AbstractTitle: Strategic Communication within franchising, a case study of GallerixNumber of pages: 60 (65 with enclosures)Author: Charlotta Babington ThorszeliusCourse: Media and Communication DPeriod: Spring 2008University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University, SwedenPurpose/Aim: To find out, by doing a case study, how communication between the two parties in a franchising relationship works, and how communication can strengthen the concept and brand. By analysing the communication, identify strengths and weaknesses and make suggestions for improvement.Material/Method: Qualitative method by using interviewsMain results: The understanding of the concept and the relationship between franchiser and franchisees are vital for the success of the franchising chain. The main internal communication channel today is the Intranet, and more personal contacts and meetings are requested. The yearly meetings are appreciated by the franchisees, but the content of the meetings are of varied quality. The chains value words, which are important for how the brand is perceived by the customer, are slightly different from how the franchiser and the franchisees sees them.

The background to the study is that within the next ten years about 50 new multi-purposeindoor arenas will be built. These are used for various events such as sports, concerts, etc. In order to achieve a high level of security in the case of danger alarm signals and alarmmessages must be heard well by the visitors. ÅF-Ingemansson wanted to show builders the importance of good speech perception and that it is not observed in arenas today. They conducted technical tests on two large multi purpose indoor arenas to develop parameters that affect speech perception in the arena.To get a subjective view of how these arenas are experienced a survey was created.

This essay points at the importance of public libraries as arenas of meetings between refugees and the local population, and by this - creating social kapital in the society as a whole. The researchers AabĂž, Audunson and VĂ„rheim have created theories about low-intensive meeting places, that means ? neutral, public places where accidential meetings with different strangers can happen, which can create social capital and trust among each other. To complement these theories I also use VĂ„rheim who have implementet social capital-theories to the sphere of public libraries. These two theories complement each other and can help me investigate two public libraries in a rural area in Sweden.

Audionomprogrammet.

To which extent elderly people at nursing homes have an influence on their daily living is currently debated. Studies have shown that they have limited influence due to restricting routines associated with nursing homes. Therefore the aim of this study was to examine how elderly people experience the ability to influence their daily living at nursing homes and how limited influence is revealed in the daily care. Five elderly people, from four different nursing homes, underwent a structured interview. The outcome of the interviews was analyzed in relation to established theories related to geriatric care.

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.

The purpose of this examination was to make a qualitative study focusing on children's influence from a gender perspective. The study is based on interviews. We wanted to investigate teachers' perception of children's influence in the preschool.Earlier research on childrenÂŽs influence and gender has also helped us in the conclusion of this examination.The survey consists of ten interviews with teachers of varied work experience in the preschool. We also chose to interview teachers in other positions, since this is often the case in preschools today. From the result we can see that there are different levels of skill and awareness regarding the topic of children's influence from a gender perspective.

How stakeholders can influence EU in global environmental politics and what consequences and risks this brings are heavily debated. Some scholars argue that civil society are being disenfranchised from the global political arena while others seem to find them having influence in areas where they normally shouldnÂŽt have any influence. In this this paper I will compare the Europan Union policy on GMOs with the process in producing the Water Framework Directive using an analytical framework to study the level of stakeholder influence. Following the framework I will use two types of data namely NGO participation and Goal attainment. The data once summarized will be analyzed by using the methods of process-tracing and counterfactual analysis.My conclusions regarding both cases are that stakeholders, most notably, were able to influence policymaking in EU by using the internal revisions and by networking in smaller partnerships.

Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

AbstraktHaving influence over questions that concern us is a part of the society that we live in, where every individual have the right to make her voice heard (Danell, 2006). For many decades, the school has had many different ways to give the students influence. Rönnlund (2013) is giving a historical overview of the history of students influence and enlighten us how the influence has changed over time. The influence from the students is very important and it is the students right to make their voices heard about things that concerns their work environment but also to affect their curriculum. The education in school should be fitted to every individual student (Danell, 2006).   According to Aaron Antonovsky (2007) our wellbeing is based on that we all can take part and deicide about the things we are meant to do.

Through qualitative interviews with six teachers at a school an understanding of teachersÂŽ conceptions of, and conditions for their work on pupil democracy and student participation are sought.Formulation of questions were as follow:What does pupil democracy and pupil influence mean for selected teachers?How do selected teachersÂŽ work with pupil democracy and pupil influence?What opportunities and complicatedness?s do selected teachers see with this work?Through this the selected teachers views on children and their thoughts on their role as a leader also are investigated.According to the curriculum the Swedish school should aim to transmit primary democratic values and pursue the education through democratic work models. Further the pupil should acquire influence of their education. The theory exposes several approaches on democracy and influence. These approaches are further on applied on the school.The result of the study evinces that selected teachersÂŽ practice both pupil democracy and pupil influence.

The purpose of the present pilot study was to evaluate the parentalintervention ComAlong at the Division of Child Language, for parents ofchildren with severe language impairment. ComAlong is one of the parentalinterventions developed in the AKKTIV project. AKKTIV stands foraugmentative and alternative communication ?early intervention. Thepresent study consists of a case study, a compilation of course evaluationsand an interview with the two leaders of the course.

According to pre-school curriculum, the childrenÂŽs needs and interests from the basis for the design and planning of the educational activities. The curriculum also highlights that all children should have the opportunity to satisfy their increasing ability to influence the content and approach. The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how teachers work in involving children's influence and interest in forest excursions.The essay is based on a qualitative approach in which we have chosen to carry out unstructured observations by a team of three educationalists. The study includes children of 3-5 years of age.The results show that the educationalists take advantage of children's interests and needs foremost in conversations. The children are given the possibility of influence that of which concerns only themselves and nobody else.

This paper conducts a qualitative examination based on interviews with four high school librarians. The purpose is to illustrate their professional role in proportion to that of the teachers from working with students? reading comprehension and from their role, if any, in the school?s educational activity. The work is based on the following questions:- How does the high school librarian describe his or her work to increase the students' reading comprehension and contribute to their reading development?- How does the high school librarian describe his or her involvement in the schools? educational activity?- How can one understand the high school librarians' relation to the teachers with reference to the librarians? jurisdiction and the formal and actual legitimacy of the school library profession?The theoretical framework constitutes of the concept of jurisdiction and of formal and actual legitimacy.

Lean has been studied intensely since the 1980s and it has been tested and successfully implemented in a wide variety of businesses. This thesis aims to examine the potential effects of a Lean implementation on meeting efficiency, a topic that has gotten little attention in the research community. First, a number of meeting problems are introduced, as they are perceived from the company that is the subject of the study. Second, the potential of introducing Lean in a meeting process is evaluated using the Lean Thinking principles. Third, the wastes that are generated from the meeting problems are identified.