The main purpose of this Master Thesis has been to evaluate whether active fund management is profitable on Emerging Markets. The material used to examine this consists of 106 actively managed funds, with varying length during the period 1988-2006 and who uses MSCI Emerging Markets (MSCI EM) as benchmark index. The thesis has been written under the supervision of the Asset Management Department of Länsförsäkringar AB (LFAB) and the Department of Production Economics, Linköping Institute of Technology. Apart from the main purpose, the methodology used is also meant to form a template for in-depth or similar studies, preferably by the assigner of this survey, LFAB.The results shows that the median manager underperforms the MSCI EM throughout the whole period, which leads to the conclusion is that active management on Emerging Markets is not profitable. A grouping of the funds based on tracking error still shows that a majority of the managers in all of the groups underperforms against the benchmark.

This essay deals with the same task that utilitarians have tried to solve for a long time, what is happiness? In the eighteenth-century utilitarians suggested that happiness should be the base for social political decisions. But the lack of definition disposed so that GDP became the measurement of happiness, which proved to be wrong when the unhappiness continued to increase. More than two hundred years later scientists came up with a new definition of happiness and new ways to measure it. And during the last decade economists have taken the discussion to a higher level.So once again we?re dealing with the same old issue, if happiness ought to be the base of social political decisions.

The purpose with our essay was to examine which clients/patients get treatment for alcohol problems from either health care units or social service units. We also wanted to find out how staff in these units considers the importance of social background in the assessment of treatment. The questions we have focused are: How do the clients/patients get in contact with the units? How does staff in these units consider the importance of social background in the assessment of treatment? How is the social background like for the present clients/patients? To fulfil the purpose with our investigation and to get answers to our questions, we performed an explorative examination and applied a qualitative method in the form of a semi-structured interview with six persons. The investigation showed that clients/patients get in contact with the units by looking for treatment by themselves or by relatives and other organisations.

People recieving social assistance is today very common in Swedish society. Of those receiving social assistance single mothers is one ofthe largest groups. The purpose of this study is to examine how single mothers with social assistance experience themselves to be treated by social services, how this treatment affects their confidence in the social services and how they experience it is to live with social assistance. To answer the question, we use qualitative interviews with three clients. Previous research has shown that single mothers receiving social assistance experience vulnerability, and how they perceive it is affected by how they are treated by their social secretaries.

Traditionally, it has been argued that companies are only responsible towards their shareholders, to maximize the profits. But lately it has changed into another way of responsibilty. It has become of great importance to demonstrate sustainable long-term values for stakeholders to identify with. This thesis aims to clarify the banks? definition of responsible investment and what criteria they assume when talking about such kind of investments.

Title: Branding the public sectorAuthor: Rasmus Bergmark and David BackmanTutor: Magnus FredrikssonPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine branding in the public sector. The frame extends to government agencies and authorities in the Swedish public sphere, and aims to identify ulterior motives for their work with branding.Method/Material: The material used in this thesis consists 102 graphic manuals for government agencies in the Swedish public sector. The examination was based on an inductive survey where we extracted prominent motives among the graphic manuals.Main results: The main results of this survey shows which ulterior motives are more prominent than others, why they are more prominent and correlations between different motives.Number of pages: 53Course: Media and Communications studies CUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information sience, Uppsala universityPeriod: Fall 2013Keywords: Corporate branding, public sector, motives, market communication.

The main purpose of this study was to examine, and illustrate, highschool social workers experiences of pupils with self-injurious behaviour. Self-injurious behaviour in this study refer to individuals who harm them-selves, with physical injury as consequence, without purpose to commit suicide. A qualitativ method was used and five highschool social workers, in the south of Sweden, were interviewed.The main questions were:- What kind of experiences have highschool welfare officers of pupils with self-injurious behaviour?- What view, and personal opinion have the welfare officers at the problem, and how do this affect them in their work with these pupils.The school social workers experiences of pupils with self- injurious behaviour, were for instance that the pupils often feel ashemed over their behaviour and that they often have lowe self-esteem. The social workers seemed to imagine the behaviour as a copingstrategy.It turned out that the social workers personality and their personal opinion regarding self-injurious behaviour, were of great importance in their work with these pupils..

Research shows that there is a lack of knowledge of adult students with ADHD. Most of all research focuses on children with ADHD in school. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how adult learners with ADHD experience academic studies related to cognitive difficulties, emotion, motivation, and their experience of SOC. The questions tried to determine how any cognitive difficulties and emotions are perceived, how students' motivation to study impacted and their experience of SOC based on studies in higher education. To answer the purpose and questions used qualitative interviews based on three students with ADHD using a hermeneutic method.

It is important for every store to have a good financial performance which can be affected by the average purchase and the number of customers in the store. Customers shopping experience can affect both of these factors and therefore it is important for retailers to know about how an in-store environment can affect this experience. The purpose of this study is to give retailers an indication of the importance of consumers' shopping experience and how this may affect the store's financial performance. To study this subject an in-store survey was conducted in four grocery stores in Stockholm where a total of 320 consumers answered a total of 41 questions about their shopping experience. By sales data it was possible to conduct a statistical analysis to see which variables regarding consumers shopping experience influenced the average purchase.

The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate and create a deeper understanding of a reputation?s value during crisis in business environment. We aimed to investigate how companies and organizations build up their reputation to prevent crises and how reputation affects the outcomes of a crisis. The theoretical section is based on various scientific articles. A case study was conducted based on interviews with two respondents from two different companies and organizations.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Purpose: Social media is a global phenomenon that has developed from an opportunity of contact between people, into a platform for contact between organizations and people. This essay aims to investigate the public relation strategies of one organization on a popular social network.The main question that this study aims to answer is how the travel agency Ving chooses to create and preserve relationships to the public on Facebook in order to maintain a good reputation. Asub-question explores whether any patterns exist in Ving?s approach of interaction with its stakeholders.Method/Material: This study consists of a quantitative content analysis in which the interaction between the organization and the audience has been studied. Posts published by the public as well as replications from Ving have been categorized and then analyzed using two analytical models.

The aim of the study was to examine if and how the social service and the social welfare secretary provides against threat and violence in the encounter with clients. The study is qualitative and carried out with six semi-structured interviews with social welfare secretaries and participation observations at the social welfare offices in three municipalities. The theoretical starting points used were symbolic interactionism and strange loops. The result shows that social service and social welfare secretaries both use measures to prevent threat and violence to occur. The precautionary measures mainly used by social services are ; looked doors, alarm device, loose objects removes and interview rooms are furnish in purpose for the social welfare secretary to flee the room at urgent need.

Abstract  The purpose of my study is to see how pedagogues describe their work with language stimulation in preschool. My study is a case study. Through qualitative interviews and observations with three pedagogues I want to se how it works in preschool.     My research question was:How do the pedagogues describe their work procedure with language stimulation?  My result of this study is that language stimulation always is included in all preschool activities.

This study has examined how social media has changed food companies way of holding contests. The study examines how food companies use contests with the help of social media and how they used to do the contests before the use of social media. We have also researched the users behaviours and opinions of companies contests on and outside of social media.In this study we have interviewed four people responsible for contests on the social media department on their respective food company. We also performed a survey that was published on Facebook and followed it up with interviews from two of the participants.This study has showed that contests on social media, as a technical aspect, have given new possibilities for the design of the contests. But there are still some unexplored areas around contests on Facebook and the companies do not know exactly what the users are demanding.