Introduction and research question:  This study investigates the widely discussed notion ?Corporate Social Responsibility? and its practice in the tourism industry. In the contemporary society more companies are realizing the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its potential as a means of differentiation.  The author?s interest in this particular phenomenon was awakened after reading about the business case of Scandic Hotels. This is a company that nowadays is referred to as ?Scandinavia?s leading hotel chain?.

This essay is part of a project between Södertörn University College and Stockholm Academic Forum. The focus of the project is gender equality in small- and medium sized companies. I have worked with a construction company called Activa . The majority of the employees at the company were male and I was interested in the consequences of gender construction in such an environment. I think that the basic condition for equality work is an understanding of gender and the male norm.

Public libraries are mainly employing women and have female managers. According to theories based upon so-cial construction we create our roles together in our society. The role of a manager has for a long time been viewed as the role of a man. The objective of my thesis is to gain knowledge on how a few women that work as managers in public libraries perceive and describe their roles. A parallel aim is to let a few future librarians de-scribe their managers and their own views on leadership, with a focus on gender issues.

ABSTRACT  Title:                                       Artifacts as transformational leaders ? A case study at SIBA. Course:                                   Bachelor Dissertation - Leadership Authors:                                 Tobias Barin and Victor Eriksson Advisor:                                 Anders Billström Keywords:                             Artifacts, transformative leadership, organizational culture and leadership Problem formulation:          Which artifacts can be transformative leadership in the electronics industry?  Purpose:                                Create an understanding of store managers and deputy store managers' perception of how artifacts can be expressed in the transformational leadership.                                                Creat an understanding of the importance of artifacts in leadership in the electronics industry. Theoretical framework:       The study?s starting point for the theoretical framework has been Schein (2004) earlier theories of organizational culture, and Bass (1985) theories of transformational leadership. The link between organizational culture and transformational leadership is the basis for the chosen theories. Methodology:                        We conducted a qualitative method with a deductive approach for intent a solution for problem. Personal interviews were conducted with two store managers and two deputy store managers at SIBA. Conclusion:                           We have found that the artifacts: role-models, stories and rituals communicate the transformative leadership. Respondents have described how these artifacts conveys organizational culture but also the transformational leadership..

Since the Chinese economy?s reform in 1980, it has been attracting enormous foreign investments. Many Swedish firms from different sectors such as technology, manufactory production, consumer, service industries and so on, had started their investments in China. China has become the first choice for global manufacturing due to the huge market, continuous economic growth, stable political situation, sound investment environment and the WTO membership. In addition, China's enormous potential in finance, service, infrastructure, telecommunications, wholesales and retail industries will also attract a great deal of foreign capital.

As a result of global competition, companies within the automotive industry are required to improve their production systems to achieve sustainable and competitive production. To attain operational excellence, companies have adopted concepts like lean and World Class Manufacturing (WCM).In order to deliver, companies need to increase the availability and reliability of production equipment. This demands focus on both operational and strategic maintenance, and efficient equipment acquisition and management. The main objective of this thesis is to identify processes and success factors that are necessary for improved maintenance performance. By conducting a case study and by performing a literature review, the following has been studied: 1) how companies within the automotive industry work with maintenance and maintenance strategies, 2) implementation of maintenance strategies, and 3) new acquisition and spare parts management for maintenance. The results show that basic maintenance concepts and related terms are well defined in the literature.

This survey was made during the autumn of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, on commission from the National Board of Forestry. The purpose with the survey was to gather experience and knowledge in the organisation about fencing and this was made through interviews. The ambition was also to get knowledge from people outside the organisation that have great experience of forestry and fencing. The interviews were based on questions that have been composed by the author with help from the supervisors. The questions were the same to both the personal from the National Board of Forestry and to the foresters. Interviews were also made with private landowners, gamekeepers, game researcher, the County Administrative Board, the National Road Administration, pole and net retailers and contractors. The target group for this work is the National Board of Forestry to be forwarded to persons interested in forestry with the ambition to spread knowledge about how to prevent damage on the forest by browsing animals. The deer populations are big in the south of Sweden and growing populations have increased the damage on plantations of broadleaves of the most species.

The practice of landscape architectural involves forming the space in our cities and suburbs, as well as the landscape surrounding. The need of exploiting green environment leads up to, among other issues, flood problem during heavy rain and overfed water environments. The problem is partially caused by the shortage of knowledge, how the environment is responding of the innovations made by the city- urban planning and how to get sustainability. Research and knowledge how to take care of our environment, in a natural way, is increasing. The object of the thesis is to propose control and balance in urban wetlands, and discuss the difference a plant design can do. The thesis deals with discourses in the field of landscape architecture, biological diversity, dam construction, limnology, planting design and management, pollution of the environment and urban design practice.

Parallel to new technological advancements, including the development of interactive recommender systems, digital music services on the Internet, such as Spotify, have in a short time span gradually replaced former physical media such as CDs and MP3-players and become pioneers on a market with an otherwise uncertain future. By subscribing to the service, users have access to a vast library of music and from any device with Internet access. In order to provide a satisfactory and useful musical experience, different ways of coping with the vastness is required - which is precisely what recommender systems are for. Improved filtering techniques and use of devices built in sensors, make way for new opportunities of more precise and contextually tailored suggestions for track selection, which in turn leads to potential privacy issues when using interactive music services. But where do we stand today? By compiling, exemplifying and discussing three different perspectives with relating to the development of interactive music recommender systems, the objective for this paper is to provide a for science, industry and user, objectively nuanced account of current potentials and expectations.

The main drivers of luxury consumption is to obtain prestige and status, therefore the possibility of visible consumption of products is a key dimension of the product. Typical examples of luxury goods include cars, handbags and watches. These are consumed in the public arena where the possibility to show off the product and the brand is the greatest. When examining luxury products and what drives men and women to pay premium prices for a brand and for a logo, a fascinating finding is that there are products that fundamentally lacks these attributes, but which are considered to be classic luxury products. An example of this is perfume.

The aim of this thesis is to study and analyze a village in the southern of Sweden called Gnosjö, which is famous for a special spirit of industrial success and entrepreneurship. Gnosjö has been successful and famous for many years but is now standing in front of several threats, like a growing number of out moving inhabitants, a low standard of education and difficulties for women to make carrier. Trying to reduce the threat of young inhabitants moving out, a new education program started three years ago with the purpose to make young students to be more interested in the technical development of the industry and make them stay in the district and hopefully be entrepreneurs.The research questions are; which consequences does ?Entekprogrammet? and the background of the students have on the students view on the spirit of Gnosjö, carrier in the local industries and wish of staying or moving from Gnosjö. Furthermore, I want to see if there are any differences between the girls and the boys, does sex have an influence on the view at the future? The study is made by qualitative and quantitative method.

The main goal of this project was to develop some sort of a diverter for pipestransporting waste in a vacuum system. This unit was supposed to be both cheap andeasy to serve/exchange worn out parts. With a limited space to install the pipeexchanger, the challenge was to keep it as compact as possible without constructingbends with to small radius or to sharp angles as this would wear out the system a lotfaster than planned. The system was also supposed to be able to handle clothes andscrubs from hospitals. Having too much sharp edges or angles would tear the clothesapart.

Writers: Johan Lundqvist Eriksson and Elin SandbergSupervisor: Stig AnderssonEnglish title: Allocation of revenue in the hospitality industryKeywords: Revenue allocation, cost allocation, profit center, Du Pont model, taxes and manipulation of data.Date: January 2012Since the taxes for food and lodging has been different in Sweden for many years, the hospitality industry has come up with a way to save money on tax paying. When private customers stay for a weekend where the meals are included, the business is placing more than the relevant revenue on the lodging part, which has the lower tax. Because of this the results has improved and tax money has been saved. Now when the Swedish government has decided to lower the tax on food to the same level as the lodging, the chances for correct revenue allocation arises. When we approached the hospitality industry with our problem area a big interest was showed from the head chefs. They now see a chance to get more income on the meals and through this be able to show better results towards the owners.Two hotel managers at two different hotels and their head chefs were chosen for interviews.

The project team has chosen to carry out the project itself. This is to be able to work more flexibly in the product development process and not be guided by some guidelines.Every day, we read in the media about a new truck burglary. The problem has become so common that we do not even notice it in the media. Each year the theft of 1 billion of Sweden and the entire 82 billion in Europe in 2008. This is an increase of 10 billion by 2007.

Med ökad fokus på miljöpåverkan och bränsleekonomi vill Volvo Construction Equipment öka verkningsgraden på sina anläggningsmaskiner. På avdelningen för drivlineutveckling jobbar man bland annat med att sänka förlusterna i växellåda och hjulaxel på hjullastare och dumper. För att underlätta detta arbete har en simuleringsmodell som beskriver förluster i hjulaxlar tagits fram. Denna rapport beskriver framtagning av modellen, verifiering av modellen och vilka framtida användningsområden modellen lämpar sig för.Simuleringsmodellen är uppbyggd av ett antal komponentmodeller. Komponentmodellerna innehåller formler för respektive komponent i hjulaxeln.