During the past decade environmental challenges have been intensified and given increased attention. This implies that businesses in all sectors strategically need to manage these challenges. The service sector is often considered as a sector with a low environmental impact if the direct environmental aspects are assessed. Still, it has been argued that the environmental impact that the sector gives rise to can create severe indirect environmental impacts. The products and services that are produced by this sector have a relatively limited use of physical resources which may make the environmental impact challenging to visualize. Banks belong to the service sector and it is partly banks that make the development of societies possible.

This essay focus on the European Union and its democracy both from a national perspec­tive and from an international perspective. Furthermore, the essay center on the con­cept of democratic deficit, this in order to study the European Union´s status regarding the democratic legitimacy. This study intends to nuance the problems that previous research and previous researchers have de­fined as democratic deficits in the European Union and ends up in conducting a textual anal­ysis of the latest European Union treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.The aim is that by using previous research on the democratic deficit in the European Union examine whether the Lisbon Treaty has enhanced the EU's position regarding democratic legitimacy. In other words, my study aims to identify what the deficit is and if it exists.The results show that the Lisbon Treaty has been trying to improve the democratic legitimacy and that some practical adjustments have been made, but it also show that there is much that still can be improved before citizens have full democratic rights..

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between self-determination theory and its three basic needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness, and commitment to change in an organizational change. Another purpose was to examine if the quality of the communication and the effects on the organization and way to work can predict commitment to change. Considering that organizational changes is very common today there is an interest to ease and improve the change process. The survey contained the scales Commitment to change scale and Basic need satisfaction at work scale and the participants were 39 office-workers who recently had gone through an organizational change. The result indicated that it?s possible to predict commitment to change from self-determination theory, communication and effects on organization and way to work.

BackgroundThere are different organizational structures and control and it has been proved difficult to find a combination between these that leads to goal congruence and improved efficiency. An organization can be structured according to hierarchical levels and the decision making can be either centralized or decentralized. Organizational control can be classified according to the amount of rules and balanced scorecard can be used to weld together the structure with the control.PurposeThe purpose is to create an understanding of how two types of structures and control in an organization appears and also to investigate how these differ from one another concerning the balanced scorecard as a control system. We will also investigate how the variables goal congruence and efficiency are affected by the implementation of the balanced scorecard.MethodTo answer the purpose of this thesis we have mainly used the qualitative method since we have studied two organizations thoroughly through interviews on different levels of the organization. The study also has some quantitative elements since we wanted to get a more truthful picture of the organizations.

The aim of this masters thesis, based on discourse analysis and organization theory, is to study how individuals in different Swedish cultural organizations- and agencys are working with disaster preparedness.The purpose of this is to examine whether organizational structures affect different persons work, cooperation and practical application concerning disaster preparedness in collaboration with both external and internal organizations.The research shows that disaster preparedness are affected by priority issues as well as financial resources causing consequences for future work concerning this kind of issues.Another problem which is also examined and discussed in this thesis are the problematic approach to personal initiative which today is the leading operation for the organizations to deal with disaster preparedness instead of creating professional titles for the persons handles these complex issues..

Abstract Author: Annika Sjögren ArvidsonTitle: The reflective leadership role in social service organizations Supervisor: Anders GiertzAssessor: Jan Petersson  I have studied the leadership role of unit managers in social service organizations and their relationship to the concept of reflective approach. I started from a curiosity about how and if unit managers within social services use the concept reflective approach in their leadership role, and how their organizations look upon this and what the consequences are. If in the long term, this affects the individual receiving assistance. All the interviewed persons come from different places, services and organizations. The study is qualitative, with a number of interviews conducted with unit managers.

Employee turnover can cost an organization a significant amount of money. In addition, retention of employees can beneficial towards to an organization as it e.g. allows to save costs related torecruitment and training of new employees. The fast food industry is recognized as an industry which employs low-skilled employees and is especially in the United States known to be prone to high employee turnover. With regards to Europe, only little information is available in the field of low-skilled employee retention in the fast food industry.

Farmers Cooperative has in recent years developed from national markets to cross-border, international, collaborations. One example is the merger between the Swedish dairy company Arla and Danish MD Foods, where the companies collectively are sought to reduce transaction costs and thus improve efficiency. The Swedish market for commodities (fertilizers and pesticides) in agriculture has for many years been dominated by a few large players, with little opportunity for grain associations and local grain companies to offer their customers a varied range of commodities with a competitive pricing.To change this state, a majority of Swedish and Danish grain associations and local grain companies have established a trans-national cooperation. Through the establishment of the organization DLA Agro, they offer their customers a good variety of products with competitive prices. This study investigates thus according to the theory of cooperative models to what extent and how the DLA Agro helps to create benefits for the Swedish member companies.

The proportion of women entrepreneurs in Sweden is, as in many countries, smaller than the proportion of men entrepreneurs. Sweden has therefore created political measures with the ambition to increase women entrepreneurship. However, knowledge about the determinants of women entrepreneurship is needed in order to enable the promotion of it and, at the same time one can question the treatment of women entrepreneurs as a homogenous group. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the determinants of women entrepreneurship and whether these determinants fluctuate regionally. If this proves to be the case, a more spatial/individual approach should be used, when creating measures to promote entrepreneurship.

AbstractThis qualitative study has been made to examine which factors that are required to create a work place that can be associated with loyal co-workers. The study covers half structured interviews with nine people on different levels and with different positions, within a manufacturing company in Värmland. Our ambition with this study is to find out if, and if so, in what way the view on loyalty and which factors that are required to encourage loyalty, differ depending on witch level one belongs to in the organization. Our thesis is that our respondents will have various ways of expressing the term loyalty, and that these various ways are linked to the different levels that each employee is currently stationed at.The result of this study shows that the way people look at loyalty, and what loyalty is really about, does not differ that much among our respondents, regardless of their level. The factors that, according to the respondents, are important if one wants to create a work place that can be associated with loyal co-workers are: to be able to feel trust towards and have faith in those one works with, as well as the company and the way things are being run, to be able to experience the feeling of community, and that one is happy with ones work place, as well as ones co-workers.

The aim of this thesis is to map the intellectual base, and identify the general research interests, of Cultural Policy studies. In addition to this the thesis also aims to trace the uses of theoretical and conceptual approaches within the identified research interests. This is done by analysing citations from 130 articles published in the leading scientific journal International Journal of Cultural Policy between the years 2002-2007 using the bibliometric method author cocitation analysis (ACA). The results of the ACA confirm the overall notion that the research field of cultural policy studies is an ambiguous one, even when it?s studied with a quantitative method specialised in uncovering hidden structures within a given field as ACA.

Studien har genomförts på ett stålföretag som startade friskvårdsprojektet 55+ för anställda som är 55 år eller äldre. Syftet med denna studie är att få en bild över vad äldre anställda har för föreställningar om att arbeta till 65 och diskutera hur friskvårdsprojektet 55+ kan påverka deras förutsättningar att vara kvar i arbete till pensionsålder. I studien användes kvalitativ intervju som metod och undersökningsgruppen bestod av tio anställda på företaget.Förutsättningar som de intervjuade tog upp för att arbeta kvar rörde arbetet, hälsan, tajming med partner och ekonomin och många upplevde att de inte skulle kunna arbeta till 65 som de gör idag. Det fanns en besvikelse över att företaget inte längre erbjöd avtalspension i samma utsträckning som tidigare, eftersom de intervjuade mentalt hade förberett sig inför en pensionärstillvaro. Att de intervjuade från början inte var inställda på att arbeta till 65 kan ha påverkat deras upplevda förutsättningar i arbetet.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the concept of empowerment and its meaning in the political document "En Förnyad Folkhälsopolitik" from the present Swedish government, containing guidelines and politics in the area of public health. The underlying question was if it could be considered as representative for some kind of general "empowerment approach" since the concept is central to the very definition of social work by the International Federation of Social Workers IFSW and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).By comparing its definition and consequences in the document with a historical review of different contexts of empowerment the conclusion was made that such a common approach doesn´t exist at all. The meaning of empowerment in the central document showed some similarities with the "northamerican" version of the concept represented by the social scientist Charles Murray, which is just one of the political meanings of empowerment. Alternative ways of understanding the concept was also presented such as being a tool of a constant conflict between central political principles or as a fashionable but not important word. Another alternative was to consider it a means of power through witch different political discourses tries to dominate the world..

År 2004, införde Sverige revisionsstandarden RS, Revision i Sverige, vilket grundade sig i det dåvarande ISA (International Standards on Auditing) som gavs ut av det internationella revisorsorganet IFAC, International Federation of Accountants. Från om med den 1 januari 2011 införde Sverige tillämpningen av den internationella revisionsstandarden ISA (International Standards on Auditing) fullt ut. Denna standard innebär en del förändringar som måste införas i revisionen. Vi har i denna studie främst fokuserat på de förändringar som skett i revisionsberättelsen.  Dessa förändringar innebär att revisionsberättelsen fått ett annorlunda utseende och att revisorernas term, ?hög men inte absolut säkerhet?, ersatts med termen ?rimlig säkerhet?.

The essay's purpose is to find out why municipalities engaged in local labor market policies and the study focused on a smaller survey unit. In the paper an analysis is made of the Torsås municipality's labor market policy. The work also intends to structure the political organization and their cooperation with other players. The survey methods used were interviews and a case study. The essay results are based on two interviews.