The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The thesis focus on how organizations can improve the ability of absorbing coworkers ideas in purpose of gaining long term competitive advantage through innovations. The study was conducted at IKEA AB where a campaign to collect coworkers ideas was a big success given the quantity of ideas collected. This fact allows a comparative analysis of idea management in the shape of campaigns and in comparison, idea management in the everyday line-organization.The analysis show that fundamental factors for innovative environments such as organizational climate, culture and leadership perceives auspiciously by the respondents. However, lack of infrastructure such as systems and processes hinders coworkers ambitions to contribute with ideas.An important issue in idea management is the treatment of incentives for innovation. Results of the study show that the ?soft? incentives ?feedback, encouragement and attention have a higher impact in coworkers willingness to the contribution of ideas than for instance monetary rewards..

studier visar en låg produktivitet jämfört med andra branscher men också komplexiteten av produktivitetsmätningar. Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka platschefens roll och vilka faktorer som påverkar förmågan att få ut produktiviteten på en byggarbetsplats. Fallstudien genomfördes på fyra av Peabs projekt och frågeställningen besvarades med hjälp av kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder i form av intervjuer och enkätundersökningar. Vidare undersöks produktivitetspåverkande faktorer såsom kommunikation, motivation, kompetens och samarbete. Vid jämförelse används en incitamentkvot som ställs i relation till enkätundersökningarna och intervjuerna.Resultatet visar tydliga skillnader mellan platschefernas förmågor, arbetssätt och egenskaper som leder till en skillnad i produktivitet på arbetsplatserna.Slutsatsen visar vilka egenskaper och arbetssätt som tenderar i att ge en hög produktivitet..

This essay focuses on the press coverage of the riots in Gothenburg 2001. The questions it aims to answer are, How is it that although the media was gender-neutral in its news reports, the lasting memory is one of rioting men, and why did the media simultaneously exaggerate and minimize the importance of the riots?The material consists of articles and photographs from Swedish mainstream newspapers. The method is text analysis, with a heavy influence of discourse theory. The conclusions are that since the hegemonic discourse on gender does not allow women to be active and violent, all bodies in the riot automatically become men, no matter how female they seem to be in other contexts.

ABSTRACT Title: the Power distance star ? A study on how cultural power distance affects the business relation between Japanese and multinational companiesLevel: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business AdministrationAuthor: Therese Elofsson and Anna NyströmSupervisor: Jens Eklinder Frick and Jonas MolinDate: 2015 - JanuaryAim: The purpose of this study is to compile available research regarding the cultural aspect power distance, as it is being displayed and handled in business-relations between Japanese and multicultural business contacts. The culture in Japan differs from the culture in the western world and several companies testify that the Japanese market is difficult to act and expand upon. This study aims to provide explanations to these difficulties from a power distance perspective.Method: This study has compiled the theoretical knowledge and research in a model called ?the Power distance Star? (Figure 1), which is created and designed for this purpose.

ABSTRAKTTitel: Ledarskap och motivation inom bemanningsbranschen - Konsultchefers uppfattning av motivationsbehovet hos konsulterNivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomiFörfattare: Christoffer Rönnqvist och Alice SchmuckHandledare: Maria Fregidou MalamaDatum: 2012-06-14Syfte: Genom att vara anställd hos bemanningsföretag befinner man sig i en trepartsrelation som består av en själv, konsultchefen och kundföretaget. Detta innebär att konsultchefer kan ha det svårt att motivera sina konsulter, eftersom de utför sitt arbete på olika platser. Syftet med detta arbete är att identifiera och analysera konsultchefers uppfattning av motivationsbehovet hos sina anställda i bemanningsföretag. Två forskningsfrågor har undersökts: Forskningsfråga #1: Hur uppfattar konsultchefer vikten av inre motivation hos konsulter inom bemanningsbranschen? Forskningsfråga #2: Vilka verktyg använder sig konsultchefer av för att motivera sina konsulter?Metod: Vi genomförde intervjuer med öppna svarsalternativ som kvalitativ metod med en induktiv utgångspunkt för att uppfylla syftet.

The purpose of this essay is to examine formations of gender and class of so called horse girls in a riding school located in Stockholm, Sweden. The essay is based on interviews with six girls in the ages between fifthteen and eighteen. Through the theoretical framework of Judith Butler and Beverley Skeggs, I examine how the girls negotiate the boundaries and probabilities within doing gender in an upper and middleclass associated area. As a result of its female domination, the stable functions as a place where the girls can dislocate themselves from otherwise normative feminine practises. This is possible since the premises of the stable are constructed in the light of the heterosexual matrix, where the girls organise themselves within the heterosexual girl collective.

Syftet med den här magisteruppsatsen är att få en bild av hur skolledare och lärare ser på kommunikationsformen medarbetarsamtalet, kopplat till skolutveckling, i den svenska gymnasieskolan. Uppsatsen följer en fenomenologisk forskningsansats, i vilken en etnografisk modell med åtta kvalitativa intervjuer av tre skolledare och fem lärare på två gymnasieskolor setts som en fallstudie. Materialet har analyserats med hjälp av en narrativ metod och kritisk diskursanalys (CDA) och resultatet visar att skolledare och lärare talar om skolutveckling på disparata sätt i medarbetarsamtalet men också att förberedelser och feedback på medarbetarsamtalet skiljer sig åt och upplevelsen av medarbetarsamtalet är därför att det inte påverkar skolutvecklingen på de två gymnasieskolorna..

Authors: Nanna Isaksson and Fredrik ÖstbergTitle: Who is the typical TV-host on Swedish television?Level: Bachelor of JournalismLocation: University of GothenburgLanguage: SwedishNumber of pages: 57TV-hosts have a pivotal role in television. They are the link between the content of the show and its viewers. We didn?t find any relevant studies about TV-hosts inSweden and decided to carry out a study that would tell us more about them as a group.

In this paper I have studied how feminist parents talk to their children about body and sexuality and with which intentions they speak the way they do. The aim of the study was to locate strategies applied to give children positive relations to their bodies and their sexuality. My data are constituted by answers from a questionnaire sent out to an e-mail list for feminist parents. The answers have been compiled and analyzed, mainly qualitatively by the use of discourse analysis, with support of poststructuralist theories about language, gender and heteronormativity, as well as theories about children?s sexuality.

På arbetsmarknaden finns det åtminstone tre olika generationer. Då alla generationer fostras på olika sätt beroende på när de är uppväxta kan det skapas svårigheter kring samarbete, ledarskap och lojalitet i arbetslivet. Vissa menar att dessa generationer är väldigt olika och att de behöver olika typer av ledarskap. Denna studie behandlar skillnader och likheter mellan generation X och Y och hur de ser på hur deras närmsta chef och hur organisationen bör vara. Resultaten av denna kvalitativa intervjustudie med totalt åtta respondenter visar att det finns indikationer på en skillnad mellan generation X och Y då de beskrivit att de har olika behov och uppskattar olika typer av ledare.

In using a qualitative method have I interviewed six women and six men taking care of their wives respectively husbands suffering from physical disease, disfunction or demental disease. The purpose was to find out whether male and female caretakers were differently influenced in their situation, relationship and in their partners, when they became caretakers of their spouse, depending on what the partner suffered from.The results showed that, when a husband or wife was hit by disease or disfunction, the caretaker was influenced both in the partners situation, the relationship and the role towards the partner. The couple still lived in a close relationship and could communicate. For the carers spouse suffered from a demental disease, there was no communication as before or possibility to remember. The carers also felt the loss of community, nearness and sympathy.

The purpose of this study was to elucidate how individuals diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome experience stigma as a result of their diagnosis. The paper was based on a qualitative method, consisting of six interviews with booth male and female participants. We took part of previous studies and research as well as existing theories on the subject, in addition to the analysis of our empirical material. Significant in this study was that all participants were relieved when getting the diagnosis, as they finally got an explanation for what was wrong. The results indicated that the majority of the informants felt worried of the possibility to experience stigma and discrimination, which resulted in that the majority of the participants tended to use an avoidance coping strategy.

The law (1988:870) concerning care of substance abusers is constructed in a way that gives the social workers room to interpret and apply the law individually. This may contribute to differences in treatment between female and male substance abusers. The purpose of the essay was to investigate whether the client's gender had any significance to how the social worker interpret and apply the law (LVM).The specific questions we worked around were:- What significance does the client's gender have in the decision-making?- Does the social worker's opinion about the law have any significance?- What factors can effect the social worker's interpretation and application of the law?- What importance do the social workers attach to prevailing norms about men and women when they interpret and apply the law?We chose to use a qualitative method to answer the above questions. Six social workers were interviewed and 39 LVM sentences were analysed.

Kön och etnicitet är två centrala variabler vid diskriminering på arbetsplatsen. Dock finns en dubbelsidighet i attityder till ledare där å ena sidan forskning visar på att den västerländska mannen ses som den självklara ledaren samtidigt som det pekar mot att det inte finns någon skillnad i ledarskap i avseende på kön och etnicitet. Studien undersökte attityder till ledarskap beroende på kön och etnicitet utifrån tre hypoteser. I studien deltog 158 högskolestudenter, varav 59 män och 99 kvinnor med en medelålder på 22.28 år. Deltagarna besvarade en enkät som bestod av frågor från the Empowering Leadersip Questionnaire (ELQ) och Motivation To Controll Prejudice-scale (MTCP).