Service Design is a relatively new, unexplored and exciting phenomenon that through an interdisciplinary work methodology designs services. A discussion has been going on for a long time regarding whether there is a difference between products and services. Services are often classified as immaterial, heterogeneous, non-storable and inseparable in relation to products. A question that arises is if something specific characterises the work methodology used regarding service design. The aim with this paper is thus to explain the work methodology when working with service design.

Focusing of what´s best for the child has been a keyword in social work for a long time. That seems obvious for many people, but sometimes it lacks in the care of the children and the child may be taken in to care. The purpose was to find circumstances of success that can contribute to a successful placement of the child according to social workers and foster families. In which way does the cooperation between social worker, foster family and the origin family affect the placement? The study is based upon a qualitative method in form of interviews intending to get the respondents own knowledge and experience of foster care.

In today's society there is a significant focus on energy efficiency. Despite this, people leave lamps, televisions and computer screens etc. powered on unnecessarily. The goal of this project is to build a simple prototype for home automation where a user, via an application on a mobile phone, can switch on and off the power of an electrical products in the home and as well as being able to check whether such products are switched on or off. The prototype will also collect data on power consumption for these electrical products.

The purpose of this study is to perform an in-depth analysis of what effects a privatization of a service organization has on the management control system within the organization. The paper studies a service organization which provides service for the county council in Östergötland, Sweden. The result is based on interviews with several people, both within the acquiring private company and also within the county council in Östergötland, and analyzed using Samuelson?s (2005) framework from his study ?Organizational, Governance and Control ?. The major finding in the thesis is that the factors that have had the largest impact on the changes in management control are the new owner demands and the degree of operationalization of the overall goal..

AbstractPURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe and compare possible differences regarding selected prognostic factors for disability between patients with non-specific chronic pain who were about to start a multidisciplinary treatment program (MMR), either within primary care (MMR1) or hospital care (MMR2).METHODS: The study had a descriptive and comparative cross sectional design. Eighty-nine patients were recruited consecutively when they were about to start their team treatment (50 in MMR1,39 in MMR2). The measurements were; Evaluation of self-reported self-efficacy for eight daily activities (STIVA-8), The Pain Belief Screening Instrument (PBSI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).RESULTS: The study found some significant differences between the answers from patients in MMR1 and those from patients in MMR2. For instance, patients in MMR2 estimated lower self-efficacy according to STIVA-8 than patients in MMR1. Also, there were fewer low risk patients and more high risk patients in MMR2 than in MMR1 regarding pain intensity according to PBSI.

The aim of this study is to examine the language, used in parts of The day care report of 1968 (?1968 års Barnstugeutredning?). The day care report of 1968 was a public investigation appointed by the cabinet intended to prepare new policies on the part of the Swedish state.  I focus on the change, which can be assumed to have occurred, when replacing the names ?day care? (?dagis/daghem?) and ?kindergarten? (?lekskola?) with the name ?preschool? (?förskola?).

The aim of this qualitative study of service work in the private sector is to examine how the service worker experiences his/her work. There are three dimensions of the service workers experience in focus, and they are the base of my formulation of questions. The first dimension refers to how the service worker experiences the emotional labor demands from the employer. The second dimension concerns the relation between service worker and customer, from the view of the service worker. The third dimension problematizes how service workers experience efficiency.I have interviewed three call center customer workers and two hotel receptionists, using semi-structured interview technique.

The purpose with this essay is to study how children in the fifth grade experience reading in three different reading cultures; library, home and in school. The children?s experiences from reading are compared to expectations from library and school.Data, to this study, is collected through qualitative interviews in two focus groups and analyzed by using an idea analysis. The INSU-model, Information Needs, Seeking and Use, and Aidan Chambers reading circle in combination with a triangle of the three reading cultures are used as a theoretical framework. The analysis shows that children are using reading for different purposes in different reading cultures.

With this master thesis we wanted to find out in which way the concept of public service is connected to different perspectives, ideals, visions of the future and forms of organizations. The purpose with our thesis was to do an analysis of different concepts regarding to public service. To the analysis of concepts we used Swedish newspapers and analysed the issue of public service that had been discussed in articles written during the last five years. From this material and other papers about public service we developed a model of public service ideals. We wanted to find out what the different perspectives thought about the Swedish television and their commission.

The aim of this two years master thesis is to explore the relationship between public libraries and deaf adults. I want to know if deaf adults are a prioritized group in Swedish public libraries. Deaf adults use Swedish sign language witch is a visual language and differs from Swedish. I discuss the difference in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish and the importance of Sign Language literature. I also explore what methods can be used for mak-ing the library service towards the deaf group more customer centered and service oriented.The lack of sign language knowledge among the library personnel can lead to communication barriers.

An important task for Region Skåne is to allocate resources to the health care districts. From 1999 to 2002 Region Skåne used needs-based resource allocation as a model for allocating resources. In a needs-based resource allocation individuals with the same socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are assumed to have the same level of need and are therefore allocated the same amount of resources. During the period of needs-based resource allocation a matrix model was used as a method. In the matrix model individuals were divided into cells after each combination of the socioeconomic and demographic variables.

AbstractBachelor Thesis, School of Economics at Vaxjo universityProgram: Enterprising and Business Development, EBD 362, Spring 2006Authors: Jens Asp, Vivianne Holmer, Carl-Marcus WahlstromExaminer: Stig G JohanssonKeywords: Services, cooperation, collaboration, customer offer, knowledgeTitle: Service firms in collaboration ? A study of the development of small service firms in collaborationNutek presented numbers during year 2005 witched show that the Swedish service sector, for the first time ever, was greater than the industrial sector. The kind of firms that develop most is small service firms without employees. The topic of interest in this bachelor thesis is to study how this kind of firms can develop. There is a great number of strategic options for firms to choose.

The purpose of this study was to understand how the concept of quality as an idea was spread to and translated in municipal elderly care. A central question was: How does literature, policy documents and key people describe the function and meaning of the concept of quality? The method of analysis was a qualitative case study with a critical discourse. The theoretical framework of the study is mainly what is known as institutional theory and a line of thought describing how ideas are transferred and spread. The theoretical focus is on how original ideas are interpreted and why they gain a foothold in new contexts.

Ett företags kapitalstruktur och i förlängningen dess val av finansiering för strategiskainvesteringar omgärdas av motstridiga uppfattningar och teorier. Vi har genomfört enfallstudie av Home Properties AB, ett renodlat hotellfastighetsägarbolag noterat påStockholmsbörsens lista för medelstora bolag.Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva hur Home Properties agerar och resonerar vid finansiering avstrategiska investeringar och jämföra beskrivningen med Åkerbloms hypotes om sär- ochsamfinansiering, pecking order teorin och static trade-off modellen. I syftet ingår också att geförslag på vidare forskning.Enligt pecking order teorin prioriterar företag internt kapital framför externt. Vid finansieringav strategiska investeringar väljer Home Properties emellertid inteckningslån först. I HomeProperties fall förklaras företagets val av finansieringskällor bättre av static trade-offmodellen och Åkerbloms hypotes om sär- och samfinansiering.

In the essay, the view of mistakes and disciplinary sanctions within the military aviation and health and medical service, are compared. The comparison shows that military aviation and health and medical service could have several points in common on how mistakes may occur, but that the present view of mistakes is different betwen the sectors. The view of mistakes and disciplinary sanctions is explicit within military aviation, and is based on a clear ideology on how mistakes occur, which is characterised of a systematic approach. Within health and medical service, an explicit and unequivocal ideology on how mistakes occur is missing, but, however, there are implicit ideas about infallibility and perfection. The comparison indicates that the view of mistakes is also, possibly directed by a bureaucratic model (instead of an ideology on mistakes), which aims to legitimacy, but that this may happen on the expense of not taking surrounding circumstances into consideration.