Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

The Iranian artist Shirin Neshat has been living in self-imposed exile since the late 1970s, as she chose not to return to her home country following the ?79 Islamic Revolution. Through her works Neshat examines Iran before and after the revolution and follows political and civil transformations through strong photographs of women in her country of birth.  My own use of the term exile deals with the analysis of the state of exile in relation to artistic work as a globalized and underlying motivation for art and artists. The new definition of exile is analyzed in relation with the artist?s photographs and the verbal and visual statements.

This essay reviews the situation for small actors in the Swedish clothing industry. In this essay we assume that loyalty is a requirement for survival on the competitive clothing market. Four small actors have been analyzed up on theories on loyalty, brand equity, relationship marketing, service marketing, quality, interactive marketing, distribution and value creating activities. The chosen actors are Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, Boutique Sportif, Jenny Hellström and Ida Sjöstedt. The conclusion of the essay is that it is possible for small actors on the Swedish clothing market to build loyal relationships with their customers.

Structural changes on the grocery market usually take place when the consumer is persuaded to take on the more labourintense parts of the distributionprocess. Internettrade changes this by causing competition between the unpaid work done by consumers and the labor performed by employees. In this master thesis grocery shopping on the internet is analyzed in a economic perspective with focus on distribution, changing marketstructures, driving forces and the future potential of internet as a saleschannel. The main conclusions are that consumerdemand and the belief in electronic commerceas a costreducing mechanism as well as a powerful new marketing tool were the driving forces behind the fast growth of grocery shopping on the internet. Electronic commerce introduces a new model of distribution with changing roles for consumers and grocerychains.

The goal of this essay was to study if the way gaming review sites presented their review evaluation has any influences the level of product involvement in the users it attracts. The assumption we did during the essay was that there was a connection between user?s level of product involvement and the quality of the community. To test this assumption we started out by performing observations on the comment sections in three gaming news sites which varied in their method for evaluating games. The result of these observations showed a significantly higher community quality in one of the websites.

 The aim of this study was to examine how social workers perceive and interpret the term ?barnets bästa? (?The best for the child?), within the framework of investigatory work and enforcement of Swedish law, which is carried out by the Social Services. We wanted to investigate if the interpretation of the term had any causal effects on the work carried out by social workers. Seven social workers from two municipalities participated in this study in which we used qualitative semi-structured interviews based around two vignettes. We focused on age, experience, legislation, and external circumstances to gain insight into how these factors alter social workers? perception of the term ?barnets bästa?. Our theoretical approach was based on two theories on social constructivism.

This study aims to build a deeper understanding on how shareholder value is created in Private Equity investments, especially during the holding period. The study is a qualitative study of the buyout of the access security company Bewator AB made by the Swedish Private Equity firm EQT in 2002. The buyout became highly successful due to various reasons. The study draws the conclusion, contrary to popular belief, that Private Equity firms create value through taking a long term view on business developing rather than being short term value destroyers. Incentive alignment is another important factor..

Lately an increasing portion of the public debate in Sweden has been devoted to how societies may facilitate entrepreneurship, yet a negligible portion of this debate has discussed the impact of the community spirit on entrepreneurial activity. Further, this connection is a relatively uncharted field in terms of research as well. The aim of this study is accordingly to advance the study surrounding the impact of community spirit on the propensity for entrepreneurial activity and add new empirical data and insights to the existing body of theory. A four-month ethnographic study of the Provo-Orem region in Utah, USA, comprising of in-depth interviews and participant observations, was therefore undertaken with the aim of understanding the community spirit in the studied region and its influence on entrepreneurship. The thesis finds that numerous values such as self-reliance, family focus and security together with a strong religious culture make up the essence of the community spirit in Provo-Orem.

I denna uppsats har vi undersökt hur man kan värdera en Internet-community. Vi har genomfört intervjuer med tre fallföretag, Glife, Lunarstorm samt Stallet.se. Utfrån dessa intervjuer samt den analys vi gjort har vi utformat en möjlig värderingsmodell för Internet-communities..

This study examines the closure of public libraries, and the nonprofit organizations takeover of them as a phenomenon. The aim is to understand why the nonprofit takeover is common and what the takeover symbolizes and if the discourse in media invokes the views on libraries and the profession.Interviews were made with librarians, politicians and representatives of a nonprofit organization to study different sides of the phenomenon. Other empirical data were found in local and national newspapers and media-channels. I discovered that public libraries are highly valued by both politicians and the community. The study also showed that a library in a community makes people feel valued.

A qualitative survey has been carried out in a manning company whose business concept was to employ pensioners. Six pensioners have been interviewed regarding their views on resumed employment. The results of these interviews have been analysed supported by analytic induc-tion. Areas investigated cover: promotion of better health through work, motivation factors, groupings and control, experience and learning, work and spare time and finally strategies that appeal to an older workforce.The purpose of the survey was to investigate whether the manning company utilizes pension-ers? experience and work skills from their former working life.

The aim of this study has been to examine what students within the sport of skydiving think about their education and the social spirit of the community. The purpose of the study is thereby to answer the study's aim through the following questions; how does group dynamics and social solidarity work within the skydiving community, how do the students feel about group dynamics and social solidarity within the skydiving community, and what factors makes the students feel included or respectively excluded from the spirit of the togetherness?The theoretical part of the study focuses on group dynamics and groups overall. Further on earlier research within adventure sports and skydiving regarding group dynamics and community spirit is presented. My survey is based on 35 interviews with skydiving students.The result shows that the community spirit within skydiving sports is described by the students as very special, unique, and strong among the members.

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the socialization process that audit associates experience within an auditing firm that is included in the Big 4-sphere. Our purpose is also to describe which attributes that characterize the organizational identity, and how these attributes are reflected in the self-image of the associates. Furthermore, we seek to explain how the socialization process has influenced the organizational identification. This subject is of interest since the business of auditing is facing higher demands from regulators and politicians, due to the bankruptcy of HQ-bank among others during the financial crisis in the beginning of the 21st century. Earlier research claims that the socialization process of recruits, especially in the initial state of the employment, has a major impact on their future values and attitudes in their job performance.

We have performed a study much similar to Ritter?s (1991) about long-term aftermarket performance of IPOs on the Swedish market during the years 1990 to 2002. The study resulted in evidence for that Swedish IPO do underperforms their benchmark-portfolios during a 36-months period. Though, the grade of underperformance depends of the chosen benchmark. The study is mainly focused on a particular benchmark, a portfolio of non-issuing firms matched by size and sector.

This is a qualitative study with a hermeneutic and partially inductive approach. The study?s purpose is to enhance the understanding of young adults experiences of unemployment and the importance of being employed. In this study, eight young adults participate in the project Framtid Kronoberg. The youths are 19-25 years of age.