Can the lack of functional cross-cultural communication among individuals within an international organization be the reason for cultural clashes to occur, and lead to conflict between two cultures within the same organization?Our aim is to try to create a potential model of how cross-cultural problems can be studied, in order to contribute to the solution of the problem. And to examine whether the theories, which form the basis of our model can be applied in reality.The research have assumed from the hermeneutical approach for a holistic view of the problem area. The deductive approach has been used in order to distinguish whether the theories can be applied to reality, and qualitative research method for collecting data.The focus lies within cross-cultural communications, which defines the various cultural factors that can affect organizational culture. Hofstede Dimensions and the social structure are mentioned and cultural factors as language and religion.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad mental tuffhet är för två erfarna löpare, men även hur mental tuffhet kan ha hjälpt dem innan, under och efter ett löparäventyr från Portugal till Sverige (i fortsättningen kallat en ?utmaning?). Ett vidare syfte var att skapa en förståelse för vilka faktorer eller händelser under utmaningen som hjälpte och försvårade för löparna att genomföra utmaningen. Teoretiska referensramar som användes var mental toughness framework: Dimensions and subcomponents (Jones et al., 2007) och personal construct psychology model of mental toughness in sport ? (Gucciardi et al., 2009a).

This essay investigates and compares the readability in two different schoolbooks: Eko Historia (the primary school grade 4-6) and Epos Historia (the upper secondary school). The questions of the survey are:- Which differences in linguistic and layout can be found between books meant for the primary school and books meant for the upper secondary school?- Are the texts easy to read according to the former research in readability?In order to answer the questions structural Dimensions as lexicon, syntax, bounds between sentences and narrative voices have been studied. Also the texts disposition and typography have been examined.The results demonstrate that the book designed for the primary school has a verbal structure with an explicit vocabulary, lots of verbs and short sentences. A clear narrative voice gives an impression of spoken language.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the interrogation transcripts of interviews with girls between the age of 11 and 16 who are alleged victims of sexual crimes. The examination is done from a gender perspective, by comparing six interrogations by male interrogators and eight interrogations by female interrogators. The study has used linguistic indicators relating to the interrogation methodological guidelines, in order to highlight how the interrogators give girls the opportunity and space to share their experience of the alleged sexual offense. Text material is categorized based on themes and analyzed in detail to find any gender-specific patterns of hearing leaders and if the girls are given space and opportunity for a free storytelling. The results show that in several themes, differences between the male and the female interrogators can be discerned.

AbstractTitle: Dragshow on the seven seasNumber of pages: 51 (56 including enclosures)Author: Therése PlastrougiTutor: Ylva EkströmCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: My main purpose with this paper is 1) to study how film as a media can subvert traditional gender constructions and 2) study the character of Elizabeth Swann in the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean through four Dimensions; Gender performance, Class, Desire and Power.Material/Method: My main material is the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. I have studied Elizabeth?s character based on semiotic and narratological methods.Main results: Film as a media possesses the full potential to change traditional gender roles, but the full subversion is denied due to the heterosexual matrix. Elizabeth?s character almost completes her subversive journey throughout the trilogy, but since she too is a victim of the heterosexual matrix, a full subversion is not possible.Key words: gender performance, class, desire, power, sex/gender, subversion, narratologic, semiotic, queer, feminism, pirates of the caribbean, intersectionality, parody.

The globalisation of the world is believed by some to homogenise individuals from different national cultures. However, the values and norms of an individual are deeply rooted in their national culture and are therefore difficult to change. Since birth these values and norms are learnt through interaction with others within a specific national culture. The differences in values of a national culture are shown in the cornerstones of the nation. These cornerstones are language, aesthetics, religion and social institutions.

In the future the Swedish pension system will face major problems. With an increasing aging population combined with a decreasing share of working population the financing of the pension system is becoming a bigger problem than previously predicted. This means the individual himself will have a bigger responsibility to invest money for their future retirement. It has been shown that a large proportion of the people who invests for their future pension have neither the interest nor the time to actively invest their pension capital. To make it easier for those who invest for their retirement, some Swedish banks have created so-called generation funds.

 The purpose with this thesis was to develop a designguideline which will simplify the development of new products that will be laser welded. The need for this thesis has come forward from the quality problems that Volvo Construction Equipment, Components Division is having with their laser welding manufacturing unit. The reason for the problems emerges from the bad communication between the development unit and the manufacturing unit within the company when the products produced today was developed. This resulted in products that were hard to and in some cases almost impossible to weld. To avoid these problems from occurring again it was needed to gather the experiences within this area and compile it and present in a brief a pedagogical manner. The information for the groundwork of our results has been gathered by interviews of several key persons in Volvo Construction Equipment, Components Division.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how social welfare secretaries from the social service and welfare officers from adult psychiatry experience the cooperation between themselves in relation to mentally ill mothers and their children.Moreover, the study aims to shed light on social welfare secretaries and welfare officers views on potential gender related differences in the work with mentally ill mothers and fathers.Five qualitative interviews were performed in two separate municipals in the Stockholm area. Three of the respondents were social welfare secretaries in the social services and two were welfare officers in the adult psychiatry. Our theoretical starting point has been role theory and a model of different Dimensions of cooperation.Our result showed that there were shortcomings in the cooperation between the two principals. How well the cooperation worked differed between the two municipals. In one of the examined municipals the cooperation could only be found on an individual client or individual patient case level, whilst in the other municipal the cooperation existed on a more general level in the form of project meetings.

This essay is about integration's discourses in newspapers. It compares four different newspapers with each other and it compares them also in a time perspective. The four different newspapers that the essay compares are Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Expressen. These are Swedish newspapers and they are distributed all over the country. The time perspective is a two months period, one month in the year 1994 and one month in the year 2002.

Captured in the room of Göran Tunström?s spoken language, fenced behind his barrier of manic words. This essay is about the limit of language and world?s necessity to be spoken to be experience, about telling as a manufacturer of meaning and a subject?s motion between fiction and reality. Based on the novel Skimmer from 1996, my purpose is to identify ?a linguistic room? in Tunström?s narration and show how this room is given an existential character by its temporal and spatial Dimensions.

The objective of this study has been to examine which significant values are of importance in the telecom sector today, and in a continuing perspective yet to be. To ensure the factors of relevance in the study, we have identified three purposes: - Our first purpose is to clarify the eminent values in the competitive market of the mobile phone operators today, and the reason for its importance.- The second purpose is to understand the function of the brand regarding to value creation and loyalty in the sector of mobile phone operators.- The third purpose is to explore the potential approaches for mobile phone operators to increase value.In this study, our approach has been a qualitative methodology by conducting seven interviews with respondents related to the telecommunication sector.As a result of the process, we find the need to divide the concept of value into two Dimensions, which we entitle organizational related values and customer related values. We have found the values related to the characteristics of the market in aspects of its infrastructural features but also in regards to the homogenous core service.Our findings in the empirical data with support to our theoretical frame of reference, is the current highly important organizational related value of constant high result quality (well-functional technological aspect), and the value enhancer by a low price; the strategy of bundling also results in higher value. This result in customer related values that perceives as safeness, availableness and convenience. The brands are a significant source of customer related values with identity value, image value and assuredness. A continued advancement in process quality and individualization will imply greater customer related values of closeness, freedom and flexibility. .

Scana-Booforge is a Swedish company which specialize in heat treatment of various metal. The treatments take place in quenching ovens, where fans are used to circulate the hot air. The fans used today do not have a satisfactory lifespan. This thesis aims to develop a new design of the fans for the quenching ovens, and the goal is that the new fans will bring cost savings for Scana-Booforge.The design development process started with mapping out the environment in which the fans operate, and with analysis of the existing fan structure and damages, in order to establish the cause of failure and of short durability. The performance of the fan were also established at this stage.

Traditions are something that is very important to many people, Christmas is usually no exception. Christmas tree, Christmas ham, herring and candle lights are just as important as the advent candlestick. The advent candlestick help you get the Christmas feeling during the countdown. In this report the work with a new advent candlestick concept can be followed step by step.A lot of information was needed in the beginning. By doing some research, surveys and interviews the ground was established for further work.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three Dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.