This study examines how management consulting firms work with business- and functional strategy and how these strategies are interrelated. More specifically we focus on business strategy (business unit level) and knowledge strategy (functional level) and whether these are aligned or not, i.e. whether strategic congruence exists.A number of recent studies have examined the importance of business strategy and knowledge strategy in management consulting firms separately, but few have pointed out the importance of the alignment between them. With this study we contribute to the strategic field of research with a model that describes how management consulting firms should work with their knowledge strategy given their business strategy. The model is developed through a synthesis between theories in the field of strategic congruence, business- and functional strategies and thereafter tested by an empirical case study of six management consulting firms.

This Masters thesis is concerned with the complex planning process of setting up a citizen bureau in a public library. The aim is to find out how citizen bureaux are designed and to suggest a simplified model of strategic planning. The planning process is studied from a business perspective in the library context, and this perspective is also used to study citizen bureaux and their written plans elsewhere. A combination of qualitative methods are used: observations, focus group discussions and interviews. Observations in the public library showed a great need for an environmental analysis as well as structure to the planning process.

The aim was to find out teachers in Swedish as a second language in primary schools view on how they work with a language development teaching in a multicultural environment. I did a semi-structured interview where I both made questions before the interview and also used individualized follow-up questions during my interview. I did that because I really wanted to get answers to the subject and the aim of the essay. Two teachers in Swedish as a second language have been interviewed. The result shows that a holistic approach to language development is important, where great emphasis lies on understanding. Teachers say that communication and interaction are key factors and that it is important with good linguistically appropriate and understandable texts where the words/concepts are learned and used in the right context. .

The Civil Engineering office in Skellefteå needs to develop the users' participation in the planning of parks and playgrounds. In order to get such a procedure to work one have to find a method that can work in the daily activity. My work aims to find such a method and to implement it in practice. Apart from helping the Parks departement to find an functional method I will also develop a deepened knowledge about users?participation wich can be very useful i my future profession. This work can be divided in three stages.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse and understand how students, as consumers, choose brands from the aspects of the concept of CSR, the economic, social and environmental. The essay is based on a qualitative method with three focus groups, with five respondents in each of them. The respondents are all studying at Kalmar University and they have all studied some kind of economic-course. We have used a lot of different sources for our theory chapter, this because of the fact that we wanted to have different angles, so that we would be able to cover all of the questions we wanted to discuss in the focus groups. In our two final chapters we discuss the issues similar to the theory section and we highlight our own thoughts.

Purpose/Aim: In the information and communication technology society (ICT) we live in today it is easy to feel that we are constantly expected to be available. The daily contact with the Internet and the use of cell phones has changed our way to communicate. With this in mind in combination with the increased stress among young adults my aim is to investigate how young adults, aged 23-26 years, experience to be constantly connected and available through the Internet and the cell phone. What are their opinions, attitudes and feelings about what this entails in their lives?Material/Method: The essay is based on four focus group interviews with sixteen students from Uppsala University aged 23-26, two groups consisting of women and two groups consisting of men.

The purpose of this study is from a case study develop a model that aims to cost effectively improve productivity in a manufacturing production process. The study highlights the importance of having knowledge about customer needs and using a holistic process perspective when improving productivity to identify the relations between the process stations and by this find problems that cause waste and losses in productivity. Tools and methods used to make production more efficient such as single minute exchange of die, spaghetti diagram, 5s and master production schedule is presented an applied in the model to see how these effect costs, productivity etc.Maintenance effects on quality and productivity in a manufacturing company will as well be covered in this thesis. The results and conclusions finally reveals how the process improvement tools, maintenance and production planning for example effects each other and why it is important to establish an attitude in the company where continuous process improvement should be emphasized..

The outset of this thesis is to raise questions on how we design for the mobile context and the capabilities of smartphones. Not only the presentation but also the use of input and interaction between a service and a user.This work evolves around sign up forms and answers the question: How does the sign up process affect the holistic perspective of a digital service regarding usability and user experience? This thesis consists of a case studies, and design experiments conducted on Twitter, Instagram and Randos sign up processes to explore if and how the usability, and the user experience could be affected and im- proved.This concluded some important aspects to be considered when designing sign up forms for a digital service.The usability, and the user experience is not only affected by user interaction, and the choice of input method but it?s also affected by which data the service is requesting, and more important; if that data is motivated to request by the service..

This essay shows how teachers adjust the literature studies in the mother tongue subject to their different classes in upper secondary school.The study is based on interviews with two teachers and an analysis of two different school-books. The conclusion is that the subject of literary education in the vocational programs is a pragmatic subject with focus on the pupils? needs and skills, and the subject in the theoretical programs has more focus on mediation of a literary heritage..

This essay is called In the head of Garibaldi ? a study about the portrayal of Garibaldi in biographies and focuses on the literary portrayal of Garibaldi in biographies published in the early 20th century and the early 21st century. The purpose of the essay is to describe the possible changes in the way of portraying Garibaldi in biographies and compare the portraying to the portrayal of Garibaldi that Garibaldi himself gives in the American translation of his memoirs, which were published in New York 1859.I have in this study used a constructivist approach with focus on the attributes, ideals and roles of Garibaldi. Research and thoughts from a wide field of science has been used, for example the works on nationalism by Elie Kedourie and Ernest Gellner. The thoughts on biographies as a scientific genre as described in the anthologies Att skriva människan (Ambjörnsson, Ringby & Åkerman red.) and Med livet som insats (Rosengren & Östling red.) has also been of the utmost importance of the study.The results of the study shows that there has been changes in the way of portraying Garibaldi in biographies, as showed in the more unbiased portrayals in the newer biographies.

In this essay I have tried to present the ideas and thoughts of the Swedish author Rolf Edberg (1912-1997), journalist, ambassador and county governor. By many regarded as an environment philosopher and the introducer of deep ecology into Sweden. The essay emphasizes Edberg as a modern renaissance man of important knowledge with a rhetorical force to present and generalize the problems the planet Earth is meeting. The paper compares him with Henry Thoreau but also finds a close but perhaps unintended relationship with the German philosopher Ernst Haeckel although Edberg himself claimed to be a Darwinist at heart.The essay stresses on four characteristic features in his authorship namely 1) a holistic view of nature and man, rejecting dualism for monism; 2) a cosmic relationship within the whole universe and also between organic and inorganic matter; 3) the planet Earth is in a crisis due to an uneven and unjust distribution of the resources of the Earth, the nuclear weapon threat and the overpopulation; 4) the evolution and not the religion has the answer to our existential questions..

The purpose of this study is to conduce to the understanding of what challenges the HRdepartmentfaces in the work with the psychosocial work environment in nonprofit organizationsin Sweden. A particular focus in the study is on how the certain features of the nonprofit sectoraffect and tend to contribute to these challenges. In both Swedish and International research thereappears to be a lack of studies that deal with the psychosocial work environment in the nonprofitsector, which is one of the main reasons for this study. International research show, among otherthings, that employees in this sector have a higher degree of work satisfaction than in othersectors. Especially, they value the sense of making a contribution to the society, to get feedbackon their work performance as well as they expect a high level of co-determination.

The 26th of February 2009 the Swedish government gave a referral to the council of lawregarding the removal of a law concerning mandatory membership at a student union andstudent nation while studying at a university or college in Sweden. This has led to adiscussion amongst the student nations in Uppsala as to how this proposed change will affectthe nations? future operations. Some, including the chairwoman for Kuratorskonventet,Therez Olsson, and the 1Q for Norrland?s student nation, Jon Stridh, have expressed theirworries that this could lead to a decrease in members.

Sweden has a long and extensive wind band tradition. Today the interest for the traditional instruments is decreasing among children and teenagers. What can this be due to? Which conditions are needed for a functional wind band in the future? The purpose of this essay is to find answers to these questions and at the same time shed light on good examples, where the wind band activity works. To be able to answer the questions have I made four interviews with persons who have a big knowledge and interest about the subject.

The purpose of this study is to analyse and describe social work students? view on a person with self-injurious behaviour and the following issues. The aim and focus is on the general depiction. The theoretical perspectives have been intersectionality and its focus on social constructivism, and gender perspectives. The method was semi-structured interviews with eight social work students at Linnaeus University Kalmar.