Auditors have a big role in society. The question of auditor independence has been debated frequently after the financial crisis. Long auditor tenure with clients has both advantages and disadvantages so the question is hard to solve.One of the traits that are encouraged with auditors is professional skepticism. An important part of professional skepticism is the personal skepticism of the auditor. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate if a high professional skepticism can increase auditor independence by increasing profession identification and decreasing client identification.

Background: The consumers of today have the possibility to choose from a wide range of products and services. Consequently, the ability to differentiate the products is essential for the brand owners. If a brand owner does not manage to differentiate its product, it can be difficult to make the consumers realise the benefits of the product and convince them to buy it. One way to differentiate the product is to create a distinguished brand identity. However, it is not enough to create a strong brand identity, the brand owner must also be capable of communicating the brand identity successfully.

This thesis is intended to respond to the extent to which South African textbooks on the subject of history is linked to the governmental policy documents and whether they are producing and reproducing national identity. The two textbooks are aimed at students in grade 10. Both books were produced in 2008 but published by different publishers.The essay is based on Norman Faircloughs critical discourse theory which has been supplemented by Michael Billings theory Banal Nationalism, which assumes that it is the national words that remind us daily of our homeland that is producing and reproducing national identity.  The survey shows that both textbooks are closely tied to the government policy document for the teaching of history. The textbooks refer to the policy, both explicitly and implicitly. The two textbooks reproduce a common national identity in South Africa based on the discussions taking place in society.

Nordmaling is a small muncipality that has gotten a lot of critic in media over the last two years. In order to regain a good reputation and to communicate a strong message towards external groups, Nordmaling have decided to develop a branding platform that can represent the organization in both external and internal communications. In order to develop a brand the organization must understand its identity.The purpose of the study was to examine the employees? thoughts of their organization in order to be able to define the organizational identity and give recommendations of core values that the organization can apply to their brand. To understand how the employees perceive their organization and what they think the organization stands for, the main focus was to study their view on values, standards, goals and vision of the organization through focus interviews and a survey.

The construction of an identity among lesbian women during 1950-­?1965 is in focus in this master ?s thesis. My starting point is that identity, such as lesbian or any other identity, is formed in relation to other people and groups, as well as society. This thesis will also examine how lesbian women met and formed bonds with like-­minded, and whether these aspects changed, during the defined time period. The empirics is made up by letters written by women to Riksfo?rbundet fo?r sexuellt likabera?ttigande (a Swedish organisation for lesbian and gays) as well as an interview with two lesbian women who were born in 1938 and 1940.

When discussing nation branding, there are three perspectives that correlate with each other: National Identity, Nation Brand Identity and Nation Brand Image. This thesis explores the nation branding of Sweden, and describe the three perspectives with a focus on Sweden. When comparing how the perspectives are comported with each other, there is the possibility of gaps existing when one perspective does not comport with another. We have compared our empirical material on the different perspectives and looked for possible gaps..

In recent years, the Internet has exploded with different kinds of social media, where a significant function is to share your life in text and images. This changes how we form our identity, our religious identity included. The aim of this paper was to study how Instagram forms a space for the creation and development of religious and spiritual beliefs. For this purpose, Instagram updates from five women with yoga oriented Instagram accounts have been analyzed in relation to two theories: Paul Heelas? och Linda Woodhead?s theory of a spiritual revolution and Heidi Campbell?s theory of networked religion.The aim of the study was to explore how these women presented themselves in their Instagram flow and what part religion and spirituality had in their presentations.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the identity of librarians. We have done this by conducting a text analysis where we have analysed texts produced by DIK, the major union of librarians, and by Library and Information Science departments in Sweden. The material we have analysed is texts produced in the aim of introducing and marketing the librarian occupation and education. The aim of this study is to find out how the identity of the librarian is expressed in this material. We have conducted the text analysis by adopting the critical discourse analyst Norman Fairclough´s theories.

The research of this Bachelor?s thesis examines classifieds for librarians, and makes use of Ørom?s theory of sixlibrarian identities plus Schreiber?s complementary seventh identity. The main focus of the thesis was to examine what qualities and skills are presented and what identities are manifested in the classifieds. A third issue was to explore how relevant Ørom?s theory is to examine and understand the profession today.The data was analysed by the use of content analysisand a hermeneutics approach was taken.

Japan's foreign and security policy has seen some substantial changes as a result of events like the first Gulf war and 9/11th. This has been taken as proof, by some, that Japan is abandoning its antimilitaristic stance and pursuing a more traditional hard power role through military means. This essay aims to explore if these shifts have coincided with any substantial shifts away from antimilitarism, which has had a strong influence on the country's security policy since the end of WW2.To do this I use constructivist theory, specifically regarding the impact of norms and identities on states security policy and briefly look into the problem of actor designation. The thematic focus is on security policy, from a narrow perspective, and thus I examine areas like the input and output to the Japanese military and the actual applications of this force. State identity is used to explore the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments and support for anti militarism in the public opinion and the political elite.The result of this study points to the further relevance of constructivist theory and especially the application of norms and identity.

The rise of the Swedish Democrats, as a political party in Sweden, has been surroundedby controversy both within and outside of the media. As such a polarizingtopic, the party has been the focus of negative and positive attention. On onehand it has been considered a racist and xenophobic party due to its policies onimmigrants. On the other, it has also been seen as a solution to what has been consideredby some to be a constant problem in Sweden, for those same policies.These policies are motivated by what the party perceives as a threat to Swedishsociety. That is to say, immigrants are a threat to Sweden because of thechanges they impose on the Swedish identity.

The purpose is to illustrate the phenomenon of self-harm from a social psychological and sociological perspective. The purpose is furthermore to examine the role social relationships play in the individuals´ self- imagine and what role does identification play for anyone who harm themselves? We want to examine in what way social relationships are important and how they function for individuals who harm themselves, both once they have started to harm themselves, and if the relationships in any part caused the cutting to begin with.Questions:How do individuals shape their identity based on self- harm? Which self-image do individuals have who self-harm? Is there anything in the person's previous social relationships that have caused them to begin to hurt themselves?Method:In this paper we have analyzed five autobiographies. We have used open coding from grounded theory as analytical method and subject positions based on discourse analysis.Theory:We have used the Cooley concepts looking glass self, Foucault's theory of power, Giddens' concept of ontological security and existential anxiety.Results and Analysis:We found six different categories that we thought were central. These were negative self-image, guilt, lack of family support, negative experiences of others' views, the protective identity as self- harmer and insecure social relationships in school.Conclusion:The self-harming is a very complex behavior.

This study is based on interviews with six students from Stockholm that have shared their feelings/opinions about how they experience their identity as a student. The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how the identity of students is constructed but also how the post modern society affects the life that the students are living. With a higher demand on education and responsibility of making the right decisions, the student?s main concern is not only her studies, but also the goal to succeed in her life.

The purpose of this study is to get increased knowledge of young people and their experience and thoughts about existential questions, and if the adults in Junior highschool take them into consideration. Our purpose to look at the result in a gender perspective was also a part of this work. Our starting point is the theory of youth, their existential questions and the importance of their identity-work in the late modern society. We interviewed six youth at the age of 15-16. We used hermeneutic theory to analyse the text.

Our findings show that depending on the contextual setting and what sort of merger an organization goes through, the identity strategies will differ. We see that symbols and values are two objects of relevance in our case companies? identity strategies, but that there are differences in how they are being used. There is consensus around the fact that values are important to have, however their meaning to each organization differs and it has also proven to be dependent on what position you possess in the company. We have developed a four-fielder in order to further illustrate our findings.