Journalists and communication managers are becoming more professional and to reach out to its stakeholders in society today, organizations must work strategically with communication, to enter the news. Many make use of press releases to provide journalists with information, hoping to influence what is published on the news. With a background in the medial change that occurs is the purpose of this study to elucidate and problematize which role press releases has for newsrooms and for organizations today and in the future. A qualitative interview study has been used, and communication managers from three organizations and journalists from three newsrooms has been interviewed. The study has been combined with a quantitative pilot study of selected press releases and articles from the selected organizations.

This paper is a Master thesis for the Master?s program in International and European Relations in the Department of Management and Economics at Linköping University. As the title indicates, the aim of this thesis is to make a comparative analysis of the conflict resolution initiatives that were employed in the Sierra Leonean and Liberian conflicts. The research questions are: ? What were the root causes and trajectories of the Sierra Leonean and Liberian conflicts? ? What were the conflict resolution initiatives employed in resolving both conflicts? ? Why did the Lome Peace Accord succeed in the case of Sierra Leone whilst the Abuja Peace Accord failed in bringing peace to Liberia? In order to answer the afore-mentioned questions and fulfil the aim of this paper, a qualitative research method has been chosen.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the actor network of a high technology company in the textile industry called F.O.V. Fabrics. The background for doing this is a recent project, which we choose to call the Salt & Paper Battery Group, aiming to commercialize a newly discovered technology ? a battery based on cellulose from an alga. We start by examining a range of network theories in order to eventually shape a framework of our own.

The purpose of this study was to examine how professional workers understand the bullying problem among Swedish youth in the age of 13-15 years. The main focus was to examine the new phenomena electronic bullying, from a professional point of view.The biggest question to answer was: "How does the school and organizations understand the bullying situation among Swedish youth today?" Individual interviews with professional social workers within the school and nationwide organizations have been used to fulfill the purpose of this work. Two different respondent types were used in order to get a wide perspective and a dynamic view.Electronic bullying had increased, but the school yard was still the most common arena for bullying, according to the respondents. The schools tried to prevent bullying, but the social workers felt that they lacked some knowledge of electronic bullying, because it was relative new.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate teacher humor by critically examining it from an interpersonal- and humor communicative-perspective; and to discuss teacher interpersonal humor communication-skills in relation to the Swedish high school curriculum, collegial relationships and pedagogical aspects. The study?s empiric material consists of semi-structured interviews with six high school-teachers currently working at the same school, but of different age and gender. The interviews indicate that the informants all have developed humor competence, an interpersonal communicative-skill that allows them to use humor efficiently. Moreover, the result demonstrates that the teachers have various humor approaches but that they all use humor in the classroom for much of the same reasons.

The aim for this bachelor thesis was to form a deeper understanding of librarians? occupation and professional identity and therefore we have examined library students? and educators? view on professional identity, competence and career possibilities. Our take on this was that there seems to be little interest in managerial positions and we asked ourselves why this is and if we could see a change in interest in the librarians to become. As our theoretical framework, we chose Andrew Abbott?s, 'Theory of Profession'.

This thesis deals with the information needs and information provision of teachers in compulsory school, from a role theoretical perspective. The object is to investigate teachers opinions on their information needs and information provision. The following questions have been used to approach the problem: Which are the information needs of teachers in compulsory school? How do teachers get the information they need? Which difficulties and deficiencies do teachers experience in their information provision, and what does the ideal situation look like? The theoretical frame of reference consists of a model of the information seeking of professionals, which is based on role theory. Qualitative interviews have been carried out with nine teachers.

With an increased empowerment of the users, and a dependence on outside critics, one wonders what kind of role the librarians have in a context where qualitative literature is discussed. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between librarians private and professional views on qualitative fiction, in order to be able to discuss their role as quality intermediaries in a user oriented context.The method used, is the qualitative, semistructured interview. This author interviewed seven librarians from three different libraries in Sweden. The theoretical emphasis partly relies on the ten words of qualitative value that Inger Elam and Bengt Brülde discusses in their respective texts, partly on David Garvins quality assessment theory, which defines several quality categories divided between an absolute and a relative quality view.Through the comparison between the private and the professional quality view, examined with the two theoretical approaches, the analysis of the interview material shows that there lies a complexity in the librarians professional role. On the one hand, they are dependent of both the users and the critics judgements about the qualitative aspect in the work with purchasing new literature to the library.

From a time where employees often remained at one company until retirement, globalization and changed employment patterns have created a more mobile labor market in the last years. In an effort to expand the connection between organization and employee a rising interest in corporate alumni networks has emerged. Previous research has shown that conditions for such networks are formed through employees social identification, perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship and can be shaped by company's HR practices.This paper aims to examine two case companies' perceived benefits through alumni relations as well as their HR prac-tices, in order to increase understanding surrounding the relationship between the two areas. Further the study intends to draw conclusions about the role of corporate alumni networks in the creation of the received benefits.The study indicates that HR practices, through the creation of an organizational citizenship behavior, can influence the conditions for beneficial alumni relations. Results show that some expected benefits of alumni relations can be re-ceived through strong citizenship.

The focus of this study has been to plumb social workers experiences regarding their work methods in two institutions regarding unaccompanied children through a perspective of gender. In this study, four semi-structured qualitative interviews has been contrived in purpose to gather in material which has been presented in five themes to ease an analyse focusing of gender. In all the interviews both authors participated with one in charge and one taking notes. One of the main focuses has been the relations between both social workers and their clients and between colleges in the institutions. The other main focus has been the activities, both planed and spontaneous, which the clients been offered, for example football, bowling and boxing.

This master thesis concerns the relationship the librarianhas to the libraries classification system. The system itselfis made by librarians for librarians and is only used bylibrarians. This raises the question of how the librariansrelate to their own system to create order. The empiricalmaterial consists of five in-depth interviews with librarians.Two theoretical approaches were used in the analysis of thematerial with one focus on the librarian?s professional rolland the other on the postmodern theories about humansneed for order.

The purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the dynamics behind Chinese-Western buyer-supplier relationships. The study takes on a partially inductive approach by commencing with exploratory in-depth interviews. The main body of the study consists of a cross-sectional survey. Data has been collected through an on-line questionnaire. The theoretical review consists of industrial relationships with specific accounts on the role of adaptation, trust and commitment; a stream of literature in cross-cultural relationships deriving from Hofstede?s culturalist legacy with specific reference to Chinese-Western relationships, including studies on relationship bonding, and the role of guanxi.

Since drinking habits are created in social environments the workplace has an important role in alcohol prevention. This study has investigated employees (N=216) in a Swedish municipality work organisation with the purpose to describe the alcohol culture in workplace and how it influences on the workers attitudes towards alcohol. The theoretical baseline for the study has been Ames and Janes framework that explains the relation between workplace culture and drinking habits among workers. The study showed significant relations between restrictive attitude towards alcohol and not drinking with co-workers (POR: 2.5) and feeling low pressure in the work situation (POR: 2.2). Therefore it should be of interest for employers to adopt a cultural perspective and a primary prevention strategy in their alcohol policies that focuses on social relations and the workplace conditions.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay has been to gain a greater understanding and clarify how an arena can create value within place marketing and development of a place brand. This will be achieved through a description of which values an arena causes in the surrounding areas and an understanding of how these values can be interpreted through the place brand. We decided to base our study according to the following two questions:1. What are the underlying reasons why there has been such a big trend with arena project?2.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the ways in which the constructions of heterosexuality and gender in three Disney movies about princesses affect the power relations between men and women in the movies, and how discourses on gender and heterosexuality have changed over time. Research questions were:How do characters in the movies talk about gender and heterosexuality?How does the interplay between gender and heterosexuality affect the power relations between men and women in the movies?What are the likenesses and differences between movies from different time periods?Discourses were mapped out using a model based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe?s political theories. These discourses were then analyzed with a theoretical framework consisting of Yvonne Hirdman?s concept of gender system and gender contracts, Judith Butler?s view on the heterosexual matrix and an understanding of power relations based on Michel Foucault.