This research addresses the issues of identity and culture in Latvia in the context of the upcoming European Union enlargement in 2004. Political self- determination of Latvia was historically indebted to culture. The phenomenon of cultural identity, so important 12 years ago when Latvian independence was regained, is largely ignored by politicians in the upcoming enlargement process. This is especially worth attention since the 8-th parliamentary elections took place in October 2002. The obvious lack of interest in cultural issues on the part of politicians is compensated by the apprehensions in the society (reflected in mass media) to loose Latvian specific culture and identity when joining the big European family.

Despite the fast growing development of IP-telephony services, only a small number of people in Sweden use them. Of the total amount of fixed telephony subscriptions, maximally five percent are based on IP-technology. Through an exploratory study, the main purpose with this thesis is to identify factors that influence the use of IP-telephony on the consumer market, and the factors? internal relationships. The thesis also has two sub-purposes: firstly, chart the supply of IP-telephony services and secondly, discuss what IP-telephony services that are requested by today?s customers in the future.

Despite the fast growing development of IP-telephony services, only a small number of people in Sweden use them. Of the total amount of fixed telephony subscriptions, maximally five percent are based on IP-technology. Through an exploratory study, the main purpose with this thesis is to identify factors that influence the use of IP-telephony on the consumer market, and the factors? internal relationships. The thesis also has two sub-purposes: firstly, chart the supply of IP-telephony services and secondly, discuss what IP-telephony services that are requested by today?s customers in the future.

Research in the field of gaming and the gaming culture shows that the culture is characterized by sexism and hypermasculinity, however a majority of this research is conducted in an Anglo-Saxon context. Therefore the aim of this study was to elucidate the Swedish gaming discourse in relation to gender, gendered norms and stereotypes. We also sought to examine the relationship between the editorial content and the blog comments. The study was based on a critical discourse analysis with a gender perspective, applied to five Swedish gaming blogs. By implementing power theory and encoding/decoding theory, we have concluded that there is a discursive struggle, where one part of the gaming culture is characterized by male dominance, while the other part of the discourse is showing signs of resistance to this hypermasculinity.

The intention has been to look at the school system in South Africa and specifically at arts and culture in grade 10 to 12. I have visited a number of classes and interviewed the teachers working at the art centre PJ Olivier in Stellenbosch. By doing this I wanted to get to know the system and to understand the intentions that the curriculum describes.I have all through the study related the areas I?ve looked at to the curriculum to see how well the intentions are implemented. I have also compared everything with the Swedish school system.The curriculum has good intentions but the country has a lot to do before they reach the goals with a school system where everybody is included and where there is ?ubuntu? (Zulu word for humanity or I am what I am because of what we all are).

Packaging has had little impact in marketing literature. Research has focused on a single transaction approach. Lately researchers are looking at packages as a tool for brand building purposes. Thus, the focus is moving towards a multiple transaction approach, where packages can affect the consumer also after the purchase. For a range of goods extrinsic cues has been shown to have stronger effect on consumers' evaluation than intrinsic ones.

This study examines how upper secondary school teachers in Västerbotten and Österbotten plan to teach about the Finnish War 1808-09. The study includes written interviews with nine teachers in Västerbotten and eight teachers in Österbotten, who have answered questions concerning school policy documents, content and didactic methods. The purpose has been to examine whether there is a difference in historical culture in how the war is treated in the two regions. Historical culture is here meant within the prospective history lesson, where the pupils encounter history within certain boundaries.The result of the interview study shows that there are differences in structure concerning the school policy documents, but that these differences on the whole are compensated by the widespread interest in the Finnish War by the teachers in both regions. The differences in historical culture can be found within the construction of the content when it comes to the aftermaths of the war as well as the purpose of the teaching.

ABSTRACTHelena Nowachek The purpose of the following study is to focus upon the possibilities and challenges associated with the transference of corporate culture from one organization to another. I have chosen to address this by looking at the franchise company Jobzone, which works specifically with recruitment and outsourcing. As a method I have interviewed three people in Jobzone: one person who is responsible for education, one franchising boss in Sweden and one franchisee. To delineate the concept of culture I apply both Schein?s model, in which he divides culture into the three levels of artifacts, values and basic assumptions, as well as a general theory of communication.

Along with the development of technology, the cross-border trade is increasing and therefore there is a need for greater consumer protection. A good consumer protection creates a feeling of safety for the consumer and that by itself may help to increase cross-border trade. This is one of the reasons for why the EU has established regulatory framework for electronic commerce, for example the Directive2000/31/EC. The direc-tive strives to create a similar law for electronic commerce within the European Union. This paper?s main purpose is to ensure that the directive is implemented properly in Swedish law, and if there are other possible ways to achieve the objective, other than the ones that the Swedish legislator has chosen.

In today?s fashion market there are a great number of actors that offer a huge selection ofproducts. The fashion world today covers the whole world and a result of this, the competitionamong fashion companies are enormous, leading to a tough climate for companies in today?sfashion industry. There is an overproduction of goods on the market and companies mustcompete for customers because of today's homogeneous goods and prices.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare how and why consumers of different ethnic backgrounds value and prioritize product attributes among food in certain ways. We expected to find culturally bound attitude differences and our aim was to relate those to, and challenge, present knowledge of information structures. Consequently, we also aimed to use this new knowledge of attribute attitudes in connection to assortment variety theory, as attributes constitute important motives to how consumers perceive variety. A theoretical framework was constructed to suit our purpose and function as an analytical tool, consisting of Culture perspectives, Information structures (product attributes), and Assortment variety. In this thesis we focused on attitudes and consumer perspectives and excluded actual behaviour and the retailing perspective.

The use of digital devices are widely spread among us. Children have an iPad in their hands before they learn how to talk and we bet you look at your smartphone more times a day then you would like to admit? Interaction through these devices have become so natural in our daily life that we get confused when a retailer does not offer a website or an app. The habit of searching for information in the most accessible channel and buying in the one that offers the benefit of convenience, and of course, saves you money and time, is a common way of shopping these days. This is referred to as multi-channel shopping.

The purpose of the study was to investigate, using data from the sacerdotal culture, t h espouses of five priests. The main questions were: How does the priestly calling affect thespouse? Do the spouses involve themselves with voluntary work? Do the spouses feel thecongregation have expectations? Do the female and male answers differ?The sacerdotal culture has consisted of several elements. The main element is the priest?scalling for his work.

Through a case study at an IT company we have attempted to ascertain how a company's organizational culture affects its designers' way of working. By examining what ?type? of designers the employees are and how this is reflected in their work, we hope to have correctly determined what their organizational culture looks like and thereby have achieved a plausible result in our study.Aside from two interviews with the company's CEO, we also performed eight observations at the company, where we tried to blend in with the employees, to better determine their way of working together.We have found that the designers' trust in their own instincts has led them to rarely act on feedback from clients ? they only pick out the proposals which have a ?mainstream? potential. We have also discovered that their design approach is something they don't feel inclined to discuss amongst themselves. As it is often ?indescribable?, they go with their intuition and unspoken design conventions..

Background: Around the world, markets deregulates, which leads to increased competition. Meetings between the consumer and the employees of a company determine how the customer perceives the company and / or its brand. This has result in that many companies have realized the importance of internal using the same marketing skills that are used externally. In 2009, pharmacy market went from being a monopoly market to be a regulated competitive market.Problem: Is there any internal conditions for a private company, whose culture and structure was formed under a state monopoly, to create a strong corporate brand?Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to, through a case study, analyze and evaluate the internal marketing in a company which has undergone a change of ownership and retained the same staff.Method: Through interviews with key personnel and staff , data was gathered for the case study, which means that the method is qualitative.