The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

During the last decade working with competence has emerged as a more strategically important area. Today the human resources in a company are considered a competitive advance and the HR-units play a significant role when it comes to HR-management. Different motives for investing in strategies that promote competence development and learning also exist. The purpose of this paper was to examine how the process of competence development was managed at a large global company. The empirical material consisted of four persons who were interviewed and the analysis of the material was inspired by grounded theory.From the analysis four major themes or core factors emerged as central to the interviewed persons' understanding of the competence development process; solid preparatory work in relation to competence development, communication, awareness of responsibilities and finally the taking action and evaluation of the action.

Abstract Title: Enabling Smart Research and Development through Knowledge Conversation Seminar date: 2005-06-08 Course: Master thesis in business administration, 10 Swedish credits (15 ECTS) Authors: Andreas Johnsson, Johan Rosendahl Advisors: Lars Bengtsson Key words: Knowledge management, Knowledge conversation, Research and development, Ba, Trelleborg Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to create a model that shows how knowledge management aimed at research and development processes can be used and how the theoretical fields can be connected. Methodology: The thesis is based on abductive perspective where empirical and theoretical material has been mixed to create a foundation for the analysis. Theoretical perspectives: Theories concerning knowledge management and research and development have primarily been used. These have been complemented with material about team structures and incentive systems. Empirical foundation: The empirical material is based on semi structured, mostly qualitative interviews and strictly quantitative inquiries performed at Industrial Hose within the Trelleborg group.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to analyze what suitable hardware platforms there are on the market in order to build a low price control and information system for mobile applications, called small display module. The thesis will be underlying material for making a decision for further development. The result of the thesis consists mainly of a Windows CE kernel and a schematic for a CPU card, on which it would be suitable to build the display module. Another major part of the report is the introduction of different techniques that could be of interest when designing a processor based system. The processor architecture that was chosen is the x86.

This master thesis is a study of how city cemeteries can be used and contributes to a socially sustainable urban development. Today sustainable development and sustainable urban development is something that more or less every organization is working with. Therefore it is also relevant to integrate our cemeteries in this work so that they can become a part of the sustainable urban development process.The thesis gives a basic understanding of sustainability as a concept and also defines socially sustainable (urban) development. The work then immerse itself in various types of park structures and how the relationship between the human individual and the public space work, to satisfy the needs that different people have.The literature study that has been made is also the base for the design of the walking interview that has been made for the two city cemeteries. The cemeteries that where studied where the Assistens cemetery in Copenhagen and the Eastern cemetery in Gothenburg.

Process standardization is a topic that has generated a lot of research and literature. At first, the focus was on production; today processes are used in all different kind of business areas.The aim of this study has been to analyze how processes can be applied on development businesses and how IT systems affect the result of the process. To accomplish this, we have asked questions such as what standardization is in a development process? Why are the processes standardized? What difficulties can appear with standardization? And how the IT-systems affect the result of the process?To answer these questions, we have preformed a case study on Saab. Saab is a well know Swedish company who are working with a project called the GMS-project, where they develop processes to cover the whole company´s business areas.The literature gives the reader an understanding of processes and standardization.

Small!size!enterprises!within!the!outdoor!industry!seldom!use!a!structured!process!or!method!when!involving!users!in!product!development.!One!reason!for!this!is!that!many!structured!development!processes!are!designed!for!large!companies!with!very!different!resources.!When!involving!users!in!product!development!processes,!the!most!common!user! is! an! elite! athlete.! She! or! he! often! has! different! requirements! than! the! regular!consumer!and!in!the!customers?!point!of!view;!this!leads!to!nonCmaximized!developed!products.!!The! result! of! this! thesis! is! a! user! involvement! process! for! small! outdoor! companies!based! on! the! Sister! Kenny! Research! Center! Innovation! Handbook,! a! product!development!process,!which!itself!is!based!on!a!phaseCgate!model.!The!process!focuses!on!the!user!category!enthusiastic!amateurs,!since!this!is!what!companies!in!the!industry!require.!The!process!also! focuses!on!how!and!where! small!outdoor! companies! should!involve!users!and!give!recommendations!on!how!many!users!that!should!be!involved!in!a! product! development! process,! different! from! what! the! theory! recommend.! The!process! also! builds! on! that! ideas! should! come! from! the! users! first,! and! then! being!further!developed!by!the!company's!product!developers.!The!degree!of!communication!between!users!and!the!company!is!shown!and!the!report!clarifies!the!user!involvement!intensity!in!product!development!processes.!!The!involvement!process!that!has!been!developed!has!also!been!summarized!in!a!guide!that! can!be!used!by! a! company!on! a!daily!basis.!This! contains! information!on,! among!other!things,!how!users!are!selected!and!how!to!plan!a!workshop.!!! !.

This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

This master essay deals with the changes in the use of and the abandonment of the Avebury monument and the change of the surrounding landscape during the late Neolitihic, about 3000 B.C, and into the Bronze age, about 1500 B.C. The change in the way people supported themselves, the development of agriculture, brought along many other changes as well. I am in this paper dealing with these issues, how and what lead up to these changes, the peoples own part in the development, and I am also looking into the fact that these changes might not have meant an end of old ideologies, but rather a development in the expression of beliefs where the monuments of the neolithic no longer had a place in society..

Title: A hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. To learn using tools to make software development more effective should be self-evident at a high level institution as the competitive industry races on. The absence of directives for programming students in Sweden to use source code management (SCM) was the basis for this report. The report describing the developing of a hosting service for software development to use SCM of Git, which includes a web application, storage, API and authentication of students. The project resulted in a hosting service and a smaller survey of how the today Swedish students using habits of SCM during their studies..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, and thereby highlight, the new role of special needs teachers in conducting educational development in the fields of linguistics and literacy. The thesis defines how educational development, as described by special needs teachers, can be conducted and what conditions they perceive for such development. Factors which, according to special needs teachers, promote or hinder the development are discussed.The study uses a qualitative method involving knowledge-creating dialogues, analyzed hermeneutically, with two special needs teachers. Results are then discussed in light of relevant research and sociocultural theory. The study indicates that special needs teachers? main tool, to support teachers, is diverse use of dialogue.

This paper aims to investigate whether a small organization with small development teams can find a value in leaving a functioning development process to follow a formal systems development methodology, if these organizations can find support in an agile systems development method and in such case the method needs to be adjusted according to the organizations unique conditions.A traditional plan-driven system development methodology includes a number of phases that are carried out sequentially and a completed phase can basically not be resumed. All requirements are specified at the beginning of a project and at the end of the project only one delivery of software take place. This can cause difficulties in for example dealing with changing requirements. Agile system development methods intend to deal with changing requirements and to enable continuous delivery of valuable, working software.In this paper, both the traditional plan-driven methods and agile methods will be explained. Research methodology and existing system development theories will be discussed and a company where the study has been conducted will be presented.

Title: Development and continuity: A new institutional case study of a Danish public library in changeAbstract: The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss and analyse the relationship between the traditional core values belonging to the institution of the public library, and the development work that takes place at the institution. The thesis also investigates the relationships that influence the development work.By investigating a library that is considered progressive in its development work, our purpose is also to unveil alternative values that compete with the traditional core values. By illustrating the perception among seven staff members and the director at Aarhus Public Libraries, we want to illuminate the terms for development among public libraries. In addition to our interviews, an activity plan is studied.We base our study on new institutional theory which focuses on norms and values in an organisation. This focus helps us to understand the development work from a comprehensive view.Our study shows that the development work at Aarhus Public Libraries is taking place in a complex environment that consists of several different actors and different interpretationsof the traditional core values of public libraries.

The aim of this study was to examine how the activities of two preschools develop the language in matter of the teacher?s work of procedure. The following research questions were essential for the survey and therefore formed the basis of the examination:How do the teachers in both preschools work in a language evolving way?What significance does the environment have for the language development?Are there similarities and differences between the preschools in their language development approach?The study is based on a qualitative method, where the teachers of both preschools were interviewed with the purpose of obtaining information. The teacher?s statements and interviews were analyzed in relation to previous research, where the theories of different writers form the base of the theoretical connection to the study.The teachers view in developing the language regarding to their aspirations in measuring the language an important position in their operation, can be portraied as the conclusions of this study.

Background: Competence development has become more important since the pressure on effectiveness is increasing and organisations are expected to constantly improvement. The design of the competence development activities is governed by the strategy which in turn will affect the outcome of the same. A knowledge intense business in which changes recently have taken place is healthcare, a business in which competition also has increased as a result from globalization. Due to this, it is highly important to take care of and improve the competence of individuals. According to this, we have found that healthcare is an interesting business to study with regard to competence development.