The intension with the thesis is to investigate how mass communication is adopted as a strategy to increase the membership activity within religious communions in Sweden. In the years past it has shown a decreased activity within religious communion, deliberate strategies have been missing and efforts on resources for less effective strategies have been made. The study has been carried out through a review of existing theory within the field of subject, communication within religious communion and the use of mass communication within religious communion. The Swedish church was chosen as a case, where three persons were interviewed. The result from this study shows that the Swedish church communication operates on several different levels: these are detached and self-determinate.

With the fast development of Internet and the e-commerce during the last decades, retailers are now introducing online stores. This has been adopted as a common strategy within the industry and the phenomenon seems likely to increase over time. Theory based on brand extension is used in this study to explain the effects on brand attitude and the link with willingness to pay when a traditional retailer introduces an online store. We execute an experimental study in order to investigate the effects where we use the offline- and online channel as well as two brands with different strengths as independent variables. Results show that brand attitude and its link to willingness to pay transfers to the online channel.

Today?s farmers are constantly affected by the fluctuating world market prices on grain and thereby the price risk that comes with the price fluctuations. The volatile prices of grain increase the price risk within the business, which in turn affects the profitability of the business. The fluctuating prices together with the increased price risk within the farm business have opened up the market for hedging instruments. In this master thesis project, the aim is to identify the underlying end-values of 30 Swedish farmers? related to their choice of using hedging and the product; forward contract.

Urbanization has for a long time been a threat to our biodiversity. Epiphytic organisms such as lichens have been negative affected by traffic pollution and the new urban environment surrounding their old habitat (van Her 2001). Another epiphytic organism is the green algae Desmococcus olivaceus. Unlike lichens the green algae is favoured by polluted areas. The aim of this study was to investigate if time in urban environments affected the cover of the green algae on old oaks.

Requirements engineering is a widespread topic in the research field of informatics. However, there is little research regarding lack of requirements documentation and how it is perceived. The same applies for how requirements engineering in retrospect can be implemented. This is a debated issue on blogs and forums but it has not been reflected in the research area.Therefore, this study concerns research questions regarding how the developers, testers and requirements analyst experience the lack of requirements documentation and how requirements engineering in retrospect can be implemented.To answer these questions, data collection has been conducted through qualitative interviews with individuals affected by this problem in their everyday work.This study has provided an explanation of how the problem is perceived and what the consequences are, both direct and indirect. The impacts are divided into three categories and are presented as, emotional consequences, system implications and consequences regarding re source consumption.

The aim of this study is to examine the investment decision process for investments that arise due to strategic changes and are of strategic importance to the company. At the foundation of this study is the previous research in this area, done by King (1975) and Bower (1970), which examines the investment process on a more generic level. At the core is the investment decision process pertaining to Projekt X, an investment performed by NordiCorp. Having conducted a case study including six interviews with employees from various parts of the organization, combined with a large number of internal documents, the process regarding the investment decision was carefully illuminated. The results show that in many regards, this process follows the more generic investment process.

The aim of this study is to investigate how Lunds Vokalensemble achieves its goals and in which way the goals influence the choir's work. The study also explores the choir's artistic process. Qualitative interviews and observations were used as a method. Four singers and the director participated to the interviews. The results show that the choir's artistic goals have quite an influence on many aspects of the choir's work, both in a musical and a social way.

A pilot-study was used to investigate, types of assistance, assessed needs, outcomes and effects of special-needs assistance given to a subsample of compulsory school pupils in an effort to develop an evaluation strategy for identifying educational impacts of specific special-needs inputs.  Preliminary results indicate a tendency for postive outcomes for most pupils in the pilot group (n = 11) but also that many pupils have residual difficulties.  Pupils with residual difficulties mostly required special education asssitance with Maths, English or Swedish.  More pupils also needed support with behavioral difficulties.  More research and an expanding knowledge base is required in order to effectively evaluate outcomes of teacher support.  Schools need help in devising different methods of assistance and particularly for pupils with behavioral difficulties..

Background and problemThe biggest difference between companies and non-profit organizations are their purposes. Companies? purpose is to generate profit to the shareholders. Non-profit organizations do not have any shareholders and their purpose is to offer service to receivers of benefits.There are a lot of non-profit organizations today and the competition for the donations is rough. Non-profit organizations can influence the publics? decision of who to support by creating a financial reporting that appeal to the public.PurposeThe purpose of this essay is to examine how non-profit goals are measured in non-profit organizations and if there are a practice on the subject.MethodologyWe choose a qualitative approach as we wanted to understand the reality by explaining it with words.

The difference between the public sector and the private sector in Sweden was once very small. These sectors have been united as well for the people, the organizations as for the finances. During the 1960´s and 1970´s the public sector in Sweden was expanding and after the 1980´s the people started talking more about an expanding private sector instead. The year of 2007 Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening submitted a tender to Äldreförvaltningen about a purchase of the home- help service in Hökarängen and they accept there tender.Exposing public organization for competition can be a good way to make sure that most value for the money is created and that it generates the most cost- effective organizations. The motivation factor is used to describewhat makes people perform more than what is expected of them.The purpose of this study is to describe and explain similarities and differences in working- motivation between those how are members of Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening and those how are not.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse and evaluate human relations within organisations in purpose to achieve higher productivity. Both research objects gained interest in this essay due to how their own result should be effected and their own values but the writers also detected a little curiosity on how the competition handled these questions. The essay have progressed in the following steps: first the authors have tried to find a problem definition and a scientific ground to work from. After that an extensive literature study were done to be followed by an mapping of apparition on the human relations on Scania motorverkstads logistics department and Volvo Logistics by interviews of the people in charge in these organisations. To see whether there was a unanimous line of thoughts between the management and the employees the authors made questionnaires to the different department.

Aortic insufficiency is a very common valve problem in horses and most often affects older individuals, but nevertheless existent within younger ones. The root cause for aortic insufficiency can be varied, for example; endocarditis, ventricular septum defect or congenital valve disease but the most common are progressive valve degeneration or elite competition. Depending on the root cause, different changes can be observed on the aorta valves, but they do all have the same effect, the valves do not seal properly and blood leaks backwards. Many horses can, even with this deficiency, perform highly without any visible impacts and there is therefore no need to treat those subjects. Most often the symptoms arise at a later stage in life and they are, more often than none, put down for other reasons. In the occurrence of the clinical symptoms showing, treatment guideline is to inhibit these symptoms since the valve degeneration is presently irreversible.

Background: Nespresso is a part of the Nestlé group and was founded in 1986, in the liaison of the revolutionary new method of brewing coffee. The idea was that everyone should be able to brew themselves a cup of espresso that would taste as if a professional barista had done it. Nespresso has now turned in to a new coffee culture. From the beginning Nespresso only sold their products via their club, Nespresso Club, but in year 2000 they opened their first store in Paris. The first store in Sweden opened year 2006 in Stockholm, followed by one in Malmö year 2012.

This study aims to describe how a company behind a well-established brand in the fashion industry has strategically chosen to communicate with their target market. Interviews with four individuals in different positions within the company have generated qualitative data, which is presented and analyzed in relation to the theoretical frame of reference in this study. The results show that the company does not use conventional marketing, but relies rather on marketing based word-of-mouth generated by its customer base due to its unique store concepts. Previous research has shown that this type of marketing strategy is effective and beneficial to the brand equity, a conclusion that is demonstrated to also apply to the survey object of this study. Furthermore, it is also shown that this is largely due to the distinct and coordinated image that the company maintains through strict standardization..

The xenophobic attitudes in Europe are stronger than even. Never before have the member states had as many right-wing parties in action. The aim with this report is therefore to consider whether the Schengen cooperation has had an influence on the development of xenophobia in the member states of EU. The Schengen cooperation became a part of the European Union in 1997, with the aim to abolish the internal border controls for citizens and strengthen the external boarders towards non-members. The intention is furthermore to investigate whether the distance to Schengen ?s external boarder has an impact on the xenophobic attitudes.Three countries are compared: Italy, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.