The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse factors that may have an influence and can affect a brand?s development and change over time. By doing this we want to clarify which factors it is important for a company to understand and gain control over.To find the answer to our thesis we have carried out six semi-structured interviews which all were of qualitative character. The reason why we chose to work with the qualitative methodology was mainly that we wanted to achieve a deeper knowledge about our choice of subject. The empiric data that we have gathered have been compared and combined with our theories and resulted in our analysis which made us gain a deeper understanding of our subject.

Gain IT Architecture & Solutions AB (refereras till som Gain IT) är ett litetHuskvarnabaserat IT-företag. De är verksamma inom de tre affärsområdenaprodukt, konsult och service. Inom produktområdet sker försäljning avprogramvaror och deras egenutvecklade webbapplikationer. På konsultsidanerbjuder Gain IT bl.a. utveckling av webbapplikationer.

Stress is part of everyday life and in the working conditions of the social services in Sweden. Thus each and every person has resources and strategies to cope with those stressors that construct the assumption of stress. The aim of this study was to understand how persons in leading positions of the LSS of Social Services in Kalmar experience and cope with stressors in their leadership and organization and to investigate what factors during working and non-working hours promote health. Influenced by the theoretical approach of Aaron Antonovsky´s Sense of Coherence seven qualitative interviews were conducted with persons in leading positions. They were asked about stressors, coping strategies, resources and health promoting factors that help to cope with stressors.

The right usage of tacit and explicit knowledge is becoming increasingly important for businesses worldwide. This thesis searches the answer to how management consultants tackle the challenges originating from converting this type of knowledge into codified use. With the help of a case study analysis it was possible to gain special insight into the processes of knowledge collection, codification and re-usage at a major organization built upon knowledge utilization. In order to provide the reader with a wider picture, the main subject of the study has been analyzed from two perspectives: a practice based and an objective based perspective. Furthermore, two different types of knowledge, tacit and explicit have been differentiated and studied in relation to each other, to gain a better understanding of their origin and conversion process.

This thesis puts together general guidelines for the design of outdoor environment at nursing homes for people with dementia. The goal is to give the residents a greater quality of life with the garden.The garden must be safe and secure while offering places for fellowship or retirement and experiences of joy and competence. The plant material and other elements in the garden are inserted to stimulate the senses and to inspire to different activities. The paper describes the health promoting effects of nature and gardens by referring to scientific studies. These studies encompass the impact of nature on all human beings as well as how the outdoor environment affects our target group, elderly people with dementia. An essential part of the work focus on the conditions in a garden for people with dementia, on the contact between residence and garden and the access to surrounding life. Eventually, the general guidelines are applied to a real building project ? the Vega project in Lomma,a new nursing home for persons with dementia.

Background: Being subjected to an extensive burn injury affects the victim´s physique, social life and its psyche. A burn injury can be determined as a trauma. Burn injuries often make the patient suffer from pain, anxiety and lack of a social life. Sister Callista Roy´s theory was used to analyze the result of the study. One of her goal is to promote the adaptive function of self-perception.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the most common economic effects of countries pursuing trade facilitation. Trade flows are constrained by non-tariff barriers and through trade facilitation these barriers can be decreased. We will study the effects of trade facilitation from a theoretical perspective and evaluate a number of empirical studies. Several different trade barriers will be identified as well as those regions and countries that will gain the most from trade facilitation. We draw the conclusion thatlarge gains would prevail for all countries and that the consumers, businesses and the state all benefit from trade facilitation.

The forgotten group: A study of support for relatives of incarcerated individuals. The daily lives of relatives of an incarcerated individual are affected and changed by the fact that their kin has become incarcerated. This made us want to research what kind of support these individuals are in need of and what kind of support the society is offering them today. Because of their kins behaviour, these individuals are also often exposed to feelings of shame and stigma. Therefore we have, with Goffmans theory of stigma in mind, looked into how this affects the relatives daily lives.

ABSTRACTOverweight and obesity is an increasing problem worldwide although high-income countries take a leed. High BMI during pregnancy and delivery constitute to many risks for both the mother and her outcome. Intervention programmes with the purpose to get the pregnant women to eat healthier and to excercise more are now working out in many different shapes. The effect of these activities varies. The aim of this study was to investigate if interventions during pregnancy, with women who?s BMI are 25 or more, affects health of the mother and her expected child, delivery outcome and self estimated health.

The purpose of this thesis was to gain an understanding of how Swedish political parties gain knowledge of their voters. The assumptions taken in the thesis were that political parties are using same methods as businesses do to find interesting segments. To attain insight into the purpose of the thesis, two research questions were formulated: how are Swedish political parties obtaining insights in who their potential voters are? With the second question, an attempt is made to answer how the very same parties are using their knowledge about their voter segments. To find answers to those questions, personal interviews were performed with seven political parties.

The aim of this study was to compare activity, lying down and getting up behaviour, weight gain and cleanliness in heifers in cubicles versus on deep-litter. The study was conducted from autumn of 2005 until autumn of 2006 in a commercial organic dairy herd with 340 cows. In 2005 the farm rebuilt half of the young stock accommodation from deep-litter pens to cubicles. The experiment used 150 heifers of the breeds Swedish Red, Swedish Holstein and crossbreeds between these, all born on the farm. The animals were divided into three blocks based on breed and within each block they were sorted after increasing age. The youngest heifer in each block was randomly allocated to one of two groups, cubicle or deep-litter pen.

The aim with this study is to examine and analyze how the employees at two residential care homes for unaccompanied refugee children work with the children during their pending decision for asylum in Sweden. The purpose is to gain insight into the employees? daily work with the target audience and how they handle decisions with the children. The method to collect data is to carry 6 interviews with the employees at the residential care home. The interviews were semi-structured with purpose of letting the interviewee lead the content of the interview.

???This study has been made with the purpose of gaining an understanding of how a Swedish company may think and act concerning their internal control. An American body, COSO, have for some time published documents containing guidelines for how companies should go about this process, however, when conducting this study we were not aware of the extent to which companies in Europe and mainly Sweden used them. In order to learn about this, and also to gain an understanding of when these guidelines are appropriate, we conducted a case study with a large-sized, multinational Swedish company. We also conducted an interview with an expert in internal control monitoring, Anna-Clara af Ekenstam of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in order to get the perspective of the evaluators in this process and to gain some insight as to whether our case is typical in Sweden or not. We found that our company disregards certain aspects of internal control condoned by COSO, while performing better on other dimensions.

Faith is a phenomenon that engages the individual into emotional, social and daily manners.Religion tends to engage the individual in different levels in the daily life. In the church communion, there is a belief to the traditional and the repeteated behaviour. This shared group is strength by ceremonies and rituals and people in this collective somehow experience another type of reality. This study has a social - psychological perspective and the purpose is to study people?s know-how of faith and why they seek religion in today´s secularized society.

Organizations over the world increasingly start to realize the possibilities of the use of a social intranet, also known as Enterprise 2.0. The social intranets can be used to collaborate and communicate with colleagues in the workplace. Both Cook (2008) and Coope (Barnett, 2011) say that Enterprise 2.0 is about to fundamentally change the way organizations communicate. But do companies know how these tools can be used?The study emanates from three questions:How can social intranets be used in business?How can internal communication and collaboration get easier through the use of a social intranet?What are the possible risks with the use of social intranets?In this study we have in a qualitative manner been interviewing two companies that currently use social intranets in their daily activities ? Securitas and Skåneme-jerier.