In this essay I?m asking if the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway use a third world perspective on gender equality in their development aid politics. A third world perspective on gender equality is a perspective that considers the special experiences and priorities of women in the third world. My point of view is that third world perspectives represent women in the third world better than western perspectives.To determine if the countries uses a third world perspective on gender equality or not I have examined the countries aid policies with a third world theory. The material that I have used is policy documents on gender equality from the three countries and my method is discourse analysis.My study shows that Sweden Denmark and Norway uses a third world perspective on gender equality to a certain extent.

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.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine relevance of the proposition made by new insitutionalists about institutional and technical environment. This proposition originaly made by Meyer & Rowan (1977) has two core assumptions: The first is that all organizations are controlled by combinations of types of demands; technical demands for efficient production and institutional demands to adept to cultural and normative expectations. The second assumption is that there exists a few organizations dominated almost entirely by one typy of demand. Organizations dominated by institutional demands are said to live in an institutional environment, while technical organizations is said operate in a technical environment. This thesis has examined if these assumptions are still applicable in describing organizational interaction with the environment.

In the present study, the institutional discourse in health care was examined, focusing onspeech therapists and occupational therapists in interaction with a common patient withaphasia. The purpose of the present study was to identify common communication strategiesused in the professional conversation between a speech therapist and a patient and between anoccupational therapist and the same patient. Specific research questions were: Whatcommunicative strategies are used in interaction between a speech therapist and a patient withaphasia and between the occupational therapist and the same patient? Are theredifferences/similarities between how speech therapists and occupational therapists interactwith patients with aphasia?Six people in total, two patients in interaction with a speech therapist and an occupationaltherapist respectively, were recorded during treatment sessions of each profession. Generaland specific aspects of the institutional interaction were then analysed according to principlesof conversation analysis.Similarities in the use of closed questions as a strategy to increase the effectiveness ininteraction could be seen between the two different professions studied.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the implementation process and the implementation steering of the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg in the period of 2004-2007.The study asks three questions: 1) How have the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, been implemented in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg? 2) What has facilitated or hindered the implementation of the two social development aspects? 3) What possibilities to steer the implementation process of the two social development aspects exist at the governmental and at the regional level?In order to answer these questions a qualitative method has been used. To be able to analyse the empirical material, which consists of documents and interviews, the theoretical framework comprehends the policy process and implementation steering. The conclusion is that the incorporation of the social development aspects in the regional development program does not fully correspond with the central intentions, and that is due to circumstances at the regional level..

Research has shown that immigrants in the Swedish society often, when seeking jobs, don?t get the same opportunities as the rest of the population. This thesis is a qualitative research that examines the problematic situation of unemployment among immigrants in the municipality of Finspång. The purpose of this study is to analyze how civil servants in Finspång apprehend and describe the labor market problems surrounding the immigrant groups that live in the municipality of Finspång. The empirical material is build upon seven qualitative interviews with eight civil servants working in Finspång.

This thesis examines the subject of change in public administration from an instrumental and an institutional structure perspective. The purpose of the thesis is to examine whether institutional structures affect the development of instrumental structures and if it in turn is possible to affect institutional structures by changing the instrumental structures. This case study is primarily based on a series of deep interviews with senior administrators and politicians within two new administrations in the municipality Karlstad, both which have been created by merging several smaller administrations, but also thorough analysis of several official document such as protocols from the municipal council meetings, Tja?nsterskrivelser and internal PMs.   The result of the analysis indicates that both institutional structures and the forming instrumental structures affect each other and  that their ability to affect each other depends on the dominance over the organization each structure has.  In my specific research case we can see that the institutional structure of the city-technical and housing administration has affected the outcome but the institutional structure of the cultural and tourism administration hasn?t.  While the structural change of the city-technical and housing administration hasn?t effected the institutional structure but the structural change of the cultural and tourism administration has affected the institutional structure of this specific administration..

Social enterprises are increasingly gaining ground as an organisational form in Sweden, however the institutional structures for financing these types of organisations are yet to be established. With its usual origin within the civic society, social enterprises prioritise a higher goal than to maximise economic profit, which often causes these organisations to be dependent upon resources from external constituents within its institutional environment. The aim of this study was to examine how a social enterprise, which derives from the civic society, acts to mobilise resources from constituents in its institutional environment. This was executed through a case study of Jordbro Världsorkester (JVO) - a typical organisation in the civic society which takes the form of a social enterprise - by identifying how assets were used to gain resources in strategic responses to institutional processes and examining how institutional processes affects how JVO acts. Throughout the study, qualitative interviews were conducted with JVO and constituents in its institutional environment and a theoretical framework was developed which explains how capital is used to gain more capital in an emergent strategy of strategic responses as the organisation gets in contact with institutional processes from its institutional environment.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how the gender structure appears in detective novels and in the society during the 1960s and 2000s. We have a pre-understanding that the gender structure is more distinct in the earlier books and we will investigate this by looking at the two aspects occupation and family role. We find this to be an important question to notice because society today isnt equal between the sexes. Our study is based on a theory of Yvonne Hirdmans, she claims that the man is the dominant part and the woman is in an inferior position. We apply a stereotype model she has conceived and we try to categorize the characters in the books we have analysed into this model.

The subject of this study is gender norms in the preschool and children who oppose those norms. The aim is to investigate how the discourses are linked with the way in which preschool teachers and teaching assistants talk about children?s gender identity. This study is founded in feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis, which was a basis for the interpretation of the results. My research questions are:? How do educators express themselves concerning gender norms?? What do educators need to work with a gender critical agenda?? How do the educators describe their work concerning gender, gender norms and children who oppose those norms?? For educators who have experience with children who do not identify with the gender they was given at birth, how do educators describe their own treatment of said children, and how would they describe the treatment from the other members of the teaching team?The study consists of qualitative interviews with five educators who were asked questions relevant to: norms, gender, gender criticism and how they work with those topics.I found both positive and negative aspects of gender work in preschool.

The purpose of this study was to assess which basic principles collide when home care service users have requests about how their help is going to be performed. The requests involve gender and ethnicity of the personnel. The study is based on the experiences and reflections of the managers regarding this issue.As the study is focused on the reflections of the managers, I have used a qualitative research method based on interviews. I have also used two case examples as a compliment (vignettes).I was interested to explore how the managers reasoned and argued about gender and ethnicity of the personnel, and their importance in home care situations. I have investigated whether it is considered to be appropriate that the service users chose if a man or a woman helps them in intimate situations (such as showers), and if they are entitled to refuse to receive home care services from people with a different ethnic background.

Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors.

This study is set out to examine if there is any kind of influence between the EU and Swedish gender policy. More specific the Swedish efforts within the gender policy area, especially in the area of social policy and employment, during the Swedish presidency in the Council of Ministers 2001. And also to examine the impact of Europeanization in Swedish gender policy. We have decided to delimit our study to care of elderly and children when it comes to the area of social policy. We are using a descriptive, examining qualitative method.

The aim with this study was to examine how social service statement in 3 § social-judgements LVU (Swedish care of young persons act) produce ideas about gender. We have taken an interest in the production of both boys and girls and their mothers and fathers because there are clear differences in the description of these. From a historical perspective, the differences between gender in social assessments occurred despite the fact that discrimination is prohibited by law and despite the fact that social service shall work on the basis of an gender equality perspective. In the analysis and interpretation of the rulings we have been inspired by a critical discourse analysis. 30 social-judgements have been analyzed where of 15 concerns girls and 15 involve boys.

The purpose of this study is to research whether or not gender has an impact on assessments regarding the support for persons with special nedds (LSS personkrets 3). Administrators working in disability care are to make decisions on the basis of the individual's needs when assessing the need for aid and support. This study is based on qualitative interviews, with six administrators, and one head of operations. The empirical data collected has been thoroughly analysed from a gender perspective, rooted in Butler's theory regarding performativity and subversive actions, as well as Connell's gender regime, and Hirdman's gender contracts. Results show that administrators have ackknowledged and noticed differences in how male and female users express their needs, where the difference lies in the communication; females seem more reserved and shy, whereas males seem more outward and extroverted.