The structure and performance of grocery distribution in Sweden has changed profoundly since the second world war. Increasing access and usage of the private car, in combination with an accommodating town planning has enhanced the exploitation of scale economies within distribution firms. There is, however, some ambiguity concerning the overall efficiency of the distribution system when the costs associated with travelling and purchasing performed by households are treated as an integrated part of the total distribution cost function. The purpose of this master thesis is to develop the foundation of a spatial optimisation model, which defines the most efficient distribution system. The underlying idea is that the optimal localisation and size of grocery stores is a function of economies of scale within the firms weighed against distributions costs within the households, such as transportation costs.

The aim writing this essay is to understand and to explain difficulties with communications during sign language interpreting at the Video Relay Service (VRS). Another aim is also to identify the necessery conditions for communications at the VRS and to investigate why difficulties may arise in lack of these necessary conditions. The questions of this essay are: Which are the vital important difficulties in communication at the VRS and why do these difficulties arise?To answer these questions, four sign language interpreters working with the VRS, have been interviewed. These interviews constitute the empirical data of the essay.

The purpose of our essay was to understand better how two companies manage ethnical diversity in their organization and standards of a multicultural organization. For study objects we selected two companies nominated as ?good examples? of companies working with ethnical diversity in their organization. The study objects are Föreningsparbanken and Pågen AB in Sweden. The result verifies that both companies have by some term a heterogenic staff of workmen in some parts of the organization although the heterogeneity occurs only on a lower level at the organizational hierarchy.

The purpose of this study is to compare the economic differences between withdraw of forest fuel and withdraw of pulpwood in first thinning, to see which method gives the maximum profitability (income - cost). Another purpose is to investigate the economic impact of the thicket cleaning. The study compares four different methods: i) pulpwood output with thicket cleaning, ii) pulpwood output without thicket cleaning, iii) forest fuel output with thicket cleaning and iv) forest fuel output without thicket cleaning. The study was conducted in a 30-years old stand, dominated by spruce, outside Harg in Uppland. The method that generated the best economic net income was pulpwood without thicket cleaning. It generated a positive net of 1,383 SEK per hectare. Forest fuel output without thicket cleaning also generated a positive net in 720 kronor per hectare.

Domestic violence is a serious public health issue that concerns everyone. Public health service is one of many authorities where battered women seek help. The purpose of this literature review was to describe which factors affect the encounter between battered women and nurses in public health departments. The method consisted of analysing 11 scientific articles. The result is presented in themes that show the different attitudes in the encounter between nurses and battered women.

In this qualitative study the authors explores, by studying several quality-development models what quality in leadership is. The models are: Total Quality Management; SIQ?s model for customer-oriented organizational development; the EFQM excellence model; the ISO 9000:2000 standard; and Six Sigma. These models will be compared from Deming?s list for upper management; the Situational Leadership Theory; and the Contingency Theory.

Problem: The Swedish wage-setting has changed since the time for the breakthrough of the industrialism until today. Before that, wages often consisted of perquisites or goods that could be exchanged against other goods. Rural people were often self-sufficient. In some cases the farmer owned the land, in other cases they where tenants. At the time for the breakthrough of industrialism the demand for similar labour were increased.

This study test the short-termism of companies listed on the market OMX Stockholm 30. We will use a deductive point of view where the purpose of this study is to investigate whether corporate short-term returns can be explained by the independent variables related to corporate governance and compensation practices. This is to investigate whether there is an intentional action on raising the short-term return in order to achieve a higher CEO compensation. In the study, theories dealing with corporate governance and agency theory have resulted in two hypotheses. Basic Hypothesis H1 is: if short-termism of Swedish industry due to the company's short-term returns can be explained by the independent variables related to the company's management and compensation. This hypothesis could not be verified through the quantitative study. Alternative Hypothesis H2 is: the compensation of a CEO can be explained by the independent variables related to company performance and size.

This thesis is a case-study of an ongoing court case between the Swedish Competition Agency and Växjö Municipality about a set-up requirement to the long-distance heating system for newly built private houses on municipality owned land. This requirement was set up as part of the municipality?s long-term environmental goals; however the Competition Agency claims that the demand is damaging the free market in the municipality. The purpose of this thesis is to determine which normative assumptions the decision makers have based their actions and re-action on, and whether or not these assumptions are valid, thru theoretical ideal types. This is determined via method of textual analysis.

This study has been executed at the Public Employment Office, an institution that has beensubject for much debate during the last couple of years. The government has instructed theLabour Market Board to change the Public Employment Office toward a more effectiveorganization. This study examines one of the Public Employment Offices that are included in apilot project that aims to improve and develop work methods with the objective to become amore service minded organization. From this starting point we have investigated which effect thisorganizational change has had on the employee within this organization and within the pilotproject. In addition we investigate whether attitudes of the unemployed has an effect on thestaff´s work situation.

Bryggeriet är en ideell förening som ingår i det civila samhället i och med att man tar ett tydligt socialt ansvar för framför allt ungdomar och deras fritidssysselsättning i Malmö. Föreningen är mitt uppe i en organisationsförändring till följd av en längtan efter stabilitet i organisationen men även en önskan om att hitta nya finansieringsalternativ till de bidrag man får från kommunen. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att belysa vad som händer med en organisation i det civila samhället när inledningsfasen är slut och organisationen utvecklas och går vidare till att etablera sig på marknaden. Undersökningen är utformad som en fallstudie vilket bland annat betyder att det är en specifik enhet som är studerad. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten i min undersökning har varit DiMaggios och Powells teori om den institutionella isomorfin som menar på att organisationer inom samma fält blir mer lika varandra över tiden.

Confrontation naming is commonly used in speech and language pathology to diagnose neurogenic communication disorders and evaluate naming ability. The existing Swedish assessment instruments for adults consist of pictures depicting nouns. In this study, parts of the instrument An Object and Action Naming Battery were used, containing pictures depicting both nouns and verbs. The study?s purpose was to explore the degree of difficulty in the material, based on the naming of the participants, and examine whether different variables correlate with the results in confrontation naming.

Our society has become a society of knowledge. The answer to the question of how to reduce unemployment has become more and more unified: education. In this case, higher education, meaning college and university. With this disposition in our society, how does it affect the students? How does this change of society and our universities affect the students of these institutions? In this study we have chosen to examine the choices of students in universities in several Swedish cities.

En god arbetsmiljö är en lagstadgad rättighet för arbetstagaren enligt Arbetsmiljölagen. Arbetet med att säkerställa en god arbetsmiljö kallas arbetsmiljöarbete och är en nyckelfaktor för att skapa hälsosamma och attraktiva arbetsplatser. Medarbetarundersökningar är en undersökningsmetod i det systematiska arbetsmiljöarbetet men kan också användas i syfte att ta reda på medarbetarnas uppfattningar om sin arbetssituation med målet att skapa verksamhetsförbättringar.I denna studie har syftet varit att undersöka vilken roll som medarbetarundersökningen spelar i chefernas arbetsmiljöarbete. Studien undersökte hur cheferna arbetar med arbetsmiljöarbete och hur arbetet med resultatet från en medarbetarundersökning genomförts. Studien genomfördes på en funktion med tre organisationsnivåer och bygger på 12 kvalitativa intervjuer med funktions-, avdelnings- och enhetschefer.Studien visar att medarbetarundersökningen spelar en viktig roll i chefernas arbetsmiljöarbete på alla organisationsnivåer både som diskussionsunderlag i ledningsgrupper och i dialogen med medarbetarna samt som bevis på att genomförda arbetsmiljöinsatser fungerar.

Several surveys indicate that corporate leaders still consider the aligning of IT and business functions as a top management issue. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how coordination emerges between IT and business departments and how formal structures intended to coordinate are influenced by human action. To deepen the understanding of this phenomenon we seek to analyze IT/business coordination from a perspective based on practice theory. A field study was conducted where observations and informal interviews were carried out at the IT department of a global company. The empirical analysis indicate that coordination problems between IT and business departments is in part affected by embedded factors such as different goals and perspectives on how IT is to be used in the organization or how to design IT related processes.