This paper investigates the relationship between dividends and institutional and foreign ownership in Swedish firms. We use a dataset which covers the Swedish stock market over the period 1999-2009. The institutional ownership is defined as mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies and these are analysed separately. The study confirms the expected positive relationship between the level of institutional investors in a firm and the size of dividends. We also confirm? the expected negative relationship between foreign investors and the size of dividends paid by Swedish firms.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

Globalisation and diversity has increased the presence of different languages in Swedish municipalities. As the local administrative authorities with responsibility for the public crisis management, how are these municipalities coping with crisis communication recipients that are not speaking Swedish? Through an inductive approach, this thesis formulates a theory of crisis communication adaptation by studying Swedish municipalities with a large part of inhabitants with foreign backgrounds. This thesis finds that municipalities that are not adapting their crisis communication to non-Swedish speakers follows a discourse that paints a picture of these recipients as at least understanding the Swedish language. Municipalities that do adapt their crisis communication have drawn lessons from local incidents that complements this discourse.

This essay takes its starting point in the making of a new national general school curriculum for the Swedish elementary school. The purpose of this essay is to estimate what the policy makers intended with the new policy documents and relate that to how a few teachers perceive these changes. In order to get an understanding of how the teachers view these changes I have done qualitative interviews with four teachers which all work in the Swedish elementary school.Theories on "implementation" and "street-level bureaucracy" are used to analyse my empirical material. My results tell that there is a difference how teachers relate to the new curruculum and the policy makers' intentions with it. That can be explained by the fact that teachers' work is complex and as to they work in a complex organization..

This study aimed to explore the perceived role and mandate of civil servants employed in municipalities in Kronoberg county. The study aimed to answer the question whether civil servants engaged in municipal economics have different perspectives on their mandate and role based on how said civil servants implement and manage policy tools available in Swedish municipalities. The study aimed to through policy tools theory explain how civil servants through four categories view the policy tools employed in the municipality. The study is based on the reasoning that policy tools influences exercise of authority that in turn influences view on policy tools. In order to study civil servants perspective on perceived mandate and role interviews were conducted with a sample of civil servants from each of the eight municipalities in Kronoberg county.

Given the current geopolitical situation in Europe and the upcoming election for the European Parliament, it is important to further analyse individuals? attitudes towards European integration, specifically the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This analysis aims to gain a deeper understanding of individuals attitude towards CSDP. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyse which factors that plays a leading role in influencing individuals? attitude towards CSDP.

The main objective of this thesis is to examine the situation concerning information technology, computers and information resources for university students at a selection of universities, and their libraries, in Sweden. Another objective is to compare this situation to what is stated in policy documents on the subject, and if the size of the university matters regarding resources. The thesis starts with a discussion of several authors, Frank Webster, Paul F. Burton and Lars Qvortrup among others, and their views on the information society. These range from whether we are living in it, are in a transition period or are still in the Industrial Society.

The drug treatment staff attitude towards needle exchange is what investigates in this study. The aim of this study is to see what?s affecting the standpoints in the needle exchange issue and also to investigate if the needle exchange is compatible with Swedish drug policy. The study has a qualitative approach and it?s based on eight semi-structured interviews with drug treatment staff.

The focus of this essay is Swedish bilateral development aid. With the help of organization theory I analyse the development aid strategies and policies of the 1990s, in order to examine how and why they were introduced. I investigate three different types of aid organization, namely structural adjustment programmes, political conditionality tied to aid co-operation, and equality policy as part of development co-operation. I analyze the introduction and subsequent use of these three co-operation forms to see whether they were applied and adopted into Swedish development aid because more efficient measures were required or because they were the most recent and modern ways of dealing with development co-operation.Organization theory presents these two ways of analyzing organization. They are occasionally competing and sometimes complementing each other in explaining organization.

This study analyzes how the Swedish climate policy has changed during the years 1990-2008. Thisis done through a comparative analysis of three climate bills that were developed during this period.With a constructivist approach, and theories about discursive indicators and discursive fields,discursive changes in the bills' content are identified. The results show that changes have occurredin how the problem is described, how the issue is framed, which problem solutions that areadvocated, which legitimizing arguments and key concepts that are used and the extent of theknowledge that the bills are based upon. The conclusions drawn from the results describe adiscursive change between the bills in the form of a shift from a discourse that in a greater extentadvocates active policy responses, based on ethical arguments about fairness towards othercountries and caution towards the environment, to a discourse that more often favor market actionsbased on arguments about the economic viability of Sweden..

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

Different reports imply that the Roma are an excluded group in numerous areas of both Sweden and Europe. Efforts have been done through the centuries without given intentional results. The past 12 years as a Swedish national minority have not diminished the gap between the Roma and the majority society. How does Sweden create and operate its minority policy especially towards the Roma? We have studied international and national minority policy to see how it is described and implemented in the municipality work.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and understand the existing factors behind the selection of foreign newspapers in Swedish public libraries. We wanted to study this subject because the political situation in many countries is reflected in the newspapers and can cause difficulties in the selection process. Examples of this can be how to avoid newspapers with political propaganda and with censored content. Another reason for our interest in this subject is based on our prejudice that newspapers from other countries are important for people with foreign background. To answer the question we have conducted qualitative interviews with five persons who are responsible for the purchase of foreign newspapers at four libraries.

This thesis studies if public libraries in Sweden have taken part ofinformation regarding the Swedish government policy that publicareas are to be made accessible by 2010. Also studied is thesignificance of information and resources on the execution ofaccessibility adaptations at public libraries.The analysis uses Lennart Lundquist?s theory of implementation ofpublic policies, that the person executing the policy needs tounderstand, be able to and want to in order for the policy to besuccessfully executed. The study was carried out through a surveyand the thesis focuses on the factors of understanding and beingable to.The survey was sent by email to all 290 municipal libraries inSweden with an answering frequency of 65%. The results arepresented in table format with explanations.The thesis finds that a clear majority of respondents have hadaccess to information about accessibility adaptations, but thatmuch fewer consider the information clear enough.

This study is an attempt to shed light on the importance of fiction as a bridge between different cultures and traditions. The objective of this essay is threefold. First it explores the potentiality of fiction as a communication channel between different cultures, societies and social groups. Secondly, it studies the availability of foreign fiction in Swedish language. And thirdly it tries to approach and analyze the structures and mechanisms behind that availability.