Technology based self-service (TBSS) used in supermarket self-scanning checkouts is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden. Studies on TBSS as a self- checkout device have been formerly carried out but with focus on the customer perspective. The authors therefore saw a challenge in covering the self-scan checkout concept, from a company perspective. The purpose of this research paper is to investigate, through a management perspective, the changes brought about by implementing an innovative TBSS system in Swedish supermarkets, and its effect on the competitiveness of the company. This is done by presenting and linking the theoretical framework and empirical study in the research.

Who is integrating school-holiday home? It is for the teachers, recreational pedagogue or the students? How do the students think and act to keep the different activities apart?My purpose was to study how children sort the day between school and recreational home interactions. The issues were: How do they distinguish between the different activities during the day?  See the students their stay after school program as part of the school day? Who decides whether you have to go to school, and whether you have to go to after school program? And do you really have to?I have interviewed six students at an elementary school, based from a phenomenographic perspective, I've used myself of issues that students have been able to respond from a school perspective and after-school perspective. My interview questions have been comparative in nature, where the same question have given different answers depending on whether the question focused on school or the afterschool program.

Title: Strategies for competition ? a study of the Swedish contact lenses market.Authors: Pernilla AArskog and Annika Lange.Background: As a market gets more mature and the competition increases, it is more important for a company to apply the right strategic perspective. There are four fundamental strategic perspectives for a service-oriented business: a core product-, a price-, an image- and a service perspective. This study is a about service management and take its point from the theories from the Nordic School about strategies for competition, customer value, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty.Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to analyze and evaluate how the actors at the Swedish market of contact lenses should compete to gain further competitive advantages.Method: The study includes four qualitative interviews with two traditional opticians and two Internet based businesses, but also a survey with 106 contact lens users is included.Analysis: In the analyse part of this thesis it was concluded that the traditional opticians conception about their customer not agrees with what the customer evaluate as important. Many of the customers have thought about changing their optician, and besides that do not recommend their optician, and can there for not be categorize as loyal customers.

För att underlätta program-till-programkommunikation har SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) utvecklats. SOA har som mål att bidra med riktlinjer för att det ska bli lättare för två applikationer att kommunicera med varandra (Samtani & Sadhwani 2002a). Web Services är en standard som bygger på SOA-arkitekturen och det som gör Web Services speciellt är att tekniken ska vara plattforms- och språkoberoende (Clabby, 2003).Sun och Microsoft har utvecklat varsin plattform för utveckling av Web Services-applikationer. I denna rapport genomförs en litteraturstudie för att undersöka vilket stöd plattformarna har för utveckling av Web Services och för att ta reda på vilka skillnader som finns mellan plattformarna. Skillnaderna undersöks sedan för att se om de kan leda till problem då en användare vill integrera Web Services skrivna i olika plattformar.Resultatet i denna rapport visar att de båda plattformarna har ett bra stöd för att utveckla Web Service-applikationer.

This essay is a qualitative study about Swedish fire-fighters´ ideas of women and people from other ethnic backgrounds than Swedish. The problem in focus is why there are difficulties for those groups of people to be employed in the Swedish fire service. Can there be ideas of these groups which are not favourable for them? And if this is the case, can those ideas be explained by gender theory about construction of masculinity? The purpose is to investigate whether the absence of women and people from other ethnic backgrounds can be explained by the fire-fighters´ ideas of those groups. The study consisted of a one day observation and four one hour long interviews with fire-fighters from different positions within the Swedish fire service.

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

Bauhaus har arbetat fram en ny affärsplan för 2011-2012 där ett internt mål är att bli ?bäst på service?. Ett steg på vägen är ett nytt utbildningsprogram som syftar till att göra medarbetarna mer kundfokuserade. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur personalen respektive ledningen upplever att Bauhaus satsning på nya utbildningar har tillfört större kundfokus inom företaget samt hur den interna kommunikationen skapar förutsättningar för att satsningen ska lyckas. Teoretiskt utgår studien ifrån vad som skapar tjänstekvalité samt hur företag kan påverka tjänstekvalitén.

Garden center and market gardens are a growing trade, undergoing great changes with new actors and purchasing habits. The interest in gardens and plants is steadily increasing, official statistics show an increase of garden plants and flower consumption, of an annual 3 per cent. Garden centers and market gardens are in great need of development to be able to tackle the prevailing competition, and maintain a steady growth. Many companies are heading for a generation shift and are founding it difficult to find and employ younger managers. The aim of this report is to examine different strategies of garden centers and market gardens through the manager/ owner?s views and opinions about competition, growth and success.

SecRePac is a household appliance that simplifies sorting of packaging such as milk, juice and yogurt containers. By shredding the packages SecRePac reduces its volume uptake both in the home and at the recycling station. This leads to minimization of both transports to the recycling stations and truck transport for emptying the containers at the recycling station.The greenhouse effect deteriorates and becomes worse and worse leading to extreme climate changes and natural disasters such as floods as an example. Carbon dioxide emissions are the major reason for this and at least 30 percent of all these emissions come directly from transports. In the EU carbon emissions has decreased in the past few years.

Sweden has had statutory audit, which also includes a management audit, for all companies since 1988. A legislative proposal now suggests that the statutory audit shall be abolished for all small and medium sized companies starting on July 1, 2010. The aim for this master?s thesis is therefore to study how the service of auditing will be affected by the legislative proposal. To answer the research question the authors have taken on a qualitative approach and fifteen interviews with representatives for different Swedish auditing firms have been completed.

The purpose of this study was to depict some elderly people?s experiences of personal safety alarms. Furthermore, the aim was to look into whether there is any difference in experience between men and women and depending on their level of care. Using a qualitative method, semi-structured interviews were carried out with eight elderly people; six women and two men. The main questions of the study were: How do the elderly people experience the practical use of personal safety alarms? In what ways, if any, do the elderly people experience that the personal safety alarm has changed their daily life? In what ways do the elderly people experience that the personal safety alarm effects their ability to stay in their own home? A cognitive perspective was mainly used to analyze the results.

AimThe aim of this study is to through managers in eldercares deskriptions of the systematic qualityleadingsystem examine the implementation process of this system in the eldercare in the municipality of Halmstad.  BackgroundIn this paper the background explains elderly care and social work context, leadership in change and implementation processes. The theoretical frame illustrates Vedungs implementation theory and Webers model of bureaucracy MethodTo collect empirical data for this study, a qualitative research design was used in which eleven managers within Halmstads municipality home care management stood as respondents. ResultThe respondents highlighted a variety in the use of the systematic quality management system tool. The result describes that several obstacles were experienced in the use of the systematic quality system. ConclusionBased on the descriptions the respondents gives of the implementation process of the systematic quality management of Halmstad municipality home care management, the conclusion can be drawn that the implementation process has not resulted in the employees making use of systematic quality management in practice. The systematic quality management system that will ensure the quality of the care work is thus used to a limited extent..

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

In the beginning of the nineties there was a change in how the voluntary sector was perceived, and the significance of their work became reevaluated and more acknowledged. As a result, this sector gained a new and higher interest. The changes and downsizing in the welfare state with economic crises, due to political cutback, made the politicians look fore new solutions. One solution is to encourage cooperation between the public sector and the voluntary sector in order to handle the different needs of individuals.Uppsala community and the voluntary sector are working closely together within a project called ?God Livsmiljö?.

Hemsjukvårdscentralen began its work from Tunåsens Hospital in Uppsala in 1962, with the purpose to give conomic support to people who nursed their chronic sick relatives in home. Hemsjukvårdscentralen ended its work in 1987, and delivered its archive to the County council of Uppsala in 1988. About half of the archive consisted of medical records of the patients who had received economical support, and many of the archival records was considered as ?work papers?, non-archival records that could be discarded. Two obvious problems emerge from the organizing of the records.