With increased globalization more companies are sending their employees abroad in order for the company?s survival on the market. Many studies in the field of International Business describe unsuccessful foreign assignments and the importance of intercultural support regarding expatriation. Due to the fact that company X is an international organization we found an interest in studying how the company handles their expatriation process in Sweden. This became the purpose of our study.

This study is based on my work as a teacher of Swedish language and literature to upper secondary school students, and my interest in developing the teaching of literature by using both new criticism theories and theories of literary perception focusing on reader response. The purpose of the study is to examine the learning process in trying to develop literary competence and to find out how to describe the competence shown by the students. My starting-point is a discussion about literary competence and the theory and model of literary competence by Örjan Torell. In examining literary competence, by how students use their constitutional competence as well as performance and literary transfer competences, Torell´s model shows the possibility and the need for both knowledge of literature and personal reception by focusing on the dialogue between author and reader.The method is qualitative and the empirics are material collected in one senior high school class in the Social Science programme during their second and third year. The material contains written reading logs, written answers to tasks and transcribed recordings of discussions of literature.The analysis shows a variety among the literary competence shown and developed by the students and points to the complexity of understanding the concept of literary competence.

The concept competence is considered to be difficult to define. Therefore, it may be problematic to define competence in business and to evaluate the level of skills of employees (Thomsen, 2010). In this study the aim has been to identify key competencies for employees working as purchasers for Skanska Nordic Procurement Unit (NPU). These key competencies will afterwards help Skanska NPU to evaluate purchasers? level of competence.The theoretical framework of the study consists of three different parts.

Several studies have shown that the Swedish labour market for different reasons is characterized by ethnical discrimination and that people who have another cultural background than Swedish are being excluded. Most studies done within this area have been focused on why it is harder for immigrants to enter the labour market and identifying the contributing mechanisms for this phenomenon. Instead the aim of this study was to see how the immigrants view their own cultural identity and background and how they perceive that their cultural competences are being valued when they apply for a job. To examine this, the following problematic was used: How does a person who has been brought up with both the Swedish culture and another culture look at using this as a cultural competence when they apply for a job. Two different theories were then applied to analyze the problematic, Erving Goffman´s theory about Stigma and Norbert Elias theory about the Established and the Outsiders.

AbstractIn the literature on multiculturalism and group rights there is a strong tradition that sees diversity as something directly paradoxal to unity. In this tradition, scholars put forward a view of multiculturalism as a divisive and exclusionary process which breaks down the cohesion and unity of society. Related to this notion is that of a neutral and universally valid frame of reference in which political dilemmas can be solved; for example a neutral civil sphere where the ?true essence? of society lies. In this essay I attempt to criticise these two notions.

The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how self employed entrepreneurs (hereafter referred to as ?entrepreneurs?) develop their competence based on their perceived learning space. The main question is: How do these entrepreneurs develop their competence based on their perceived learning space? Other questions relevant for the study are: How important is the social environment for these entrepreneurs and how do they interact with their social environment in order to develop their competence. The study has a qualitative approach.

Large retirement numbers and fierce competition of available labour, results in municipalities have to be more attractive as an employer. One way for the municipalities to fulfil their staffing requirement is partly to increase their recruitment efforts, and partly to educate their existing employees. Discussions about the supply of competence are therefore pressing within municipal activity. The aim of the study was to investigate how the concept of competence is used within a municipal administration. The method that has been used is Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis, a method that allows multi dimensional analysis.

Since studies points out declining interest in science among students in Swedish schools, I have in this paper chosen to examine how some students at the Social Science Programme are experiencing the lessons in Natural Science and how to make lessons more interesting according to these students.The purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding of how teachers would develop new perspectives and tools to make lessons in Natural Science more interesting. I also wanted to investigate whether an intercultural perspective could be a possible tool to increase students? interest and motivation.As a theoretical framework, I have assumed Vygotskij's sociocultural perspective, Habermas's theory of deliberative conversations and an intercultural perspective. Through a qualitative approach, I conducted interviews with students and teachers. The main results showed that students felt that natural Science lessons were too theoretical and undemocratic and that they wanted to have more student interactions, such as discussions and group works.

This study investigates how social interaction affects newly arrived pupils? views on their study situation in the Swedish educational system. The aim is to give a contribution to the discussion on the notion of including ?the Other? in educational practice in multicultural schools. Semi-structured group interviews were conducted to explore how the intercultural perspective and the theory of inclusion can be used to explain the dynamics of social interaction.

The purpose of the thesis is to map the meaning of ?international competence? in Swedish company boards of directors. The study is divided in a qualitative part and a quantitative part. The qualitative study consists of a discourse analysis where variation in interpretative repertoires are identified to enhance the understanding of the nature of reasoning related to the meaning and importance of the issue at stake. The discourse analysis is conducted on an empirical material from 27 interviews with decision makers in recruitment processes to Swedish company boards of directors.

Competence Portals are software tools that are intended to make it easier for persons that have had no previous contact to find and contact each other. The portals can address areas ranging from finding an expert within an organisation to the marketing of the competence of a region or a research centre to other organisations. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the necessity of Competence Portals in research-intensive organisations. Important characteristics of the information in such portals have been identified and used as a basis for recommendations regarding how Competence Portals could be designed. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on the task of finding a source of knowledge within an organisation.

The purpose with our study is to investigate why Capgemini adopts the Rightshore strategy, how they implement this strategy and how it affects Capgemini?s core competence. We also aim to look at how the company?s knowledge management is supporting the offshoring strategey, in addition to how Capgemini ?keeps control of? its core competence in following the trend of offshoring to India?.

The fact that Sweden has changed from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous culture with multiculturalism as key word requires an intercultural approach in the community and school. The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers of maternal languages experience their teaching in school and what resources they have available from their employer and the municipality. What methods do the teachers in maternal languages use in their teaching at school and what resources do they have to their disposal? How do teachers in maternal languages use the perspective of intercultural education in their teaching and how do the teachers look on their future role in the Swedish school. To achieve this I have chosen the method to make depth interviews with 6 teachers of maternal languages and compare and relate the result to the theories about interculturality and the circle model, to official curricula and to existing literature in this subject.Teachers of maternal languages are very spread out, they work in several schools and sometimes even in different municipalities, during the same week.

In the latest years the Swedish armed forces have gone from an armed force with conscripts to voluntary men and women. When the basic training is voluntarily may the question be if the new men and women have the same approach to Desirable competences and pedagogy that is used by their officers during their training. Desirable competences are a part of the model transformational leadership and are divided into task related competence, management competence, social competence and capacitate to cope with stress.To deal with this problem I have used questionnaires from conscripts and a new questionnaire made on voluntary recruits.I have compared the results in a case study method and it shows a positive progress from the recruits view how the officers use examples from the transformational leadership. The study shows that recruits want officers to make demands, motivate and inspire them. The recruits want to know the goal with the education and they want the officers to make demands on them..

The purpose with this essay is to contribute with knowledge on how pedagogues in Swedish schools can prevent cultural clashes between themselves and their pupils and between pupils from different cultural backgrounds.The survey is done with qualitative interviews with three pedagogues.The result shows the importance that the pedagogues are positive to cultural meetings and that they acquire Intercultural competence. The result also shows that the interviewed pedagogues acquired competences through direct meeting with students and their parents, courses, lectures and literature.The conclusion of this essay is that if pedagogues obtain more knowledge about their own and other`s culture, it would prevent cultural clashes in school.I believe that if the pedagogue teaches his/her students that there are different ways to think in the world, fewer cultural clashes would occur between the students.Key words: culture clash, education, communication.