Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine why graduates in librarian- and information science are employed by private companies. An initial explanation could be the influence of information technology and its impact on the librarian. A second factor relates to how employers regard the librarian outside the confines of the traditional labour market. The study is primarily based upon qualitative interviews with representatives of Swedish companies who have employed librarians since 1993, the year that the education achieved third level academic recognition. Theoretically we relied upon Manuel Castells discussion on the rise of the information society and its influence on companies and the labour market.

Aim?Rekryteringsgruppen? (RG) is an organisation that through co-operating with the National Health service aims at optimizing the ability for physically disabled persons to rehabilitate. RG is a non-profit organisation ?using physical and mental exercise for disabled people, mainly neurologically disabled persons.? One of the goals that RG wants to achieve is ?that the target group will be able to live such an active and independent life as possible?. As no previous studies have been done in order to review the adaptation of RG:s work and its effects on the disabled, the purpose of this paper is to examine spinal cord injured individuals perception of independence concerning situation of life, ability to function and physical activity.MethodData have been collected by using three questionnaires.

This thesis examines history of the subject of mechatronics and innovation. The main reason tostudy mechatronics from a historical point of view is that it has never been done to a greater extent before. An overview is justified because various definitions have been used over the decades, but nowadays the subject has become more established. Focus in this thesis is mainly on development of the subject of mechatronics at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Innovation is the other aspect of this thesis.

This investigation is about how teachers in school can motivate and create interest for science among younger children. Teachers were interviewed about attitudes to their subject and how this affects their lessons.I have also tried to find out, both by interviewes but also by studying litterature, what the most important thing is to teach in science, which knowledge is necessarry in the future and why.My result indicates that teachers find science both interesting and important but at the same time they also think it is a difficult subject to teach even if they are educated. Both the litterature and the teachers in my study agree that knowledge in science gives us a chance to ask questions, take stands and solve problems and that this knowledge is important for us in our future..

Background: The main purpose of our study is to try to give an idea of what a multicultural school is and what difficulties girls find with Swedish as a second language. We are at the end of our teacher education, which means that in a few months, we will be responsible for creating environments that are conducive to the students and to ensure that opportunities that allow the students to develop exist. We are aware that in a multicultural school that we no have in Sweden there has been some discussion regarding the Swedish language, which can be interpreted as the Swedish language being at a disadvantage with the students because of all the integration that occurs in schools and the lack of knowledge regarding the different cultural backgrounds. To get this knowledge we had to seek more knowledge on the subject.

The ambition with this study is to look into and create an understanding for how an intranet can work as a support system in work processes in capacity as a source of knowledge. We want to enhance the understanding for which kind of knowledge that can be coded in and transmitted by an intranet, and which that is lost in this process. We also want to clarify what it takes to get this knowledge, in collaboration with the intranet, to support the work in an organization. It is a qualitative case study at a Swedish bank. It consisted of semi standardized, half structured interviews with five people in one of the bank?s local offices.

The purpose of this ideology critical study is to investigate the hidden content in the reform Gy11 and compare it with the concept new public management. After the clarification of the hidden content, we compare the structure of the organization in Swedish high schools with the structure in public sector called new public management. The main questions of this study are the following: Is it possible to see the foundation of new public management in the Swedish high schools when it comes to the views of knowledge and the formation of goals? Which similarities can we find when we look at the organization new public management and the Swedish high school?The result showed many similarities, both regarding the views of knowledge and the formations of goals. The structure of new public management has been largely implemented in the Swedish high schools and the schools now focus more on instrumental knowledge rather than universal knowledge based on understanding.This is not surprising due to the social progress.

The aims were to investigate the public awareness of aphasia in a Swedish sample and examine if knowledge of aphasia relates to gender, education or age. Participant?s sources of knowledge of aphasia were examined. A total of 153 individuals, aged 18-90, were surveyed. Participants were categorized into three groups; heard of, knowledge of and not heard of aphasia.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, and thereby highlight, the new role of special needs teachers in conducting educational development in the fields of linguistics and literacy. The thesis defines how educational development, as described by special needs teachers, can be conducted and what conditions they perceive for such development. Factors which, according to special needs teachers, promote or hinder the development are discussed.The study uses a qualitative method involving knowledge-creating dialogues, analyzed hermeneutically, with two special needs teachers. Results are then discussed in light of relevant research and sociocultural theory. The study indicates that special needs teachers? main tool, to support teachers, is diverse use of dialogue.

The e-commerce in Sweden has increased each year for the past several years, but still just over half of all the consumers feels worry about payment security. This could be the reason why over half of the consumers just shopped about one time on the Internet during the whole year of 2009. Another reason could be that the many consumers have a lack of trust to the different payment methods that are available during payment on the Internet, because they might don't possess enough knowledge regarding the payment methods and their security. If the consumers were to gain more knowledge about the payment methods and their security, it may lead to that the they would feel more comfortable when shopping online, and do it more frequently. It is this that will be investigated in this paper.The purpose of the paper  is to research if consumers believed knowledge concerning the different payment methods available on the web and their security influence the consumers trust in the payment methods.

On March 1, 2012, Google introduced its new privacy policy which is applicable to all Google services. This means that search history may be saved by Google indefinitely and may also be associated with the specific account during the first 18 months. We assume that few people read this policy and we have hypotheses that a deeper knowledge of the contents of the privacy policy affects how users perceive Google as a company and/or the usage of Google services. In this study, we have conducted surveys at the IT University of Gothenburg, to investigate how many participants that have read or possess some knowledge of the privacy policy. We have found that very few participants claim to have read the privacy policy.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how social workers perceive the concept of knowledge within social services, particularly within children and youth services. Our goal is also to study the employer's expectations and demands on graduate social workers. The main questions we address in this thesis are; What knowledge is seen as useful by employers and graduate social workers working in social welfare offices? To what extent does university education bring useful knowledge to the work being done by social workers? What practical knowledge is there in the workplace for social workers to learn? When recruiting, what expectations does the employer have of graduate social workers? What challenges are there with recruiting a graduate social worker?We have interviewed six social workers and four employers in the social childcare division in different municipalities in Skåne region, Sweden. We have used epistemology in our analysis.

Background: Many authors consider knowledge to be a significant source for competitive advantage. Replicating companies found their competitiveness on an ability to leverage its knowledge base by replicating its business model in new contexts, a process often referred to as the McDonalds approach. Several authors emphasize that an efficient method for knowledge transfer may increase the risk for imitation. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine in an explorative manner how strategies for replicating complex knowledge systems are employed and developed. Furthermore, our ambition is to explore the notion of replication strategy.

The purpose of this bachelor essay is to describe and analyze budgeting in nonprofit organizations. To do that, we used a qualitative method and accomplished seven interviews in four different football clubs. Our idea is to create understanding by combine theory and empiric, and therefore we have an abductive research strategy.The subject of this essay is very topical in view of the recently emerging trend that Allsvenska football clubs are paying increasing deficit. This can have a major impact on the progress and must be stopped. The first step is to make a more realistic budget.The conclusions drawn from this essay suggest that it is not how the budget per se, but how to work from the planned budget that affects what results you gets in the end.