The public health care sector has come under increasing pressure to cut down costs, maximize productivity and satisfy patients' needs during the 1990s and onwards. As a way of "getting more for less" quality management has been introduced. Originating in the private manufacturing industry, quality management has a strong focus on productivity and efficiency, aspects which are measured in quantitative terms. However, there are strong concerns that quality management is a means of speeding up the marketization of public health care by introducing core values much different from the ethic and medical norms that traditionally underpin health care organizations.This essay focuses on how quality management has been introduced to, and transformed by, public health care. A theoretical framework based on new institutionalism is constructed, and translation theories are used as a way of illustrating how the medical institutional environment, in fact, changes the concept of quality management.

The aim of this study is to understand which roles institutional personnel in HVB-homes (homes for care or living), that include animals ascribe the animals for the young clients in treatment. Using the termsrole, role-taking, primary socialisation and secondary socialisation within the perspective of symbolic interactionism, we intend to analyse the expericences from the institutional personnel of what roles the animals are ascribed in treatment of young clients. We also wanted to find out if the institutional personnel have certain expectations on the animals as tools in the treatment and whether the institutional personnel believes that the animals have important roles in the treatment of the young clients.To find the answers of our aim and approach to our problems, we have used a qualitative study where we have interviewed six institutional personnel distributed in three different HVB-homes that uses animals in treatment of young clients. Our empirical material shows that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals a variety of roles, which among others are: friendly and familiar, meaningful, safe, comforting and soothing. Other roles that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals for the young clients are: teaching in order to develop empathy and responsibility; helping in therapy situation and having an activating role.

The purpose of this paper is to create an understanding of the negotiation process behind the decision of who will stay at home with a sick child and to develop the knowledge of the mechanisms considered to affect the negotiation process, in particular, the mechanisms likely to contribute to an uneven use of care leave. In the study six interviews were conducted with three sets of parents. These interviews were then analysed with Janet Finch?s (1989) definition of negotiation of family responsibilities. The study finds that the negotiation on care leave is a result of the negotiation of the shared view of reality.

This Master's thesis examines some aspects of children's books for 9-12 year olds, and the children's books market, from a gender perspective. The main objective is to make a gender analysis of attitudes among children and other agents in the book market towards children's books of different qualities. Children's reflections on gender roles in the books and the importance of gender aspects for publishers in the field, are investigated. A combination of methods are used, including literary analyses, surveys of publication lists of the BTJ group Bibliotekstjänst interviews with children and questionnaires sent to children as well as to Swedish publishers of children's books. The analysis of children's books clearly shows that images of gender roles vary in different kinds of books which supports theories of gendered literature.

Globalization allows companies to expand and establish themselves in other markets, which can have unexpected consequences for those who are not aware of the controversy or sacrifices that are required, and Gothenburg, Sweden is not an exception. The study has focused on two institutional theories that can explain whathappens when a foreign direct investment takes place, Institutional work and Institutional duality. The study was conducted at Business Region Gothenburg and the interviews took place at department of establishment and investment. The result shows that to overcome institutional barriers they use networking, relations, and marketing of the region of Gothenburg as examples. The paper also argues that by performing some sort of institutional work, institutional duality occurs..

The intention of our study was to examine differences in experiences between elderly women and men from the home?help service. It?s a qualitative study based on interviews and data collection.Five categories are presented in the result of the study. The categories are based on interviews with three elderly women and three elderly men who all have home?help service.

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the key staff concept is used in residential care for children and young people and which role the key staff concept plays in the organization.The study was based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with six key staff and two managers from two different residential care facilities for children and young people. The theoretical perspective used was the neo-institutional theory and Hasenfeld´s term Human service organizations.One of the conclusions of the study was that the key staff describe that they have a central role when it comes to the treatment of the children. Another conclusion showed the variety of tasks that the key staff have, like the administrative work that they do. They also have an educational role, similar to the one that parents normally have which means that they are responsible of parenting the children. They also described themselves as a link between the children and their social network.

The purpose of this study was to examine social workers apprehensions about institutional placement of youths and what determines when these proceedings are used. When research not always shows that institutional placements lead to positive changes for youngsters, we wondered how social workers act on their assessment to institutional placement. We wanted to find out if the social workers meet any dilemmas along the way. To find out about that we used qualitative interviews with ten social workers, who worked in social service and came from different places in the southern parts of Sweden. To analyze our material we used the theory of human service organization and street-level bureaucrats work situation.

The aim of our study is to gain increased knowledge and understanding of how young people who has been sentenced to closed institutional care experience their own possibility to participate and influence the transition and aftercare, and which, if any, importance they believe this has for their readjustment to society. The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consist of interviews with four young persons, of which three, at the time for our interviews, where in the transitionphase, and one had left the institution a few years ago. The study?s theoretical framework is based on Erving Goffmans theory about stigma and the empowerment theory.

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the everyday work of school counsellors in the City of Stockholm with a gender perspective by studying the school counsellors ? talk about masculinity and femininity. The aim was to reach an understanding of how parts of the counsellors everyday work are influenced by gender through the perspective of the school counsellor. The study was conducted using qualitative methods. Six school counsellors, five woman and one man, were interviewed.

Different institutional and culture contexts are argued to create differences in fathers practices and attitudes toward fatherhood. By in-depth interviews with swedish and spanish fathers, this Bachelor thesis aims to describe fathers experiences and attitudes toward fatherhood and how they relate to the institutional and culture context. The selection of swedish and spanish fathers aims to illustrate differences and similarities in two welfaremodels that differ. The main difference was how social policy provoces differences in the distribution between paid and non-paid work, where the spanish fathers remain as the main breadwinner. Differences also appeared in attitudes toward formal care.

Today many companies and municipalities requires that their suppliers should have an environmental management system to work by. This might be one of the reasons to the increasing number of companies that today are implementing environmental management systems. Care of Haus is one of the companies that thinks that the benefits are bigger than the disadvantages, when it comes to environmental management systems, therefore they have made the choice to work with ISO 14001.The ISO 14001 standard is deified on the PDCA- cycle. PDCA stands for Plan, do check and act. Care of Haus choose to work with the ISO 14001 standard since it is a well-known standard for the companies that?s Care of Haus collaborates with and it is also well-known within their clienteleWithin this report an environmental investigation has been made.

A tough working climate and the lack of extrinsic motivation at workplaces within health care raise the question of what instead drives employees within this industry. A possible answer to this is Public Service Motivation (PSM) - a type of motivation that is based on the desire to do good for society and its individuals. In order to investigate this further we have performed a qualitative study consisting of ten interviews with people working with institutional care, where the purpose has been to identify the sources of motivation and determine the impact of PSM. The results show that the compassion dimension of PSM appears to be one of the most salient motivational factors. While the rest of the PSM dimensions fail to explain the level of motivation to the same extent as compassion, other factors are recognized, such as relatedness and aspects of the nature of the work itself.

The aim of this masters thesis is to investigate how childrens librarians deal with gender issues in their work when acquiring and mediating books to children, and how reviews in Bibliotekstjänsts Sambindning can be of help in this aspect. The thesis focuses on children between 6 and 12 years of age and their reading of fiction. Four interviews with childrens librarians and an examination of reviews in Sambindningen have been carried out. The reviews were examined both by finding out with what frequency gender issues are dealt with and by studying 20 childrens books from a gender perspective, comparing my judgement with the one they got in the reviews. The examination of Sambindningen showed that the reviews therein only sporadically bring up gender issues.

This Masters thesis concerns difficulties experienced by Gender Studies researchers in an information seeking context. The aim is to identify, and study the cause of, these potential difficulties by asking the following questions: How do researchers in Gender Studies seek information? What difficulties may arise when information seeking is carried out in Gender Studies? What may be the cause of these difficulties? What does Gender Studies consist of? In order to find feasible answers to these questions, particular attention is paid to the context in which the researchers exist and work. The database KVINNSAM serves as an example of how libraries have tried to overcome barriers in information seeking in Gender Studies. The method used is a qualitative one based on interviews and literature studies.