondary school students, and my interest in developing the teaching of literature by using both new criticism theories and theories of literary perception focusing on reader response. The purpose of the study is to examine the learning process in trying to develop literary competence and to find out how to describe the competence shown by the students. My starting-point is a discussion about literary competence and the theory and model of literary competence by Örjan Torell. In examining literary competence, by how students use their constitutional competence as well as performance and literary transfer competences, Torell´s model shows the possibility and the need for both knowledge of literature and personal reception by focusing on the dialogue between author and reader.The method is qualitative and the empirics are material collected in one senior high school class in the Social Science programme during their second and third year. The material contains written reading logs, written answers to tasks and transcribed recordings of discussions of literature.The analysis shows a variety among the literary competence shown and developed by the students and points to the complexity of understanding the concept of literary competence.

The concept competence is considered to be difficult to define. Therefore, it may be problematic to define competence in business and to evaluate the level of skills of employees (Thomsen, 2010). In this study the aim has been to identify key competencies for employees working as purchasers for Skanska Nordic Procurement Unit (NPU). These key competencies will afterwards help Skanska NPU to evaluate purchasers? level of competence.The theoretical framework of the study consists of three different parts.

Several studies have shown that the Swedish labour market for different reasons is characterized by ethnical discrimination and that people who have another cultural background than Swedish are being excluded. Most studies done within this area have been focused on why it is harder for immigrants to enter the labour market and identifying the contributing mechanisms for this phenomenon. Instead the aim of this study was to see how the immigrants view their own cultural identity and background and how they perceive that their cultural competences are being valued when they apply for a job. To examine this, the following problematic was used: How does a person who has been brought up with both the Swedish culture and another culture look at using this as a cultural competence when they apply for a job. Two different theories were then applied to analyze the problematic, Erving Goffman´s theory about Stigma and Norbert Elias theory about the Established and the Outsiders.

The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how self employed entrepreneurs (hereafter referred to as ?entrepreneurs?) develop their competence based on their perceived learning space. The main question is: How do these entrepreneurs develop their competence based on their perceived learning space? Other questions relevant for the study are: How important is the social environment for these entrepreneurs and how do they interact with their social environment in order to develop their competence. The study has a qualitative approach.

Large retirement numbers and fierce competition of available labour, results in municipalities have to be more attractive as an employer. One way for the municipalities to fulfil their staffing requirement is partly to increase their recruitment efforts, and partly to educate their existing employees. Discussions about the supply of competence are therefore pressing within municipal activity. The aim of the study was to investigate how the concept of competence is used within a municipal administration. The method that has been used is Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis, a method that allows multi dimensional analysis.

Background: Many companies have outsourced their IT-operations and their expectations of what this IT-outsourcing will contribute to the business are high. Cost cuts are not always a natural outcome of IT-outsourcing. Many companies that have outsourced their IT-operations consider it to be problematic and complex to exercise management control and reach cost control which was the purpose of the IT-outsourcing. Purpose: To describe and analyze what affect IT-outsourcing has on a company?s management control system and a company?s possibility to exercise cost control.

The purpose of the thesis is to map the meaning of ?international competence? in Swedish company boards of directors. The study is divided in a qualitative part and a quantitative part. The qualitative study consists of a discourse analysis where variation in interpretative repertoires are identified to enhance the understanding of the nature of reasoning related to the meaning and importance of the issue at stake. The discourse analysis is conducted on an empirical material from 27 interviews with decision makers in recruitment processes to Swedish company boards of directors.

AbstractThis is a qualitative study on what motivates personnel to apply for middle management positions within the Värmland County Police Department. This study also looks at whether or not there are differences in motivation between men and women in regards to applying for middle management positions.The study has been conducted through in-depth interviews with 17 employees of the Police Department. The material collected was analysed using the Empirical Phenomenological Method (EPP). 29 categories were generated which were then divided into four themes.The result showed that motivation can be achieved by having a more structured middle management roll whereby, for example, there are clear guidelines on the responsibility and authority you have. Support and encouragement were also named as motivating factors.

This paper conducts a qualitative examination based on interviews with six childrens librarians. The purpose is to put a perspective on the librarians competence and focal knowledge within the area of reading promotion and reading stimulation aimed for children, and also to examine how this competence and knowledge is constructed. The work is based on the following questions: How do childrens librarians experience reading promotion and reading stimulation within their profession? Which competence and what knowledge do childrens librarians experience as most important in order to make their work with reading promotion and reading stimulation function? What can be concluded regarding the construction of their competence and knowledge? The analysis is carried out from theories about competence, tacit knowledge and reading promotion. Following primary conclusions are drawn from the study: The professional role is mainly experienced as promoting reading as pleasure, but also as an important factor for childrens language development.