Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

The aim of this study was to investigate factors that ex-criminals believe have been of importance to them when they decided to leave a lifestyle of criminality behind. The study was based on eight semi-structured interviews with informants who had committed various forms of crime. Common to all informants is that they are now members in the Swedish association KRIS (In English: CRIS, Criminals Return Into Society), living a life without crime. The stories of the informants have been analyzed on the theoretical basis of social ties, the exit process, role loss, motivation and the life course perspective. Our study showed that the informants have been affected and motivated by various life events that could be identified and pin-pointed during the interviews.

AbstractTitle:Course:Authors: Advisor: Keywords: Problem formulation:Purpose:Target Group:Theoretical perspectives: Methodology: ResultSwedish leaders abroad ? A qualitative study about culture ?s influence on Swedish leadersBachelor dissertation - Business Administration, LeadershipAmanda Elg and Carl-Johan SaltarskiIngemar WictorLeadership, culture, impact and adjustmentHow can Swedish leaders in multinational companies adjust their leadership to the national culture?The aim of our study is to investigate whether Swedish managers are affected by the differences in national culture that exists between Sweden and the country that they operate in. We want to explore if they adapt their leadership to the culture.Our study is directed towards a target audience of Swedish leaders and other interested parties who wants to increase the understanding of culture ?s influence on an international career and what is required of the leader to deal with the cultural clashes that may rise.We have focused on theories related to differences in national culture and how it can affect the leadership and the organization.The study is of the qualitative type with a deductive approach where the empirical materials are gathered through interviews.Our results demonstrate leaders implementation of culture and leadership to influence the leadership of the national culture in which they operate. We have seen how leaders are affected by the national culture and how the leader adapts to achieve a successful leadership.

We set out to compare two different categories of workers: the, so called, white- and blue collar workers. The studies aim was to measure if there were any observable differences between the two in means of optimism and sense of coherence. There are two tools created for measuring optimism and sense of coherence, the Life Orientation Test ? Revised (LOT-R) measures an individual?s level of optimism and Aaron Antonovsky devised a test for measuring an individual?s level of sense of coherence (SOC). Optimism is best explained like a way to measure anticipation, how an individual expect future events to fall out.

The aim of this study is to research images of the academic world that is presented, incorporated and reproduced within the frames of the mentorship in the basic level. Can these images derive to the view upon science as a traditionally male area? Is mentorship gendered? Can the mentorship on the basic level be viewed upon as a milestone of a academic career where men and women have different opportunities to succeed?By interviewing seven mentors, working in a social sciences institution in a larger Swedish university, I have come to the conclusion that knowledge is coded male and that this affect mentors mental images of what male and female students are expected to do. The male student represent the scientist, while the female student represent what the scientist is not.Depending on the work of, among others, Kerstin Norlander, Dorothy Smith and Eva Erson I have come to view upon the university as a patriarchal organisation witch produces knowledge based upon male values, experiences and concepts. This precludes the female within this organisation from relating to the knowledge she is supposed to incorporate.

There was a silence surrounding homosexuality in the People's Republic of Poland. One can almost get the impression that same sex love, and same sex relationships, did not even exist there; that the communists had successfully removed homosexuality from society. The roots of this silence can be found in the Communist Party´s disdain for anything deemed individualist and deviant, and also in the conservatism and religiosity of the Polish society.In my thesis I study when and how gays and lesbians found a way out of the silence that surrounded their sexuality. Gay men did so by creating subcultures, which found refuge in parks, public bathrooms and a few bars in larger Polish cities, and offered a sense of belonging for them. Lesbians, on the other hand, lacked this access to semi-public spheres, which made it even harder for them to find each other and create a space for their sexuality.

New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society.

Studie- och yrkesvägledning är en profession vilken samtliga, som gått i skolan i Sverige, har en relation till. Vi har samtliga någon gång under skoltiden mött en vägledare. Lika många möten verkar generera lika många historier och de är inte alltid av god karaktär. Det hänger förhoppningsvis ihop med att det idag inte finns något krav på behörighet för att få arbeta som studie- och yrkesvägledare. Det gör att många möten med vägledare har skett utan de kunskaper, förförståelse och professionalism som en utbildad vägledare med behörighet medför.

This thesis, titled ?Change, choice and conditions?, is written by Lina Skantze and Bianca Zandén. The study explores the process in which individuals? attempt to end their criminal career, focusing on the interplay between path of life, choices, and conditions. The method is qualitative, and the empirical material consists of interviews with four young adults that all have experience of criminality.

 Why is it that we still live in a society where an individual's social background plays such a big part in their chances of reaching a higher education? Despite the numerous educational policy reforms, especially in Sweden, it still seems that an individual's career choices are pretty much related to what kind of social class they grew up in. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu claimed that social class is reproduced in the school system, and that students from the lower classes are much less likely to reach a further education than students from the middle or upper classes due to injustice in the school system. One thing that plays a big part in this "Catch-22" situation is the concept that Bourdieu calls habitus. Habitus could be explained as an individual's taste, knowledge, ability to master the spoken language, etc. Your habitus is manifested in the choices you make, the music you listen to, how you dress and the way you speak, and it determines your relation to the education system and life in general. As part of my essay, I wanted to interview students from lower or working class at my school, Konstfack, to see if they have had any negative or positive experiences from their encounter with a higher education. And if so, could they be linked directly to their social background? As a reaction to my own and my interviewees? experiences and frustration, I use the concept of habitus in my practical work.

AbstractWorking with child and youth welfare is one of the most difficult challenges a social worker might face in the field of social work. Those who work with child and youth welfare are more exposed to stress and burnout than other comparable human service occupations. Research links the prevalence of stress and burnout to several key variables, such as demographics, working conditions and personality factors. In contrast, even though social workers in this field face many negative work-related problems they report a high job satisfaction. The aim of this study is to examine how uplifting and straining experiences affect social workers, who work with child and youth welfare, through the use of The Critical Incident Technique and interviews.

Parenting and parental leave in a career context is a highly topical subject in which discussions about gender equality and corporate discrimination against parents occur daily. Media has recently raised the theory of parenting and parental leave as having positive impacts on personal development, such as creativity enhancement, which may promote the individual's work performance. Despite the subject's significant value for society and organizations, no scientific research is to be found. This paper examines how an individual's creativity at work is affected when becoming a parent and if parental leave has any contributory effect. Furthermore, the paper identifies and scrutinizes four creativity theories that may help explain these changes in creativity.

Increasing innovation and entrepreneurship has been identified as a key target for sustained growth and welfare, both in Sweden and abroad. Therefore, many countries have recognized the need to equip students with entrepreneurship education and to integrate skills associated with entrepreneurship into the various curricula.To shed light on entrepreneurship education within business curricula, a case study focusing on the first two years of the Bachelor program at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) was conducted. The study was based on interviews with students, alumni and scholars with a background of entrepreneurship. Insights from respondents were compared with leading research on entrepreneurship education, to evaluate the program's approach.Primary findings from the qualitative analysis showed an overall lack of entrepreneurship education in the early stages of the program. Entrepreneurial "know-how" knowledge was an insufficient component of the SSE program and a barrier for why more students did not pursue a career in entrepreneurship.

Samhället blir mer och mer globaliserat. Som studie- och yrkesvägledare kommer man varje dag i kontakt med människor med olika bakgrunder. I vårt examensarbete var vårt syfte att få ökad kunskap om vad individer med utländsk bakgrund har för upplevelse av studie- och yrkesvägledning på vuxenutbildningen. Det centrala i vårt arbete var att få ta del av respondenternas upplevelser för att vi och även andra skulle få ökad kunskap om hur studie- och vägledning kan upplevas då man inte är född och uppvuxen i ett svenskt skolsystem. Detta har vi gjort med hjälp av en kvalitativ metod.

Syftet med studien var att ta reda på hur människor gjorde sina väl underbyggda val oavsett om det var små val i vardagen eller stora framtidsval, utifrån ett allmänt perspektiv och från ett teoretiskt vägledningsperspektiv. Studien har gjorts genom en kvalitativ undersökning där sex personer ingått, där samtliga bodde i en kommun i mellersta Norrland. Intervjuutsagorna har analyserats med hjälp KASAM-begreppet, The Planned Happenstance teorin, The Happenstance Learning Theory och en sociologisk teori. Resultaten visade att studie- och yrkesvägledarna betraktade valprocessen utifrån olika vägledningsmetoder både när de träffade elever och gjorde egna privata val, med fokus på happenstanceteorierna Studiens intervjupersoner är personer med olika bakgrunder. De som var födda i länder utanför Norden, berättade om sina val i relation till sina mål och tankar om frihet, vilket de svenskfödda personerna aldrig nämnde.