This thesis explores how participants and leaders in ?Alpha?, an introductory course to the Christian faith, relate to and practice faith in Sweden. Sweden has often been viewed as a secular country where religion has been seen as irrational, outdated, and as something that belongs to the other but not to the self. Through the eyes of Swedish Christian practitioners, this study explores what kind of relationship my informants have to Christian faith and God while also exploring how living in a secular or post-secular context affects their way of believing and interpreting God and the stories written in the Bible. Furthermore, understanding of the Bible is viewed in the light of the concepts ?mythos? and ?logos? which highlights where Western explanatory models fail to explain and understand mythological stories.

The workplace is for many associated with joy and commitment, for others it is associated with fatigue, inadequacy and cynicism that is explained as the three dimensions of burnout. A general view of burnout is that it is an individual problem that many companies ignore, because a preventive task does not generate immediate profits. This has been a growing problem for years. Burnout costs not only money but also time and knowledge. Unfortunately, the popular belief is that "If it ain?t broke, don?t fix it." Organizations that think this way are sacrificing future benefits for short-term gains.

During the last few decades a new kind of business operation have developed and this hasforced organisations to adapt themselves to a new competitive environment characterized byincreased customer demands as well as a larger amount of competitors. Therefore companieshave had a shift in their strategies from focusing on sales numbers to focusing on thecustomer. To build lasting customer relationships, in order to create customer loyalty, havebecome an important part of the organisational strategy and the collection of consumer datais essential in achieving this loyalty. Customer relationship management systems assistorganisations in managing information about individual customers as well as managing allaspects of customer contact, with the purpose of increasing customer loyalty towards thecompany. The collection of consumer data also enables for companies to design personalizedoffers to individual customers in the form of direct marketing.

The bachelor thesis examines conceptions behind the Swedish public librarian?s opinions of the public library as a meeting place. The study uses the critical discourse analysis, developed by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to analyze a focus group interview. The discourse analysis identifies four themes in the Empirical material: the imagined arena of the meeting place, the behaviour in the meeting place, the meeting place?s librarian and the polemic against the meeting place.

 Title: Implementation of Balance Scorecard in public sector - a case study in the community of Tidaholm. Course: Thesis in business administration, 15 p Authors: Marie Ohlsson and Ola Pettersson Advisor: Henrik Linderoth Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the balanced scorecard can be formed according to the backgrounds in the community of Tidaholm. Methodology: We have chosen a qualitative case study. We work on the supposition of an established theory. And switch between deductive and inductive method, with an abductive method as a result. Theory: We work on the supposition of the latest theories from the authors of the balanced scorecard, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton.

The Methodology used to gather Empirical materials for this thesis has been different types of interviews. The interviews have been mainly unstructured personal interviews directly with our respondents, due to limiting factors some of the interviews have been carried out via phone or email. The theoretical framework consists of literature from well-recognised authors and is divided into four different parts: Insourcing & Outsourcing, Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management, China & Intercultural understanding. The Empirical foundation has been gathered from a great variety of different sources in an attempt to cover the many complex angels in which this subject can be looked upon. Chinese students, managers in international companies with experience from China, Chinese employees in Swedish companies and different people with good knowledge of different areas of China are all among our respondents. In our conclusion we have reached the three following conclusions for why one should start a “bridge building” enterprise in between qualified Chinese human capital and Swedish structure capital: 1. To fill future shortage of qualified human capital in Sweden. 2.

The purpose of this paper is to through a conceptual definition, outline the meaning of integrated reporting. The Empirical study aims to identify the development of integrated reporting in terms of driving forces and participants. We also intend to identify and explain the effects of integrated reporting and to describe, analyze and create an understanding of what is required of companies and the challenges an application of integrated can bring. To achieve the purpose of this paper, we have formulated a central question; What is integrated reporting and what will this development mean for companies?  To answer the central question of this paper we have chosen to apply a qualitative approach with case studies as a research strategy.

Purpose: Our purpose is to describe and understand how a project-based, knowledge-intensive firm in the high-technology industry creates and transfers knowledge, seen from two perspectives.Methodology: Our qualitative case study has an explorative approach since earlier studies within our positioning are absent, thus we look at KM abductively. To gain more depth to our study, we mirror our findings from our case company with data collected from three additional organisations.Theoretical perspectives: We see a clear distinction between researchers, either seeing knowledge as an object or a process. Thus, we review theories from both sides, either focusing on the creation or transferring of knowledge. In addition, theories on KM in project organisations areaccounted for.Empirical foundation: The study is based on the Empirical foundation which consists of the data received through six interviews with employees at our main case company and, additionally, two interviews at each of our three mirrorcompanies.Conclusion: The study found KM being seen from both perspectives in all four firms. Through this, we found implications for how our case company could proceed in the future..

Background: The competition is getting harder between the universities. To reach the high school students and discover which means of contact they prefer and how they perceive student recruitment are important issues in order to succeed in marketing strategies.Purpose: The purpose with our report is to investigate, analyze and compare the student recruitment in three universities and investigate how the high school students want to be contacted. Then we compare to see if they think alike.Method: We have done a qualitative study and chosen to use focus group interviews for the high school students and interviews for the universities to collect our Empirical data. We have compared the Empirical data and analyzed it with communication processes and marketing communication as theoretical grounds.Result: All of the universities work approximately the same way with their student recruitment. They put a large effort in the Internet and social networks as well as the personal contact.

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze youth community service in the Kalmar municipality. Our focus was on juvenile offenders and predecessor of public authorities. The juvenile offenders in our study have completed youth community service. A qualitative study was undertaken which include seven interviews. Our Empirical data were compared and analyzed with previous research data.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The Empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps.

AbstractThis bachelor?s thesis at the Department of Production Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm deals with the subject of automated metrology. The degree of automation of tasks within production has been a growing trend but the measurement of quality has not followed the same trend. The main thesis follows:What incentives are there to automate the measurement of quality in production?What factors are crucial and why are not all metrology automated?The thesis comes along with a number of sub-queries and delimitations.The working method includes both theoretical and Empirical studies.

The main aim of this thesis is to introduce a normative perspective to surveillance studies. I examine how the use of videocameras or CCTV-systems can create a social sorting and, then, try to answer why it ought to be reconstructed based on a normative study.For the Empirical analysis I use Foucaults theory about the panopticon, maintained by the psychological subjection of the common citizen in the modern world, together with Lianos theory of a more socio-cultural surveillance in the post-modern world. The Empirical examination is, furthermore, guided by a theory that describes the construction of the stranger, which today, is not explicitly excluded, because everyone is a stranger in some way, but rather depicted as the other due to institutionalization.The post-modern society today can no longer be built upon a common or divine moral or norm. Thus, I have chosen a normative method, using a deliberative democracy derived from Habermas, focusing on the communicative practice, that can engage and include every citizen in a democratic process. This is necessary for both deciding whether videocameras should be installed and whom and why some should be under surveillance ? to avoid a social sorting that both can constitute and undermine social trust and increase the gap between the governing and the governed..

The purpose of this study is to find, understand and discuss the experiences of former employees at SAAB, and present how this can be understood according to my core theoretical concepts, which are participation and identity. The questions asked in the study are based on how the labor is described, characterized and what comes forth as valuable, which is compared to absence of labor work.First, labor is described in an historical and social context, and at the same time related to the core theoretical concept. Second, the methodology chapter is presented, which mainly consists of 11 observations and 10 interviews. Third, the chapter regarding former theory leads to an analysis model, which is used on the Empirical material of the study.The result shows that labor work at SAAB primarily is described as important for socializing, security and the possibility to be independent. The tasks at SAAB are described as backbreaking and monotonous, while the lack of labor work influences the physical and mental wellbeing.

The purpose of this study was to find an explanation for why Amnesty International in Sweden has seen an increasing number of members, while the number of participants at the national annual meeting has decreased.The method of the study was done with an inductive approach in which the problem has affected the choice of theory and Empirical data. The Empirical data has been collected through both qualitative and quantitative method in which the analysis was implemented with support by statistics and interviews.To strengthen the arguments in the paper, sociological theories on organizations are used and also theories about social movements.The conclusion of the study is that Amnesty International Sweden has undergone a transformation towards a decentralized organization because it is not longer relevant for people who are members to achieve the purpose of the organization to participate at the annual meeting. This because that these members accesses the recourses they want to achieve by working on a local level. The main conclusion of this study is that Amnesty has moved towards being an organization that to some extent are working as a social movement, where there is no longer any clear link between local work and the central board of Directors. .