Since companies have realised the importance of customer loyalty and since the service sector has gained higher significance in recent years, we found it interesting to study what leads to customer loyalty in service companies. The theories we have chosen to consider are customer loyalty, service quality, service guarantees, affinity marketing, loyalty programmes and customer clubs, the customer in focus and other factors that influences customer loyalty. To find out how service companies are working with cus- tomer loyalty, we have conducted a case study within three service companies. Our findings are that customer loyalty has a significant importance for the companies we studied. Quality and personnel were the factors we found had the greatest impact in service companies concerning customer loyalty.

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.

The aim of this thesis is to explain what actions Sweden and the international communities have been taking in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in order to realize the Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo 1994. In a theoretical perspective, donor countries and multilateral organizations are seen as interacting actors involved in global development cooperation. Through applying a human rights approach I will show shortages in terms of supplies to contraception, international agreement on the issue of safe abortions and a new era that comes with new rules for aid and development cooperation. In addition, for human rights to be realized there is the feature of accountability. Without accountability, SRHR cannot be fully respected, guaranteed and protected.

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

The aim of this Master's thesis was to examine the political and cultural reasons for making music materials compulsory at Danish public libraries by the new library act of 2000. The aim was also to examine how the public libraries have responded to this reform. To answer these questions a literature study was conducted as well as interviews. The results of the literature study indicated that the main reason for making music materials compulsory is to increase the influence of the library users. The study of the debate concerning the new library act showed that a majority of the Danish political parties as well as the Danish library organizations had a positive attitude towards the new obligation.

Outsourcing in IS/IT offers organizations the possibility to use external resources, maximize flexibility and focus on core business, this prompts many organizations today to be less keen on developing IS/IT-services in-house. Sourcing IS/IT is however a complex activity in itself thus requiring competencies in many areas of expertise and lots of organizations has experienced the challenge of managing the necessary competencies to ensure successful Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO). A literature review in the field of outsourcing revealed the lack of a comprehensive competency management framework with the ability to guide competency resource planning in ITO projects. In order to highlight the problem area, an extensive and thorough literature review and an empirical case study which investigated the skills and assets in ITO projects at ten major Swedish organizations was conducted. The study found that it is possible for organizations through structured analysis of their intellectual capital, using the competency framework developed within the study, to plan sourcing processes and prepare the necessary changes to ensure the ITO projects can be implemented with the desired effect..

A common experience is that leadership could be better handled during reorganizations within the social services. The purpose of this study is to examine how social welfare secretaries experience their managers during reorganizations. How do social welfare secretaries experience the manger?s role and actions? While developing the interview questions it became relevant to illustrate further aspects: To describe how social welfare secretaries experience the reorganizations that they have gone through and their experience of the everyday leadership around the managers?; openness, availability, clarity, trust and skills regarding managing stress among their staff. The study is built on qualitative interviews with six social welfare secretaries within units working with economical social assistance in different districts in the city of Gothenburg.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how youths, age 18-20, experience the verdict to the probation service and how it affects their lives. We have examined the relation between youths and the probation service from a youth perspective, what kind of support and intervention they receive and how their surroundings react and respond on the verdict. Our research was based on a qualitative method consisting of individual interviews with eight youths and one interview with a social worker from the probation service. We have used Urie Bronfenbrenner's "the Ecology of Human Development" as our main theory and the conceptions labeling, participation and the key terms adversity and protective environment to analyse and comprehend the material. We found that all eight youths were satisfied with the probation service and the help they had received.

This thesis examines if commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) systems meet the needs in different types of organizations. This was investigated through a case study of a COTS system. The system is built for contact centers and used in different types of organizations. Contextual inquiries with users from six different organizations were held together with interviews with stakeholders of the system. This gave an understanding for how the system is used and the needs to be met in the different organizations were recognized.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how service companies through adjustment of the customer?s zone of tolerance can influence customer?s perception of the service during the processes of service delivery and create customer satisfaction. The method used was case study approach utilizing personal interviews, which were conducted at two service companies. The study showed that the aspects of the service that have greatest importance for the customer?s assessment of the service and customer satisfaction among others are personal treatment and that personel behave in the way that makes the customer feel itself taken good care of and unique.

Abstract Many researchers in social work believe that in today's society require the interaction between organisations takes place on social problems. This study examined the interaction between the police, social services and schools.The purpose of this study are as follows; the aim is to investigate the interaction between social services, the police and schools about young people aged 12-18 years who are at risk for abuse and crime.My questions are: How do the different professions interact regarding young people at risk for abuse and crime? How do they meet young people in their daily work? What obstacles can the different professions see in interaction? What effects do the different professions see in interaction?The study is a qualitative study conducted with semi-structured interviews. Respondents have been two from each organisation.The theory used in the analysis of empirical data is new-institutionalismen. New-institutionalism is a theory developed from organizational theories.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

Volunteering involves performing tasks without receiving any compensation for it. Interest in this idealistic commitment to non-profit organizations is growing and the primary reasons for this is to help other people, pursue their interests and contribute to the organization.The purpose of the study is to examine what it is that motivates individuals to commit to non-profit organizations. This study will only examine aid organizations. In order to answer the question four different theories have been used and these are the most fundamental theories in this field. These theories are Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Hertzberg's two-factor theory, Self-Determination Theory and The Gift.

Title: The impact of service quality on customer loyalty - when a service changes from being free to become surcharged Authors: Carl Johan Olsson, Marcus Johansson and Victor Carlsson Supervisor: Hans LundbergCourse: Bachelor thesis in business administration, 15 Credits (15 ECTS) Keywords: Service quality, customer loyalty, price movementPurposeThe purpose of this essay is to increase the understanding if the perceived quality by the service users correlates with a future loyalty to a service when it cease from being free, to become charged.? Does the perceived quality of a service by the service users affect a future loyalty to a service, when it cease from being free, to become charged?MethodIn this essay we have chosen to implement a quantitative research method based on a survey. This choice was made in order to reach a sufficient large amount of service users and empirical data to answer our problem.ConclusionsAccording to the theory, customer satisfaction can be expressed through a comparison between customer?s expectations and the experience of using a service, and there are also positive correlations between service quality and customer satisfaction. Additionally, loyalty is based on service quality and customer satisfaction.