The structural rationalization of rural firms in Sweden has led to many new creative ways of developing companies. The agriculture sector is characterized by the need of capital in form of buildings, labor and inventory. The rationalization process has led to free capacity in rural firms when new technology make buildings and inventory not longer necessary for the production process. To get a better cost coverage this free capacity can be used to start-up new business areas that help the rural firm to growth.The study aims to identify factors that motives entrepreneurs in rural firms to develop new business areas. The purpose is also to analyze driving forces that lies behind development of rural firms and the forces that support or not support development in rural firms.The study is built upon five cases that all can be categorized as firms with different size and orientation.

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.

In this thesis an Explorative study was undertaken with the aim to study how a number of private care providers, as well as politicians and officials from councils in and around the Stockholm and Uppsala counties, think about the future of the Swedish elderly care from a property perspective, i.e. homes for the elderly. The analysis shows that there is a demand for capacity in 6 out of 16 municipalities, and that the property is an important part of this capacity, and the fulfillment of it. This was mainly due to the cost of capital, but also because of several other factors such as lack of land, a wish to guide the design, ideology, and in many cases a wish to use the property as an instrument of domination to control private health care providers.Also, the property was show to be connected to economic competition, to freedom of choice, and to quality. The problems related to the property in the market for elderly care still remains to be solved.

Since the turn of the millennium a sharp increase in the interest for bio energy has been observed. Important reasons for this growing interest can be due to the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource. A net discharge of greenhouse gases occur when fossil fuels are burned. The discharge of greenhouse gases are considered to be the main reason to the greenhouse effect. Means of control to increase the use of bio energy has been introduced and, as intended, the use of bio energy has increased. As a result of the legal provisions the ability to pay for bio energy has increased, which the forest industry view as a problem.

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.

This paper gives the reader an opportunity to explore new grounds regarding a relatively new field that has opened in Sweden. The result is based on an Explorative research conducted by us, with starting point whether immigrants, consisting of Middle Eastern ones, can be seen as an attractive target group for big grocery shops. In order to understand whether they are attractive to target, we need to grasp underlying factors such as our research question: ?What are the habits of Middle Eastern consumers regarding food that marketers from Sweden can target?? To do so we were forced to investigate what kind of lifestyle an immigrant from the Middle East has, since the immigrant?s lifestyle influences what sort of food he/she will consume. When investigating the lifestyle we were able to concentrate on certain areas that we saw had a clear relation in influencing immigrants? food choices, such as religion, acculturation and so forth.

By studying a place or a phenomena research contributes to the creation of the image of the thing that he or she studies. Also, planning is seen as a democratic tool, a way to ?make? democracy. In order to see what democratic ideals that is being express it becomes important to study the research about democracy in Botkyrka. It is from this thinking this study about democracy and research has been formed.

AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an Explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.

The visual representation of management (board of directors, chief executive officer and executive management) in annual reports is an area of scholarship that has not been explored much. In the present study a sample of 87 annual reports from business enterprises within a Swedish context, comprising about 300 photographs, was analyzed using an Explorative method of analysis based on semiotics and grounded theory. The influence of the context on images raises a question discussed in the study: Should the photographs in the annual report be categorized as portraits, advertisements and others or should the annual report be regarded as a genre of its own? The photographs showed patterns of homogeneity regarding gender, dress, gestures, colours, pictorial compositions et cetera. The position of the (male) CEO is privileged, but he is also connected to the group through various means like dress and style, thereby further underscoring management as a male enterprise and demonstrating the importance of the suit and necktie in creating homosocial bonds.

Background: Oil is the most dominating source of energy of today, it constitutes for more than 40 per cent of the worlds total energy consumption. This together with the fact that stock in oil companies has soared on the stock exchanges around the world makes oil a very interesting topic to write within. In order to gain knowledge in how to value oil companies, the authors will collect information from theory and through a questionnaire. By applying the information gathered to three companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange the authors will reach an objective picture of valuation of oil companies.Purpose: To investigate how shares of stock are valuated in the oil exploring and producing industry, and what specific measures and metrics that are used in the valuation of stocks in Exploring and Producing (E&P) companies.Method: By using a qualitative approach for this thesis, the authors will investigate how the valuation of oil companies works and what measures that should be applied. The authors will use a part descriptive and part Explorative study.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is a phase in the digital revolution connecting computing devices with each other bringing along new business opportunities for companies. Although being a fast growing field it has not been researched to any greater extent, particularly not within the academical literature. Consequently, information on how M2M can affect organisations seems strongly needed. This thesis uses three perspectives, derived from already recognised business benefits of M2M, as an aid to select proper theoretical tools to investigate the phenomenon. The purpose of this thesis is to gain knowledge of how an M2M adoption affects a firm?s organisation, customer offerings and customer relations.

Cannabis är den vanligaste illegala drogen bland unga vuxna i Sverige. Det är en omdebatterad drog, debatterna handlar ofta om huruvida cannabis effekter är negativa eller inte. Detta examensarbete undersöker om det finns skillnader i problemnivå inom olika livsområden beroende på grad av cannabisbruk. Examensarbetet är en kvantitativstudie som genom ett antal statistiska analyser jämför tre grupper av unga vuxna samt predicerar sannolikheten för vilka som löper störst risk att vara regelbundna cannabisanvändare. Resultatet tyder på att problemnivån ökar inom flera livsområden beroende på grad av cannabisbruk.

ABSTRACTBackground: The incidence of type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide. Early intervention in form of medication, advice on self-management and lifestyle changes is necessary to avoid complications. Few Swedish studies are made on the diabetes nurse?s views on promotion of self- management.Purpose: To examine the diabetes specialist nurse?s experience of promoting self-management to patients with type 2 diabetes in primary care.  Method: A qualitative Explorative study where eight diabetes nurses were interviewed. The interview guide consisted of semistructed questions concerning the promotion of self-management.Results: The diabetes nurse?s role in promoting patient self-management is significant, if resources are available in the form of adequate time for the patient and good team work.

Weblogs, or blogs, are frequently modified web pages with a series of archived entries, generally in reverse chronological sequence. This thesis focuses on the rapid-growing phenomenon of weblogs and the fact that individuals with a background in library and information science are frequent users of weblogs. Since this is an Explorative inductive study the ultimate purpose can be described as to find out what ?blogging? as activity is about. The research questions posed are: Why do individuals with a background in library and information science use weblogs? How does their professional identity affect their blogging? And finally; how do they use the weblog to create networks with other bloggers? The empirical material consists of audiotaped interviews with five informants who are all employed in knowledge work, either as librarians or information specialists.

AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an Explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.