This final thesis was performed at Ericsson in Gävle between April and June of 2008. Ericsson is a world leading manufacturer of radio base stations (RBS), which handles mobile phone traffic with 2G and 3G technology. The main purpose of this study is to examine if two different types of products (RBS and site material) should have different terms and conditions, today the terms and conditions are the same for both types. During the course of our study we have tried to think of the terms reliability, validity and generalization. The intention in doing that was to keep the thesis at a high academic level. To name an example of this we have tried to keep our minds at an objective level during the interviews and informal conversations.

This is a case study that explores the ways in which implemented university reforms have affected employees in the higher educational sector. Previous research within the research field has mainly focused on policy related consequences of the reforms. This is why a study that brings attention to the ways the reforms have affected employees is sorely needed.The aim with the study is to examine whether there is a discrepancy between formal changes and the ways the employees experience them. The study is based on interviews with 8 lecturers from two universities and the material is analyzed mainly through sociological neo-institutional theories, such as Richard Scott?s theory of the three pillars within an informal institution and Helmke and Levintskys theory of the relationship between formal and informal institutions.The results show that there is a discrepancy between the formal changes and the ways employees perceive them.

The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

This is a qualitative study with a reflexive approach. The aim of this masters thesis is to describe how the internal information is managed in Borås Theatre and Borås Public Library related to the internal flow of information within the organisations according to descriptions of different units, staff and work tasks. Ten qualitative semi-structured interviews with employees at the Theatre and the Library have been conducted. The organisations have been studied separately. The interviews are presented according to six categories presented in the theory chapter as a result of the study.

Work is an important part of the lives of humans, fulfilling several functions; it establishes possibilities to interaction and to feeling as belonging to a context, it gives structure to time and space, creates common goals and it leads to a general well-being in individuals. For the well-being of employees it is essential with recuperation in a pleasant environment where you under relaxing and informal forms have a chance to interact with colleagues. The aim of this study was to investigate to which extent the employees of Tetra Pak Packaging Material AB at Tetra Pak in Lund experience that the informal communication during the coffee-break contributes to their well-being. The aim was also to distinguish if this potential well-being effects how the employees experience how work in general makes them feel. The hypothesis of the study is that the coffee-break effects the well-being in a positive way, and that it has a positive effect on how work in general makes the employees feel.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how two different groups use information strategies in their Facebook group activities. A qualitative study was made using interviews and a qualitative observation method. The observation groups consisted of two selected groups on Facebook and I interviewed three chosen participants of each group; a Gatekeeper, a Gateopener and a Lurker. Through the information strategies I examined the selected groups? information environments.

The aim of this thesis is to examine Social science teachers infor-mation seeking in their professional role.The focus in this study has been on what sources the teachers use for information seeking, examine and analyze their information practices and how they state their reasons for using different in-formation sources, and finally how these teachers experience con-ditions related to information seeking and how these conditions in-fluence their information seeking.This study is based on four semi structured qualitative interviews. The empirical material from the interviews has been compared to earlier relevant research and analyzed with a theoretical frame-work, which includes conceptions from a sociocultural perspec-tive, a matrix over different kinds of information sources devel-oped by Höglund och Persson and McKenzie?s model of infor-mation practices.The results of this study are:- These teachers use both formal and informal sources and external and internal sources. Digital sources are important and these have consequently been added to Höglund och Persson?s original matrix from 1985.- Information practices tend to overlap each other, for example ac-tive seeking (more specific and prepared information seeking) and active scanning (less specific), which are the two most common information practices among the teachers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of social distance used by the librarians and users in the virtual reference interview. With a conversational analysis and applied politeness theory 49 chat transcripts where analysed in order to answer the question of how the interlocutors positioned themselves regarding the social distance between them. By identifying what communicative strategies where used the following results were found. Generally the social distance between librarians and users is low in the Swedish virtual reference interview. Even though both parties used informal and casual language the results indicate that the librarians face wants were valued slightly higher than the users which were illustrated by a some what higher social distance in the stages of the conversations when the librarians face was under most threat.

This essay focuses on tourists' information seeking. The main focus was to examine whether there is a connection between how the informants in different tourist styles the different tourist styles are presented by Eva Wolf as the tourist of recreation, action, culture, compromise, and individualism seek information to their forthcoming vacation. The result was reached through a qualitative method, where ten informants with various tourist roles were interviewed separately. The informants were chosen by personal contacts. In addition to these interviews, three representatives from the tourist industry were contacted and interviewed by e-mail.

In November 2010, The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting) distributed a survey where 53 % of the responding municipalities declared that they use Twitter. Out of the municipalities that declared they did not use social media, 49 % answered that they were planning on using it but that they had not gotten started. The purpose with social media was primarily declared to be maintaining dialogue with citizens and a channel for information.The informal ?twittersphere? is a new environment for the conventionally formal government communication, and with it comes an entirely new set of demands on the style and content of texts, compared to other media. The purpose of my work was to present a style proposal for the public sector?s communication on Twitter, with the help of theory and empirical data.My methods consisted of text analysis and qualitative interviews.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to contribute to anincreased understanding of student teacher?s informationseeking for their studies. The role of cognitive authorities andapproaches to the critical evaluation of sources are taken intoaccount as well as what student experiences of informationseeking imply for their future profession. The study takes asociocultural perspective and the empirical material is based oninterviews with six student teachers at the end of theireducation. The interviews have been analysed with a departurepoint in the research questions to the following themes; seekingand finding information, critical evaluation of sources and,analysing and using information.The major findings concern the teacher students? emphasis onthe importance of the critical evaluation of sources and theirscepticism towards Internet use, both for their own studies aswell as for their future pupils.

In a work environment where employees can be thrown into all sorts of situations and where anything can happen, it requires that they have good knowledge about what they do and constantly strive to improve their skills. The purpose of this paper is to study how professional police officers perceive learning in their work. Essay authors would like to find out how the police officers experience their formal learning, informal learning and police education. This is by research what the police officers learn through various forms of education and what they learn by practicing their profession. Previous research dealing with the subject and relevant theories are discussed and processed.

Deliberative democracy theory holds that democracy is about active partaking on formal and informal arenas in the public sphere where fairly equal citizens can obtain knowledge, discuss, evaluate and affect the political agenda before decisions are made.In line with the deliberative vision of online deliberation social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Twingly offer such formal and informal arenas where people can obtain knowledge and interact with other people, and politicians.The Swedish EU-Presidency was the first EU-presidency to make use of social media and it was the first time the Swedish Government Offices used other social media than email and chat features.This thesis will examine the Swedish EU-Presidency?s ambitions of using social media as well as the actual use of social media on the Swedish EU-Presidency website in the light of deliberative democracy theory.The aim of this thesis is, through a case study, to analyze the Swedish EU-Presidency?s use of social media in the light of deliberative democracy theory..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine difficulties concerning information acquisition, use, and management experienced by graduate students in physics during their first years of research work. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were carried out with nine doctoral students. The theoretical background for analysis of the material is based on the work of Patrick Wilson, with particular focus on the concept of cognitive authority, and on that of Lars Seldén, who has proposed the idea of an information seeking career running parallel to the academic career of the researcher. Results from the interviews indicate that most of the students, in the early stages of their information seeking careers, rely to a great extent on supervisors and more experienced colleagues when identifying material needed for the research project. In a situation where information of potential relevance is abundant and where experience and focus are not yet fully developed, senior researchers function as cognitive authorities and as guides to other cognitive authorities.

Folkhälsovetenskapligt program.