This report is about the principle and his / her role at the school it?s also about how the principle understands the role, its expectations and the demands connected. The facts are based on deep detailed interviews with three different principles. The theoretical approach is coming from ?hermeneutiken? and ?Gadamers? ideas regarding how an individual is creating the world and the surroundings to act within.

This is a case study that explores the ways in which implemented university reforms have affected employees in the higher educational sector. Previous research within the research field has mainly focused on policy related consequences of the reforms. This is why a study that brings attention to the ways the reforms have affected employees is sorely needed.The aim with the study is to examine whether there is a discrepancy between formal changes and the ways the employees experience them. The study is based on interviews with 8 lecturers from two universities and the material is analyzed mainly through sociological neo-institutional theories, such as Richard Scott?s theory of the three pillars within an informal institution and Helmke and Levintskys theory of the relationship between formal and informal institutions.The results show that there is a discrepancy between the formal changes and the ways employees perceive them.

This qualitative study is about motivation and experience of support among non-kinship fosterparents in a child welfare agency (NGO), in Paraguay. The empirical data where collectedthrough out six semi-structured qualitative interviews, with totally eight foster parentsparticipating. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze what motivates foster parentsand how they experience support from their formal and informal network. Further theobjective was to investigate how support (may) affect motivation and enable good foster care.Theoretical concepts such as solidarity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as well as socialsupport where used to analyze the data.The results show that there are many different motives and motivations (intrinsic andextrinsic) that correlate in the decision to become and continue to be a foster parent. Amongthem social involvement, the wish to make a difference in a child?s life, have something tooffer as a family and personal satisfaction seems to be the most frequent reasons.

Our study has its starting point in the Swedish social legislation (Socialtjänstlagen) and more specifically in the 6th chapter's 5th paragraph. That paragraph regulates that social workers should try to find a kinship care placement when they are about to do a placement of a child. Our purpose is to examine how social workers, before they do a placement of a child, understand the informal kinship that is not relatives, if they consider the informal kinship and if certain circumstances have an impact on the consideration. To get this information we have done five interviews with social workers. Recent studies show that social workers in past years have begun to think more positively of people's kinships and that they more often use the resources of the kinship.

Since the beginning of the new millennium the world?s population has increased exponentially fast. The majority of this growth has been accommodated for by urbanization of the developing world. This in turn has lead to a wide spread of informal settlements. Thus, areas of urban slums, that have risen illegally on the marginal lands within and at the periphery of the formal city.

Several surveys indicate that corporate leaders still consider the aligning of IT and business functions as a top management issue. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how coordination emerges between IT and business departments and how formal structures intended to coordinate are influenced by human action. To deepen the understanding of this phenomenon we seek to analyze IT/business coordination from a perspective based on practice theory. A field study was conducted where observations and informal interviews were carried out at the IT department of a global company. The empirical analysis indicate that coordination problems between IT and business departments is in part affected by embedded factors such as different goals and perspectives on how IT is to be used in the organization or how to design IT related processes.

With inspiration from Bitzers situational analysis a phenomenografic method has been used, influenced by Brown & Levinsons´s theory of politeness, to find perceptions concerning constraints (in Bitzer´s sense in his model of the rhetorical situation) in Internet-based communication. Based on three qualitative interviews, this essay has found that the perceptions are closely linked to views of what constitutes formal and informal contexts, varying due to the gender or age of the informant. Netspeak is not considered appropriate, with some exceptions, in any formal situation. However, the perceptions regarding decorum in informal situations differ in nature, based mainly on what kinds of associations and connotations are produced by elements found in netspeak. Since perceptions regarding informal situations vary, there is a large risk of misunderstanding, which this essay aims to survey..

Many times it can be the simple things that affect the attitude of work and which have an importance on the organization's effectiveness. These are not always apparent but can have a large importance for the motivation and the attitude of work. Large number of companies uses wage and other financial rewards system but is there any form of informal factors that have an importance for the coworkers and that affects motivation. What factors that affect the motivation within the industry are interesting to examine and specifically the factors that are not apparent, in other words informal factors that increases the motivation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and describe which informal motivator factors co-workers/employees in a production department think are meaningful.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine similarities and differences in qualitative experiences between formal and informal reading groups from the participants? point of view. The empirical data was acquired from interviews with nine reading group participants, of whom four of them participated in formal reading groups and five in informal reading groups. To analyze the empirical data, Louise M. Rosenblatt?s theory concerning reading and a method concerning reading groups by Immi Lundin were used.

The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the design and function of an engine production management?s control system and its intended function, and to contrast it with the present management control systems in use on an operational level. Interviews conducted with employees from all levels of the engine production are the main source of this study?s empirical foundation. Information has also been gathered from relevant written material such as annual reports, internal documents etc.

This study means to research the importance and significance of the social and informal learning opportunities offered at a workplace. With Wenger?s theory about social learning and communities of practice as a starting point, this study will create understanding about how teachers at a school comprehend their opportunities for learning within the teacher community. The study is conducted at an independent school in Sweden, and is based on interviews with eight of the teachers employed at the school. The purpose of the study was to research how employees perceive how their social interactions with their colleagues can create learning, and what obstacles they might face along the way.

In scientific investigations on how organizations can learn from their mistakes the perspective is usually that of the social engineer; the object is to prevent human errors through modeling the system in a certain way. The aim of this paper is to explore the learning process from a different standpoint than those usually applied in organizational learning and error theory. By studying the learning process in Swedish health care I seek to discover how theoretical presumptions affect the outcome in terms of what we actually learn. The theoretical framework draws on two major discussions in contemporary political science; the question of structure and agency and the question of whether to focus on formal or informal structures when explaining organizational behavior.The investigation shows that Swedish health care tend to understand human errors as a result of formal organizational structure. Such a view leads to insufficient explanations to why errors occur but is useful in producing preventative measures.

AbstractA useful tool for companies to use in their differentiation process is proposed to be employee branding. Employee branding is developed and put forth by the management with the main task to formulate the brands vision and values, and communicate them to the employees. To promote the employee engagement and their relationship with the company, corporate storytelling can be applied, with is an internal communication that strengthens the internal rumour and values that represent the brand. Since engagement and motivation is important factors when creating a strong employee brand, there is a need for further research on how corporate storytelling is used by companies to influence employee engagement and motivation, as corporate storytelling leads to deeper commitment among employees.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how companies use corporate storytelling to influence their employee branding.MethodologyThe authors conducted a qualitative case study on how the retail organization Boomerang. The empirical material was collected thru semi-structured interviews with Boomerangs management and employees.ConclusionThe conclusion shows that the employees prefers when corporate storytelling and various communication is put in context, this because it?s easier for the employees to understand.

This thesis deals with the information-seeking behaviour of occupational therapists. Focus was on three different aspects of information-seeking behaviour. The purpose was to investigate how occupational therapists conceive of work-related information needs, their choice and use of formal and informal information sources and their use of the hospital library. Twelve interviews with occupational therapists were conducted at a rehabilitation clinic in a hospital. The theoretical frame consists of a general model of the information-seeking of professionals by Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain.