Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

Background: Trust has been a foundation of commerce since the very beginning. Trust can in the traditional commerce be built by face-to-face meetings, this is not possible at the Internet. Although, trust ought to be important even for the commercial business relation at the Internet and crucial for the consumer to use this communication channel. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is, from a consumer point of view, to study and analyse the importance of trust using e-services. Demarcation: The thesis is focusing trust using e-services, from a consumer point of view.

The purpose of this study was to explore young people's participation and experience of participation in child protection investigations. The study was conducted using qualitative methodology and is based on interviews with four adolescents aged 13-19 years old who have experience of child protection investigations. Our chosen method has made it possible for us get a deeper understanding of young people's own experiences of participation. In order to analyze the material we have used Shiers (2001) model of children's participation, symbolic interactionism, and some concepts relating to shame and pride.The results show that all adolescents have had the opportunity to be heard during the investigations, but it is different to what degree they feel that someone has listened to them.Two of the young people have been involved in their investigation, been listened to and have had impact on the decisions taken. The results indicate that it does not seem to be the external factors, such as how many meetings they have had, or what quality it was on the information, that matters if the social worker did not manage to convey to the young people that what they told was of any importance.

Studies of the information needs of library patrons are necessary in order for the library to serve the community. Alas, studies of non-heterosexual persons are rare in the field of Library and Information Science in Sweden. This study aims at examining the information situation of women in same-sexed parenthood by means of analysing their situation as norm-breaking. The study is done through examining the specific information needs of this group, how they seek and receive information, what barriers they encounter and what function the library has in this information situation. A queer theoretical approach to heteronormativity in combination with McKenzie?s two-dimensional model of information seeking is used to perform a qualitative analysis of the material.

Informell formativ bedo?mning a?r inte bedo?mning som tenderar att dokumenteras och sammanfattas till ett betyg, utan den bedo?mning som via dialoger i klassrummet hja?lper la?raren att avgo?ra vad eleverna kan eller om de ha?nger med i det la?raren fo?rso?ker fo?rmedla. Fo?r att bedo?mningen sedan skall vara formativ kra?vs det att informationen som la?raren fa?r fram vid dessa dialoger anva?nds som grund i fortsatt undervisning. Syftet med den ha?r studien a?r att fo?rdjupa kunskapen om informell formativ bedo?mning inom matema- tik pa? gymnasieskolan.

The essay's aim is to explain how responsibility distribution between private and public bodies, primarily within three important service areas, can be visualised in light of the fact that they have experienced different forms of readjustment. We have chosen to study this by looking at the restoration work taking place after the hurricane Gudrun swept across southern Sweden on January 8-9, 2005; and we have chosen to concentrate on the service areas of electricity- and telephone supply, and public transport. The responsibility distribution has been depicted by carrying out qualitative interviews with employees within both private and public bodies included in the restoration work. The conclusion produced is that there were obscurities in the formal responsibility distribution between private and public actors taking place in conjunction with the hurricane restoration work.In a deeper analysis, the result can be explained by a ?several hands? problem arising since the number of actors has increased as the public sphere has adopted leadership forms influenced by the private business sector.

The purpose of our research is to study how guidance counseling initiated by the students themselves differs between girls and boys in high school. We want to study if there are any differences between girls and boys regarding guidance initiated by the students themselves. We conducted a quantitative survey consisting of a questionnaire survey with 125 respondents. The respondents are second year students at the Science program. The result of the survey shows that there are hardly any differences between girls and boys regarding guidance initiated by the students themselves.

This essay is part of a project between Södertörn University College and Stockholm Academic Forum. The focus of the project is gender equality in small- and medium sized companies. I have worked with a construction company called Activa . The majority of the employees at the company were male and I was interested in the consequences of gender construction in such an environment. I think that the basic condition for equality work is an understanding of gender and the male norm.

Bakgrund: Schizofreni finns hos 24 miljoner människor i världen. Travelbee (1972) menar att enda sättet att uppnå omvårdnadens mål är att skapa en genuin mellanmänsklig relation. För ett gott bemötande behöver vårdpersonalen veta hur patienten upplever mötet. Det bör vara mottagarens behov som styr. Syftet: Syftet var att belysa hur personer med schizofreni upplever mötet med vårdpersonalen.

Syftet med vår studie var att ta reda på hur pedagoger tillvaratar barns informella kunskaper och hur de konkret arbetar för att utveckla barns begreppsuppfattning i matematik med hjälp av språket. Vi avsåg även att undersöka förutsättningarna för en sådan undervisning. Vi ville se till både individ-, grupp- och organisationsnivå. Ytterligare en specialpedagogisk frågeställning som vi avsåg att undersöka var hur barn i behov av särskilt stöd gynnas av detta arbetssätt. Vi genomförde tio kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer, som var delvis strukturerade, med pedagoger som arbetar med språket på ett medvetet sätt i sin matematikundervisning.

The purpose with this project was to invent a product that secures buildings sewersystems against rats. The problem was presented to us by a local building maintainer inHalmstad, who had experienced big problems with rats in his real estate. The project hasbeen carried out by Per Johansson, Robert Lidén and Niclas Nilsson under our ownauspices. We are primarily sponsored by AMLI Business Partner but also byInnvationsgruppen, Halmstad Fastighets AB and Anticimex.To be able to secure a whole building with only one product we came to the conclusionthat the product must be placed in the horizontal sewer pipe that connects with themunicipal sewer system. Our goal was to invent a product that prevent rats from passingand at the same time not affect the water flow.

Background: The increasing globalization of business and research has led to an increased demand for international meetings. This is a market that a number of countries wish to access and the competition is fierce to get the chance to host major conferences. Stockholm has a pronounced good position in the international meeting market and this essay will examine what it takes to be a successful meeting destination for international congresses.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the fundamental factors that must be met for a meeting destination to be successful in the international market for conventions.Question at issue: How can a city develop into a more attractive meeting destination for international congresses?Method: Persons with key positions in the Stockholm meeting industry have been approached by qualitative interviews by the authors.Theory: As a theoretical framework the authors used the value of the physical meeting, generally on the congresses, the planning process for site selection for the meeting, the meeting platform and image.Conclusion: The authors' findings are based on the empirical material gathered during the study interviews. The results from these interviews show the importance of facilities and hotels, availability, and the image..

The aim of this study was to reach a deeper understanding of the process that occurs within the social services after receiving a notification according to Chapter 14, section 1, The Social Services Act. More specifically the focus of this study was to illustrate how social secretaries reason about children?s participation in the process, as well as to examine whether the legislative change, Chapter 11, section 1 a, The Social Services Act, has affected the process in any way. The study?s results reflect interviews with five social secretaries who are active in four different municipalities in southern Sweden.

The means to political participation at the local level in Sweden are changing and this change is analyzed through a case study. The first aim is to explore the forms of public political participation in Swedish municipal Älvkarleby, namely public question time in local government, citizen motions and open meetings. A part of this is also to analyze he every day contact between citizens and representatives. The second aim concerns the reasons why politicians decide to support these means to participationThe empirical material consists mainly of semi structured interviews with local politicians, civil servants, participating citizens and local press. Official documents such as public minutes are also used in the process of creating an image of local participation.Local political participation is found to be limited but yet having the potential to strengthen democracy, provided that public decision-makers are open to a dialogue with the participants.Using Kjell Arne Røvik's theories of organisational change, the changes in local democracy can be explained as being partly rational, partly symbolic and partly identity shaping political decisions..

The hotel industry in Stockholm is characterized by intense competition, and within the next couple of years the construction of a number new hotels is planed. As the number of hotels in Stockholm increase, the competition will increase and the importance of having well functioning strategies will become vital. The purpose of this essay is to examine how two hotels within the hotel industry in Stockholm experience and handle the competition. The two hotels that are included in the study are Clarion Hotel Stockholm and Scandic Continental. The essay derives from models and theories that are related to marketing and competition.