The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the competitiveness of family firms is affected by governance mechanisms. The thesis addresses four governance mechanisms: inefficient labor markets, inefficient capital markets, self control and altruism. We have conducted an abductive method to be able to perform a qualitative research study. In this study two family firms have been examined, ROL and Indiska Magasinet. We conclude that the presence of inefficient labor and capital markets within the studied family firms give rise to negative effects in terms of difficulties of hiring talented employees.

The starting point for this thesis has been the great process of change that Swedish municipalities now arefacing due to the political directive of offering full-time employment to all part-time employees. The aimof the research is to create a decision support model for Swedish municipalities, which simultaneouslyintroduce the offer of full-time employment and an internal personnel pool. The factors that mayinfluence the personnel?s choice of employment level and the quality of the outcome, thus the financial result,are we also aiming at explaining. The empirical observations were found through secondary data as well asobservations from the municipality of Göteborgs Stad.

BackgroundThere are different organizational structures and control and it has been proved difficult to find a combination between these that leads to goal congruence and improved efficiency. An organization can be structured according to hierarchical levels and the decision making can be either centralized or decentralized. Organizational control can be classified according to the amount of rules and balanced scorecard can be used to weld together the structure with the control.PurposeThe purpose is to create an understanding of how two types of structures and control in an organization appears and also to investigate how these differ from one another concerning the balanced scorecard as a control system. We will also investigate how the variables goal congruence and efficiency are affected by the implementation of the balanced scorecard.MethodTo answer the purpose of this thesis we have mainly used the qualitative method since we have studied two organizations thoroughly through interviews on different levels of the organization. The study also has some quantitative elements since we wanted to get a more truthful picture of the organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine social worker?s own experiences of dealing with gender perspectives in child welfare cases. With a constructionist perspective, this study is based on a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews. Six social workers were asked to reflect on their work and their methodology, and how it relates to gender perspectives when assessing children and adolescents in child welfare services.The result shows that there is a lack of control and review that children are given a gender neutral treatment. It also shows that there was no explicit protocol for how to take a gender perspective into account when assessing children and adolescents needs of welfare services.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how psychosocial support for families where a parent suffers from a life threatening illness can be constructed. The intent was also to explore how the child's perspective is protected and what barriers and opportunities there are for family oriented support. The study has a qualitative approach and includes interviews with four social workers. The interviews were analyzed with a systems theory and attachment theory. The conclusions are that the whole family suffers psychological and social pressures when a parent is sick.

An inflammatory reaction is induced after release of proinflammatory mediators such asinterleukin 1 and 6 and tumour necrosis factor ?. These mediators stimulate the liver tosuppress the syntheses of albumin and endure the syntheses of acute phase protein forinstance C-reactive protein. The aim of this paper was to perform a method validation on animmune turbidimetric assay to quantify C-reactive protein in canine serum at the laboratory atSkara Animals Hospital, Skara, Sweden. The validation involved evaluation of the assaylinearity, precision, stability and recovery.The method was proved to be linear for both TruLab control and Medinor control.

Obesity and overweight is the worst public health related disease today, and it is a constantly increasing problem in societies all over the world. In Sweden the number of overweight persons has been doubled in the last 20 years. Today about 500 000 persons suffer from obesity and overweight.The aim of this study was to investigate obese and overweight people´s thoughts and wishes regarding what support they would like, in order to be able to successfully manage a weightreduction. The study is qualitative and conducted through six interviews, the material was analysed with content analysis. The result of the analysed interviews led to four categories:offered support, wished support, are you strong enough to find support by your own and mental wellbeing.The conclusion of this study is that overweight person?s biggest wish is to get continuous and personal support from the health care system.

This report describes the design and construction of a prototype that automatically aims a microwave link towards a target. The link, that is located on a mobile aerial mast, is used by Saab Training Systems as a part of an infrastructure network. The report also discusses the development of a GUI that communicates with the control unit by Bluetooth.The control unit, called Pan/Tilt-controller, controls the position of the link by stepping motors. One motor controls the azimuth angle and the other one controls the elevation angle.By a GUI the operator enters the coordinates on its own position and the targets position. Hereafter a bearing is calculated and it will be sent up to the control unit.The control unit will sense its own direction by a magnetic sensor that works as an electronic compass.

The aim was to describe the experiences of couples where the male partner had undergone radical prostatectomy due to prostate cancer. Furthermore, the study explored how the operation had affected their sexual life, whether the couples had received enough post surgical support and information concerning these issues, and to describe the kind of support and information these couples desired. Twenty men and ten partners participated. All the men experienced a varying degree of post surgical erectile dysfunction and only five men had received support concerning their sexual life. Eleven men desired professional visiting support activities.

Vid tillfällen då det uppstår driftsstörningar i ett informationssystem (IS) kan personalen som ansvarar för drift och förvaltning av IS vara i behov av externt teknikstöd för att eliminera dessa störningar och därmed säkerställa verksamhetens tillgänglighet till IS (Brandt, 1998). Det som är av intresse i detta arbete är att undersöka hur personal i drifts- och förvaltningsorganisationen upplever datorrelaterad support från en extern serviceleverantör samt vilka faktorer som påverkar denna upplevelse.Undersökningen har genomförts som en fallstudie med intervjuer som informationssamlande teknik. Resultatet visar på att kunderna i stort sett är nöjda med den support de erhåller men att det finns delar av dervicen som inte är helt tillfredsställande..

The purpose of this essay was to enhance the understanding and knowledge about phenomenon access support. Access support means that a third person (contact person) must be present during access visits between a child and its parent, if it is necessary for the child?s security or because the child needs support. The study was based on qualitative interviews with four contact persons and two professional social workers, whose main task have been to support and, partially, coordinate the work of contact persons. During the interviews I put the focus on participant?s experiences and thoughts about the phenomenon access support.

The main aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe through a quantitative study the extent of support received by foster families, their opinion of the support and any areas that might need improvement. The foster families receive foster care support through a private agency. We concentrated on the following areas of support; education, health, contact with the children?s biological relatives and behavioral difficulties. These four areas have, in previous research, shown to be problematic for foster children.

This thesis studies the concept of balance in the management control systems (MCS) of a small Swedish company within the IT-sector. The aim is to evaluate the importance of balance and dynamics in MCS and investigate which factors affect them. The frameworks used are Simons (1994) four levers of control, and the five-factor model for balance and dynamics by Mundy (2010). The small IT company - the object of the case study - has grown extensively in the last years and needs to develop more formal MCS without losing efficiency and creativity in their fast-moving industry. The case study reveals that balancing MCS is important also in smaller companies with less formal MCS.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka om det fanns skillnader i personlighet och val av konfliktstil beroende av vilken placering respondenterna hade i syskonskaran samt om Locus of control skiljde sig mellan olika åldersgrupper. Samband mellan chefers konfliktstil och personlighet undersöktes också. De 103 respondenterna som var mellan 25-75 år, 63% män och 37% kvinnor, besvarade en enkät som bestod av demografiska frågoroch arbetsrelaterade frågor om chefskap. Tre test användes; ett personlighetstest, RottersLocus of Control och Thomas-Kihlman?s konfliktstiltest.

In this bachelor thesis, diagnostic methods for one of Siemens stem inlet control valves have been developed. The work has taken place during ten weeks at Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB in Finspång. The company produce steam- and gas turbines and also provides service and maintenance. The purpose with this project has been to develop diagnostic methods that oversee the health of the control valves. By using the developed methods you will know when it?s time for maintenance.