Some researchers claim that we are witnessing the advancement of becoming a network society, and in spite of the different problems associated with the network form of organization, many cities still choose to engage in different types of networks. On account of that the aim of the study is to examine which expectations Swedish member cities of the network Eurotowns might have, and if their actions in the initial period of engagement in Eurotowns mainly could be explained by ?Logic of Consequentiality? or ?Logic of Appropriateness?.A qualitative research method was used and a major part of the empirical material consists of the information given by the interviewees.Regarding the expectations Swedish member cities have on Eurotowns, the result showed that five main areas could be identified mutual resource exchange, activities, breadth, security and meeting place. The results also showed that the actions of Swedish member cities may vary between ?Logic of Consequentiality?, ?Logic of Appropriateness? or a combination of the both logics.Furthermore the study also provides empirical evidence supporting the previously theoretical criticism expressed regarding the central assumption that the strategic actions of an actor can be regarded as a direct consequence of the mutual resource dependency..

Product development cycles become shorter and shorter. The time from idea to market has become an important competitive factor. Despite this, methods used for making the product development process faster are surrounded with uncertainty about their efficiency. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the pros and cons of ?best practice? methods for shortening lead times and how these methods effect the lead times in research and development.

This essay is the result of a case study. The aim of this study has been to gain an understanding of government employee?s opportunity to be involved in and contribute to the processes tied to organizational development. The case study is based on the perspective of the government employees and their experience and thoughts regarding their opportunity to be a part of the organizational development. The empirical data that was generated by the case study has been analysed with New Public Management and Sense Of Coherence as a theoretical point of view.

My purpose with this paper related to my questions was to find out how professionals preeschool teachers working on multilingualism. I also wanted to get answers on how pedagogues in the preeschool may promote multilingual children´s language development, the factors that promote multilingual children´s language development and the role parents have in the language development of multilingual children. I chose to do my study in the form of interviews with professional preeschool teachers and interviewees described including the need for more knowledge of pedagogues around multilingualism. My result based on theoretichal background and the study is that pedagogues should let the children´s all languages esemble together. A factor influencing the multilingual children´s language development is ambient attitudes to multilingualism.

The purpose of our study is to examine what risk factors can contribute to a child/youth with neuropsychiatric disorders developing an addiction to drugs. We also wanted to find out what protective factors can contribute not to develop an addiction. In order to find out these two different aspects we interviewed twelve professionals to get their view upon the matter. The professionals work within different sectors such as school, healthcare, social services and one of the interviewed is a member of an organization that specialises in neuropsychiatric disorders.When analysing our result of the interviews we used Bronnfenbrenner´s theory on the ecology of human development. What we found was that there are significant risk factors and protective factors on different levels of the child's environment.On the first level, the microsystem, interpersonal relations have an impact on the child's development.

Datorspelsbranschen är en relativt ung bransch, både jämfört med andra delarav mjukvaruindustrin och nöjesbranschen. En av de stora utmaningarnaspelutvecklare står inför är planeringen av den långsiktiga kompetensförsörjningen.Dock saknas sammanställda historiska data och applicerbararesursestimeringsmetoder, vilket gör detta arbete näst intill omöjligt. Det förstadelmålet med den här studien är att samla in historiska data angående strukturenoch storleken på utvecklingsteam som utvecklat AAA-spel (professionelltutvecklade spel med en hög budget) för pc-datorer. Datan samlas in frånkreditlistor hämtade via webbsidan Mobygames.com. Det andra delmålet beståri att utreda huruvida den insamlade datan kan appliceras på modeller förestimering av framtida personalbehov.

The essay on ?The revival of the countryside ? a multitalent in landproduction.? focuses on local and regional development within agriculture, foodprocessing and tourism.Due to great changes in society, the inhabitants in rural areas are forced to find alternative occupations. Using history as a tool to build up the future is a main factor in rural development. Apart from this it involves cooperation, resources, cultural heritage and values, entrepreneurship and innovation, economic vitality, and an understanding of markets and marketing. They all contribute to a region`s ability to benefit from rural development..

Most studies regarding wolf (Canis lupus) predation on moose (Alces alces) have focused on the total annual consumption of moose within a wolf territory but few have tried to describe the spatial impact of wolf predation on a local scale. In this study I have analyzed wolf movement data, wolf predation, moose hunting statistics and moose hunter observations to investigate how wolf predation affects the human harvest of moose in Scandinavia. Since wolves prey on mostly juvenile moose during summer, analysis of their summer movement patterns is crucial to understand its impact on the human harvest later during autumn. In this study both reproducing (n = 45) and non-reproducing wolves (n = 12) reduced their movement range during summer to 66% and 67% of their annual movement range, respectively. Reproducing wolves increased their movement range from early to late summer while non reproducing wolves did not.

The name of the thesis is?Istheprintedbook?sdeaththeauthorsbread??Astudyinhowthepublishinghouses?andtheauthors?relationshipschangeduetotheintroductionofthee--?book?Thee--?book,whichisadigitalcopyoftheprintedbook,hasbeenonthemarketforovertwodecades.However,itisnotuntilnowthatchangesarehappeningwithintheindustry,whichaffectsthedifferentactors.Amazonhasforexamplelaunchedane--?readerbythenameKindleonthemarketandApplehaslaunchedasurfpadbythenameiPad,bothwhichyouareabletoreade--?bookson.Thetechnologicalchangesthatarehappeningaffecttheactorswithinthebookindustryaswellasthestructureoftheindustry.Theresearchquestionofthisthesisis?owdothepublishinghouses?andtheauthors?relationshipswithinthebookindustrychangeduetotheintroductionofthee--?book??Actor--?networktheoryisusedtoinvestigatethis.Thetheoryincludesbothhumanandnon--?humanactors,whichtogethercancreateanetwork.Theactorswithinthenetworkconnectthemselvestoeachotherandtherebyformthenetwork.Thepurposeofthisthesisistocreateanunderstandingforhowactorsandtheirrelationshipswithinanestablishedindustrystructureareaffectedbydigitalisation.Toachievethis,semi--?structuredinterviewswereconductedwithpublishinghousesandauthors.Theboomofthee--?bookinlargepartdependsuponthetechnicaldevelopmentthathasoccurredandwhichhasintroducedsmartphones,e--?readers,surfpadsetceteraonthemarket.Moreactorswillariseinthebookindustryduetothedigitalisation,whichinturnwillaffecttheexistingrelationshipsofthepublishinghousesandtheauthors.Thepublishinghouseswillkeeptheirroleinthenetworksasakeyplayer,butcomeintocontactwithmoreactors.Theauthorsaregiventhechancetoself--?publishtheirbooksase--?books,whichmakethemcomeintocontactwithmoreactorsaswell.Asmoreactorsarise,thestructurewithintheindustrybecomesrelaxed.Hence,thepublishinghousesneedtoenrolthenewactorsinorderforthemtokeeptheirpositioninthenetwork..

Today?s Sweden becomes more and more multicultural, with a mixture of many different languages. Many children are raised to learn two or more parent languages. If you work as an educationalist in preschool you will probably come in contact with these children. The question is how you should treat them and ease their development of languages.The purpose with this work is to find answers to the question if bilingual children develop their languages by the same method as monolingual and how one as an educationalist can make these children?s development of language easier.The papers preface is a part of literature that describes different researchers view on the bilingual children?s development of language and how one, as an educationalist, can ease it.To my study I have chosen to interview three educationalists in preschool who all work with bilingual children.

Small business enterprises have escalated in Sweden during the last decade. However, new established companies are struggling to maintain their selves during the startup process and according to a survey from Tillväxtanalys, only 68 % of startup companies from 2008 were still active three years later. One of the main reasons is lack of capital and the most common approach to finance companies is to apply for a bank loan. In other words, commercial banks are of great importance for new businesses. Although, the problem arises when there is no previous history from the new businesses that the bank could base its credit assessment on.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

The concept of leadership development plays an important role within the modern organization. As a result of the increasing interest in developing leadership competencies, investments in leadership development programs are becoming a common part of business strategies. However, the return on those investments is seldom evaluated. The reason for this is considered to be the complexity created by the many factors that influence leadership but have no relation to the program. This is a case study based on interviews with participants from a one-year leadership development program that was carried out at AB Previa.

The aim of this study was to gain insight into how two enterprises work with competence development and thereby study how the relationship between competence development and workers, employees, look like. The focus was on the workers motives and motivation towards a participation in a competence development course, their attitude to education, and how the transfer of skills gained from the course, into the workplace looks like. Further on, the work situations influence on the workers competence development has been taken into account.In the study, six people were interviewed in the role of either manager, coach or course participant who are employed in two different enterprises in the south of Sweden.The results showed that the participants were motivated by a strive for personal development or that the participants viewed education implementation as a part of the professionalcareer, which has resulted in a positive attitude towards the competence development course. The managers? motive for decisions about education was to change the prevailing attitude among the staff for the better and thereby strengthen the company?s brand. The work situation has encouraged the desire to participate in developmental education as the feeling of control has encouraged the workers to further development.

If one looks at physical planning in Sweden today one can see that while talking about densification of existing development, reduced emissions and careful use of important land, urban sprawl is a fact with development of sheer residential districts in the urban edges and shopping malls in each and every municipality. As sustainable development is an essential goal for physical planning to strive towards, it is worth questioning if the direction of today?s planning will lead to the goal. A sustainable development can be seen as an obvious to goal aim at. In reality the aim means a hard and complex work.