The different aspects of each individual construction project such as the general conditions, design and economic restrictions as well as many more factors mean it is difficult to standardize building processes or plan in detail based on past experiences. As a result operational efficiency is often reduced, and unnecessary waste is generated. To make an organization more efficient and therefore reduce waste production everybody involved needs to appreciate and understand the improvements that can increase the organization?s efficiency. To investigate these improvements a time study was performed on two different construction sites, both of which involved buildings being constructed of prefabricated steel and concrete elements.

Background: The way in which corporate managers interpret, reason and evaluate uncertainties and constant changes, and how they take advantage of their experiences and wisdom can make a big difference for the long term survival of their companies. The requirements for efficiency and flexibility have increased in many ways, especially concerning the workforce needed and its degree of competency. In Sweden, employee recruiting industry has grown concurrently with the changes in the Swedish economy. Purpose: The purpose is to better understand the recruiting industry by performing a theoretical evaluation from a cognitive perspective. Delimitation: We intended to study the cognitive characteristics of the Swedish recruitment industry.

The different aspects of each individual construction project such as the general conditions, design and economic restrictions as well as many more factors mean it is difficult to standardize building processes or plan in detail based on past experiences. As a result operational efficiency is often reduced, and unnecessary waste is generated. To make an organization more efficient and therefore reduce waste production everybody involved needs to appreciate and understand the improvements that can increase the organization?s efficiency. To investigate these improvements a time study was performed on two different construction sites, both of which involved buildings being constructed of prefabricated steel and concrete elements.

PURPOSE: To investigate to what extent product brand positioning models can be used to analyzecorporate brand positioning;METHODOLOGY: The phenomenon is observed from a positivist epistemological position within a primarilyinductive research design. The research strategy is defined as qualitative, while the method of ethnographiccontent analysis is implemented to analyze primary data;THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE: Product and brand positioning literature; Product brand positioning rhombus;EMPIRICAL DATA: Ethnographic content analysis of brand commercials;CONCLUSION: As shown by the extensive literature review product brands (PB) and corporate brands (CB) coexistin corporate environments. One of key insights of this study shows that product brand positioning(PBP) and corporate brand positioning (CBP) processes can also co-exist in the same corporate environment.Moreover, PBs can be built based on the CB, making the investment in CB a long term return on investment.The study also observes that PBP messages include the ?against whom? attribute, highlighting differentiationin the competitive environment; when on the corporate level, this evolves, and in some cases becomes quitethe contrary, when the concept of ?from whom? or ?by whom? is stressed more than the differentiation amongother CBs in the competitive environment. This stresses the importance of including brand identity elementsin CBP..

The purpose of this paper is to perform an in-depth analysis of how New Public Management reforms have impacted management practises in two publicly financed elderly care providers in Sweden. The paper studies one public and one private elderly care provider and analyses to what extent they have implemented New Public Management methods. The results are based on interviews with several persons within the two organisations and analysed using the seven New Public Management doctrines as described by Christopher Hood (1991; 1995). The major finding in the thesis is that the level of exposure towards New Public Management reforms differs between the two studied organisations where the private provider is exposed to the reforms to a greater extent than the public. The paper concludes that the main reasons for the low extent of exposure in the public provider could be attributed to the lack of measurable standards performance as well as the proximity to the political leadership..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate which the main determinants of capital structure in Swedish listed firms are and to identify which incentives lies behind managers choice of capital structure determinants. Further, the study investigates whether the Post Keynesian theory and theories which incorporate behavioral aspects can be used to explain the capital structure decisions or if the traditional Neoclassical theory give an better explanation. We have used a qualitative method to analyze the determinants of capital structure and the managers incentives behind capital structure decision. We conducted a survey which was sent to 83 Chief Financial Managers and financial executives in Swedish firms listed on Mid Cap or Large Cap. The questionnaire was on-line which enabled for the respondents to quickly and convenient respond.

The purpose with this bachelor thesis is to identify risks and insufficiencies concerning the production at WilloMaskin AB. The project is limited to only 4 machines, where theories as ?OEE? (overall equipment efficacy) should be illuminated and analyzed. The theory of ?Single Minute Exchange of Die? is also presented.The method used in this project is mostly based on qualitative studies but also quantitative studies are presented.

Patients in intensive care are often intubated, and therefore unable to speak, which leads to difficulties in communication. The ICU is a very stressful environment and can be experienced as foreign and frightening by both patients and their close ones. The ICU nurse?s caring responsibilities includes both the care of the critically ill patient and the support of relatives who are often in shock. This balance is not always straightforward, and acting professionally in both instances can lead to problems.

Global Software Development (GSD) is based on a geographical distance where teams are spread throughout the world. The related research have for a long time addressed the challenges presented by geographical distances. GSD is basically a necessity for many businesses to use in order to reduce development costs, reduce production time and to maintain high quality. The study aims to investigate the relationship between the reality of a specific maintenance project. Thus, our research question: How do distributed maintenance teams experience temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distances? To achieve the purpose of the study, we chose to perform a case study of a global consulting company which recently started a new system maintenance project.

Enligt PISAs undersökning (Skolverket, 20I3) uppvisar svenska elever idag sämre prestationer i läsförståelse och matematik. Många påverkansfaktorer är omdiskuterade men varken lässvårigheter eller matematiksvårigheter har berörts. I relation till detta upprättas en litteraturstudie med syftet att undersöka huruvida lässvårigheter samverkar med matematiksvårigheter och hur det påverkar matematikprestationer. Resultatet av studien visar att lässvårigheter inte alltid påverkar matematiskprestationer. Somliga elever uppvisar svårigheter medan andra inte gör det, dock synliggörs kombinationen läs- och matematiksvårigheter oftare än svårigheterna var för sig.

This paper describes a factor analysis applied at the data of the European Union structural indicators. These are the official indicators for wealth and economic development in the European Union with main use to evaluate the outcomes of the year 2000 Lisbon goals for making the European Union the world?s strongest economy by 2010. The purpose of the data is to serve for comparing and ?learning by doing?-policies, but have, due to size and format, so far been hard to use for a good compare between member countries.

To be able to maintain an adequate ITservice for various users and needs,more municipalities are looking at thepossibility for mergers of local ITdepartments. One solution for mergingmultiple services/functions and creatingsynergy opportunities is called SharedService Center (SSC). The concept of SSCis that the administrative serviceitself becomes a core activity withinthe organization. The aim of this thesisis to provide municipalities who areconsidering a merging of their local ITdepartments with recommendations on howto design the Shared IT Service Center.Recommendations are outlined based on ananalysis of IT-management literature,reports and by conducting a study onthree ongoing collaborations.The conclusions drawn from the studysuggest guidelines for the design of aShared IT Service Center formunicipalities. These are as following:Create a vision associated with aspecific and structured target state.Identify needs for different targetgroups in municipalities and set acommon standard.Create a clear and practical model/SLAappearance of the cooperation andagreement.Ensure the individual municipalitiescommissioning skills in order to notlose it in the context of a common IToperation.Find an organization that is democraticfor member municipalities andfacilitates long-term partnership.Specify the operation and maintenance sothat it can be regulated and controlledEstablish a common help desk.Establish a common standard andconsolidated infrastructure before theintroduction of a common technology platform..

The short term effect of phosphorus in sewage sludge was investigated to establish howmuch of this a farmer can grant him- or herself, if using sewage sludge as a phosphorusfertilizer. Possible differences in plant availability between sludge phosphorus precipitatedby iron, aluminum or calcium integrations were studied in a sandy soil at two pH levels.The sludges were analyzed using pot and incubation trials. As the intention was to investigategrowth limitation due to phosphorus deficiency, a soil with low phosphorus supplywas chosen as well as a low phosphorus application rate. Sludge corresponding to 12kg phosphorus per hectare was applied. Treatments fertilized by sludge were compared totreatments where 0, 6 and 12 kg phosphorus per hectare from mineral fertilizer was applied.Every treatment was replicated six times.

The purpose of the thesis is to describe how environmental compensation is carried through when it comes to exploitation of Natura 2000. The thesis also relates to the three theories of planning synoptic, advocacy and transactive. Three cases of environmental compensation have been studied from three different countries where an exploitation of the Natura 2000 is done. Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands have all been working with environmental impact assessments as a demand to be able to carry through their projects. The projects concern the development of a railway track, an industry and a port which all have been approved by the EU-commission to carry on because of socioeconomic reasons.

This thesis investigates management accounting systems in a Swedish health care environment. Through a qualitative case study of an activity-based cost accounting system that was introduced in 1994 at S:t Görans Sjukhus, a large Stockholm hospital, the following questions are addressed: What benefits can an activity-based cost accounting system offer the Swedish health care providers? What are the potential problems impeding the implementation of such a system? Main findings: an activity-based cost accounting system can improve the understanding of where costs are generated in the production processes. Comparisons between alternative production processes are improved, and the data may serve as a basis for internal pricing measures. Concerning the second question, difficulty in reconciliating the principles of economic control with the culture present in a hospital is identified as the main obstacle to a new management accounting system..