This case study has been conducted within the Swedish fitness chain World Class to explore the opportunities for knowledge development and transfers within franchise networks. We have interviewed the product manager at the World Class headquarter, the owner of a franchise club and a local product manager from the same facility. Our finding indicates that various forms of knowledge transfer occur within the World Class network, particularly in product development and sales. The transfer occurs within the framework set by World Class with regularly scheduled meetings. In addition informal networks provide other means of knowledge exchange between some units.

Syfte: Riskkapital har vart av stor betydelse för högteknologiska nyföretagande dock har antalet riskkapitalbolag minskat väldigt mycket sedan IT-bubblan sprack år 2000. Huvudsyftet i uppsatsen var därför att undersöka hur IT- och kommunikationsbranschen hanterar den minskade riskkapitalmarknaden. Delsyftet i uppsatsen undersöker vilken betydelse riskkapitalbolagen har på nystartade företag inom IT- och kommunikationsbranschen. Forskningsfrågorna i uppsatsen handlar om hur nyföretagande hanterar finansieringen, hur de väljer samt söker finansiering och hur de påverkas av konkurrenter och deras riskkapitalfinansieringar.Metod: Studien bygger på metodtriangulering med insamling av kvalitativ data genom tolv intervjuer och kvantitativ data genom årsredovisningar. Resultat & slutsats: Av de tolv studerade företagen har fem företag fått riskkapital. Företagen har valt olika finansieringskällor och kontrollaversionen har haft betydelse vid valet att endast använda intern finansiering.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

The purpose of our master thesis was to investigate how a multicultural society is reflected in childrens books picture books, books for children and young people, published in 2002. We found this issue interesting since children of today experience a change in society, where people of many ethnicities, cultures and religions live together to a greater extent than before. Since children in their everyday life are exposed to these different cultures, we think they also should be exposed to them in the books they read. In order to enhance an understanding of why such books are important to children, especially immigrant children, we have in our thesis included a passage with childrens linguistic development, identification and stereotypes. Other passages concern libraries and their roles in a multicultural society.

The study?s purpose was to gain comprehension and knowledge about immigrate women?s vision on benefits respective disadvantages with arranged marriages.The study?s question at issues was:(1) How do the women consider that the ideal marriage is suppose to be?(2) How do the women experience that their vision on marriage has changed in a new culture?(3) How do the women consider that parents reasons, around the choice of a partner at arranged marriages?To be able to answer these questions at issues we used a qualitative method where interviews carried out with four immigrated women from four different countries where Islam is widespread religion. Common for these women is that they all are Muslims and that they come from countries where arranged marriages are practiced. They also have concrete experience of arranged marriages, either through themselves or someone they know.Material from interviews was analysed with a help of patriarchal theory and social constructivism. We have also analysed the material with a theory about culture and a theory about groups.

The purpose of this dissertation is to create an understanding of how a personal idea in the mind of an entrepreneur becomes an outspoken vision in one biotech company. More specifically, for what purpose the vision is used at different stages, how it is communicated, its content and what impact previous visions have on future vision work and in order to reach a deeper understanding of how vision develops over time and how it is used we have employed a qualitative approach based on a case study. The theoretical framework starts with the concept of vision and related concepts. Furthermore, the entrepreneur?s and manager?s usage of vision is examined.

The study has examined how some immigrants have managed to reestablish their professional careers in Sweden. Through in-depth-interviewing with six immigrant informants representing different genders, age and professional experience the process of successfully reestablishing a career within the same professional area in Sweden as in their native country is examined.The study looked at structural and individual possibilities and obstacles which affected the individual. In addition the study looked at the personal characteristics and strategies used by the informants to overcome and succeed in adapting and reestablishing their working life.  The study has drawn on human capital and social capital theory for a basic understanding of how education and skills affect. In addition the informants have surpassed structural barriers affecting many other immigrants.

Business incubation is an important force of economic development but relatively unheard of in organization theory. This is partly due to the fact that in organization theory, meta-organization or the organization of organizations has been neglected or left lagging as much theorization has been focused on organizing individuals. With the growing number of business incubators, and meta-organizations in general, the need for understanding a relatively new type of organization is prevalent.This case study of the business incubator Global Business Labs Botswana (GBL) aims to clarify the organizational differences among meta-organizations and traditional organizations on a case level, as well as explain the underlying factors for these dissimilarities. With respect to the nature of this case study no general conclusions are drawn from the results. The inference, however, is that the organization of GBL and its incubated companies differs from the traditional organization in five elementary aspects: the weak hierarchical structure, the operational autonomy of its members, the strong focus on recruitment processes, the member identity and the lack of formal sanctions.

The subject of the essay is about a society called Klippan and the existing conflicts there between an active racist group and some youths with foreign heritage. The essay also concerns issues like racism, its effects and how it is expressed at different levels in a society. Futhermore we discuss how a community can prevent 'subtle' racism and open declared racism and how to work in a racist manner. We also talk about which role the immigrant youths play in the conflicts and how their behaviour can be understood. Another perspective that is discussed is which aspects can affect individuals to join an active racist group and which factors can make them leave such a group.

We were commissioned to do this study by the Red Cross Centre for victims of torture and war (RKC) in Skövde and questions was asked about how it can be to come as a refugee to a new country and start over. The purpose of this study was to search for a deeper knowledge about older immigrants experiences of their integration in the Swedish community. The conception of ?older immigrant? aimed of persons born before 1954 since these persons culturally was the older ones in the patient group at RKC. This study handled both men and women, was categorised in different themes and was analysed from theoretical points about identity and crises.

ALMI Business Partner operating in the years 2008-2010 a project called Vivan which is about innovations made by staff in the health care profession. The project Vivian is to bring new products to the market by establishing new companies. We have looked at why health care professionals to a lesser extent than other professionals choose to start businesses. Another question raised is why it is mostly men who have chosen to start their own business in the female-dominated health profession. Traditionally, men have as an advantage over women in the corporate market in Sweden.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Vara municipality has a continuous picture of their identity, profile and image. Globalization has contributed to the increasingly growing of place marketing. Therefore, the study goes on to using the concepts of identity, profile and image to find out if Vara Municipality communicates similar throughout the whole organization and find out their all through core values. Globalisation will be an interpretive framework for the work that describes why the place marketing is becoming more pressing. The sense of place will be a central part of this study as it is the feelings and images of different places that will be described by the municipality together with the identity, profile and image.

Purpose: This study`s purpose is to investigate the role of a business incubator in the strategic decision situations during the process of a new venture startup. It also aims to explore the methods and instruments the incubator and its advisers applies during the process.Methodology: This study is built on the basis of a hermeneutic approach with qualitative method and abductive design. The empirical material collected consist of interviews from two case studies and secondary data collection from different related sources.Theoretical perspective: The theory in the study consists of the elements of previous research on innovation processes and entrepreneurship. To analyze the data, models and theories related to decision making, incubation, process theories and organizational theories.Empirical foundation: The empirical material consists of interviews and data from two completed case studies. Additionally consist a relatively large part of the empirical data out of a comprehensive information retrieval from various secondary sources such as internet, newsletters and annual reports.Conclusion: The assay was able to detect not just one, but a variety of roles that the incubator occupies at different stages of the innovation process.

The aim of this study is to analyze the justification of a financial incentive that rewards students who rapidly finish their studies within the language education ?Swedish for immigrants? (sfi). Thereby, we want to see what assumptions are made about the students, and relate this to experiences of the education at a local level. We applied a text analysis on a government bill about the incentive, which showed that the deficiencies in the education are said to be caused by the students? lack of effort.