This study is about conception in the evaluation of financial assistance within the social services. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how social workers reason about variation, conception and local norms and its significance in the evaluation process. To reach this purpose we have conducted semi-structured interviews with eight social workers in which different themes were discussed and reasoned about. In order to understand and analyze our results we have studied/used the knowledge about tacit knowledge and street-level bureaucracy. Our results showed, as previous research states, that social workers do have conceptions about clients.

Theoretically, when an organization grows large it has to formalize its structure and exercise control by more regulations. The negative side effect might in turn be demotivated employees (machine bureaucracy). However, practice seems to contradict theory. Therefore, we decided to investigate how a large company, in this case Microsoft, succeeds in creating motivation despite some machine bureaucratic tendencies. The essential findings are that the employees feel motivated by the fact that they are allowed freedom with responsibility.

The purpose of this research was to examine the current field of management in non-profit organizations, mainly focusing on managerial approaches, but also the impact of organizational size on the shaping of governance. Non-profits are widely discussed in contemporary research, particularly due to the increasing external pressure on voluntary organization to professionalize the way they work in line with standards in the private sector. Due to this our thesis aims to investigate whether professional, bureaucratic approaches are useful when governing a non-profit organization, or if social structures are enough to ensure goal congruence and efficiency. To conduct this research qualitative interviews were carried out and a case- study was made, using the Swedish Karate Federation as object of study. Results show that formal and more professional structures are useable to achieve efficiency and prevent inertia within the organization.

Women all over the world have been victims for oppression during a long period of time. One main thing they were excluded from was the possibility to educate themselves. Fortunately, the situation is different today and studies shows that there are more women applying for higher-education than men, at least in Sweden. What motivates them is unknown, but according to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, it is always something in one?s social environment.The aim of this thesis was to examine how five female students have been motivated to apply for university and college educations, despite the fact that they are from non-academic families.

Today's unsustainable resource use is influenced by many factors. One key factor isproduction methods and patterns. Trough change of production patterns enterprises can bepart of the solution to a more sustainable society. This case study has analyzed environmentalperformance of the printer company Edita Västra Aros Ltd (EVA), who has gained awards forits environmental work, and what driving forces they have had during this work. The survey isbased on a qualitative method and the collected data consists of documents and staffinterviews, which have been analyzed with content analysis.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to contribute to anincreased understanding of student teacher?s informationseeking for their studies. The role of cognitive authorities andapproaches to the critical evaluation of sources are taken intoaccount as well as what student experiences of informationseeking imply for their future profession. The study takes asociocultural perspective and the empirical material is based oninterviews with six student teachers at the end of theireducation. The interviews have been analysed with a departurepoint in the research questions to the following themes; seekingand finding information, critical evaluation of sources and,analysing and using information.The major findings concern the teacher students? emphasis onthe importance of the critical evaluation of sources and theirscepticism towards Internet use, both for their own studies aswell as for their future pupils.

This project consists of an adaptation, trial and evaluation of a model for practicing. Based on prior research I created a model aiming mainly to raise a musician?s self- awareness around the different parameters a performance consists of. An additional wish was for it to simultaneously assist the musician in monitoring his or her progress. With video recording and self-evaluation as the two main parts I tried the model by using it over a period of three months.

BackgroundToday a common approach to solve a complicated problem is to assemble a temporary workforce in order to solve the problem by working together within a project. One of the difficulties with working in projects is to maintain the planned budget. Working hours and costs are often exceeded. Many companies presume that any certain project will succeed, a presumption that leads companies not to anticipate risks involved in a project. In companies today there is seldom time for evaluation or moderation of a project, in order to have time for evaluation there is a great need for an adequate planning of the project.IntentThe intention with this study is to create a model for planning, budgeting and evaluation of projects within consultancy companies.MethodWith the help of interviews and discussions within the group Hamnar och Byggkonstruktioner at Sweco has evidence to present a proposal on planning, budgeting and monitoring been developed.ResultsA model has been developed to ease for consultancy companies to plan, budget, monitor and evaluate projects.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

How can a multi project organisation use Wiki to support improvement of knowledge management and project evaluation to become a learning organisation? The main purpose of this thesis is to give management and employees a better understanding of how Wiki supports knowledge management and project evaluation. The second purpose is to illustrate possible difficulties and pit falls that comes with the implementation of Wiki based learning. The theoretical framework initiates by explaining multi project organizations, then describes Argyris and Schöns theories about organizational learning and learning organizations. The second half of the theory chapter brings up theories about important areas for a learning organization.

Former studies have shown that a considerable part of industries? energy usage can stem from idle times in the production. This thesis, carried out at Siemens Industry sector, evaluates the potential for using the control system to automatically put machines into energy saving mode during idle times. The main part of the thesis consists of a case study performed on machine tools at a Scania production site in Södertälje. Through load measurements the potential for energy savings was determined.The results show that there is a great potential for energy savings during idle times at the site.

AbstractThe development of the construction industry is slower compared to other industries. This implies that there must be improvements in this field. One step to increased effectiveness in construction projects is making the construction process more efficient, therefore resulting in a positive result for both the actual construction project and for the overall branch. The purpose of this study is to identify areas for improvement within the municipal housing company Gavlegårdarna completed construction project, who will then contribute to increased efficiency in their upcoming projects. The work has been performed with the help of two case studies examine construction projects "Fullriggaren" and "The three nursing homes." Opinions about what could have improved the efficiency of these construction projects further have been collected with the help of an interview study among some of the project participants involved in both projects.There have been many studies addressing the topic of how the construction process can be streamlined and similar studies that have been previously conducted.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the traditional airlines' strategies are affected by the low-cost carriers emergence and their business model and in wich ways they can achieve profitability. Furthermore we also want to examine the factors that affect the airlines' efficiency and competitiveness.The results of this study shows that the growth of the low-cost carriers have affected the network airlines' strategies as they, among other things, had to also lower their fares. This has forced them to revise their cost and efficiency in their entire operation. The result has also shown that the network companies can not come down to the same level of low costs as the low-cost carriers, and must therefore examine their ability to increase revenues instead. .

Based on a review of literature on evalution of public activities and in purpose to introduce amore general framework, this study describes a picture of the concept, context, motives,strategies, use and actors in Evaluation as these are experienced outside the field of libraryand information. The background is the increased need for" evaluations in public libaries and aneed for new LIS knowledge about it. The reviewed literature has its origin in differentdisciplinary contexts and the study include contributions from policy studies, sociologi,education research, business administration, philosophy and anthropology. The focus, though,is not placed upon differences in the literature but on similarities.The review is organised in six parts. In the first part a presentation is given of how evaluationsare conceptualized and its meaning in a historical perspective.

This report is the result of an evaluation of a project, conducted by five regional libraries. Through a training course the project should inspire small and medium sized enterprises to use modern information technology and Internet when searching for information. To evaluate the project, qualitative interviews were conducted with five librarians and quantitative questionnaires were distributed to all the course participants. The evaluation shows that the project goals were met, apart from the number of course participants, which was much lower than anticipated. It also shows that the project resulted in an increase in information technology and competence at the libraries, and that the course participants profit from their increased knowledge in their daily work..