More elderly, fewer hands: The way forward Sustaining the care workforce as a political challenge ? A case study of?elderly care in Kalmar Municipality This study examines how Human Capital Theory and New Public?Management are reflected in the governance of eldercare in Kalmar?municipality. Based on document analysis and interviews with politicians?and senior officials, the study shows that investments in staff competence?and well-being coexist with efficiency-oriented management practices.?Rather than being contradictory, these approaches are often combined in?everyday governance. The study concludes that the main challenge is not?funding, but capacity and that sustainable eldercare depends on aligning?national goals with local conditions and strong human capital.

The aim of the study was to examine collaboration and professional perspectives on the best interest of the child in regards to working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Firstly, our result show that counselling is available for the unaccompanied children from case workers, staff, school counsellors and emergency psychiatric care. All of the participants in this study describe the need for long-term counselling for unaccompanied children, however, providing the long-term counselling is not the primary purpose of the organisations in question. Therefore an additional service-provider working with counselling is a necessity. Secondly, the study explores the participants? professional perspectives on the best interest of the child.

Introduction: Each year 1200-1300 patients are diagnosed with head neck cancer. Treatment that involves radiotherapy can cause severe side effects for example trismus that affects quality of life.Purpose: To study health-related quality of life in patients who have undergone radiation treatment for head and neck cancer and participated in a intervention group who received training intended to prevent trismus or in a control group who received standard treatment.Method: This is a prospective study in which data is collected from 66 patients participating in a randomized study aiming to evaluate a training program to prevent trismus. Thirty three participated in the intervention group and thirty three in the control group. Both patient groups assessed health related quality of life (HRQOL) with EORTC QLQ C30 and QLQ-H&N35, at start and end of the radiation treatment, and at 3 and 6-months after completing radiation treatment.Results: There is no difference between the intervention and control groups regarding symptoms, functional status and global health, except for intake of nutritional supplements.  For both groups almost all scales measuring HRQOL deteriorated under the radiation treatment. However, 3 and 6 months after end of radiotherapy HRQOL had improved and had returned to the baseline values.

Traditional financial management has lately been criticized, since it gives inadequate and unilateral information for decisions and strategy of the operation. The purpose of this essay is to investigate if a balanced scorecard is able to work together with a budget and become a stronger control system for the management. Essential theory underlies the gathering of data as well as the analysis, and the empirical investigation is based on personal interviews. The conclusions drawn from my analysis are that two parallel control systems could complement each other?s weaknesses.

Introduction: Public health researchers have long been focusing on investigating health inpopulations through determinants such as income inequalities. Nevertheless, incomeinequalities can be considered an effect of the organization of welfare regimes. The publichealth status is largely affected by the organization of welfare regimes and consequently thereare large differences in health within and between welfare regimes. How are these differencesdistributed and how can they be explained?Aim: To compare health between welfare state regimes with the use of Esping-Andersen?swelfare regime typology and to investigate the relationship between welfare statedeterminants and health.Methods: A literary review based on 12 scientific articles.

The purpose of this study was to, by using thematic analysis, investigate how psychologists experience and are affected by treating sexually assaulted individuals, if and how they use different coping strategies to maintain their own wellbeing and how they are affected by the organization. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight psychologists working in a clinic dedicated for patients with history of sexual assault. The analysis identified one general theme and four themes. The general theme Consciousness and active choices minted the other themes. Participants' awareness of their own and colleagues? health supplied conditions for inner reflection, which along with concern for potential negative effects resulted in active choices for mental health and work environment.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

Management control systems are a popular area of research and a lot of new research has been done over the past years. This development has been looking into new situations and circumstances, and interdisciplinary studies are being made to further understand the connection between different fields of study. A new field of study that has grown significantly over the past few years is the connection between management control systems and entrepreneurship. Leading researchers have proposed a number of questions for further research and one of them is the board of directors? use of management control systems in entrepreneurial firms.The purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities in the board of directors? use of management control systems between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.The study was conducted as a deductive qualitative study through interviews with respondents from entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.

Swedish consulting companies within the architecture-and engineering business exist on a market that is distinguished by an increasing globalization and internationalization. The companies? commissions are based mostly on long-term, personal clientele. These relations are threatened by a huge number of coming retirements and high employee turnover.Consequently these companies need to improve and strengthen their relationships with existing customers, to create long-term employee and customer loyalty. The purpose of this essay was to analyze and evaluate consulting companies´ internal marketing.

Background: Diabetes mellitus Type 1 is one of the most common chronicle diseases in childhood. This signifies big changes in the daily life for the child and its family. Aim: The aim of the study was to illustrate the family?s situation when the child falls ill in Type 1 diabetes. Method: The search for literature has been done both manually and in databases.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how social workers, working in a management position in the health care system, perceive the encounter of the medical and social perspective. With seven qualitative interviews, the study tries to conclude whether or not social workers are accepted at managerial positions within the health care sector. The social worker is, as a manager in health care, a leader but at the same time in a professional alienation from the medical caregivers. Organizations in the health care sector are often multi professional and have their own long standing tradition, history and culture. The results show that the conditions for social workers, working in a management position in health care appear to be agreeable.

One year Master's thesis, Degree of master in Business and Economics, School ofBusiness and Economics at Linnaeus University, Management, 4FE10E SpringSemester 2014.Author: Johanna Björklund and Sarah Gustafsson.Mentor: Magnus Forslund.Title: Lean in the public sector - Potential barriers to a long-term Lean work.Background: Organizational changes are something that is constantly done inorganizations, and in the last decade, there has arisen a plethora of different changemodels. A reorganization that is popular among companies today is Lean. Lean is aconcept that was developed within the Japanese automotive industry, but has evolvedfrom the Japanese shop floor and is now a concept that can be found in, for example,several Swedish municipalities.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to create an understanding of why the conceptLean may have difficulty getting a hold in the in the long term.Methodology: The study was done with a qualitative research approach and through anabductive approach. As we intended to create an understanding, of what potentialbarriers that may affect that a Lean work, in some cases, does not become a long-termcondition, it seemed natural to choose a hermeneutic approach to knowledge. Theempirical data collected via individual unstructured interviews, through a groupinterview, and by non-participant observations.

Today's unsustainable resource use is influenced by many factors. One key factor isproduction methods and patterns. Trough change of production patterns enterprises can bepart of the solution to a more sustainable society. This case study has analyzed environmentalperformance of the printer company Edita Västra Aros Ltd (EVA), who has gained awards forits environmental work, and what driving forces they have had during this work. The survey isbased on a qualitative method and the collected data consists of documents and staffinterviews, which have been analyzed with content analysis.

The manufacturing industry is currently in a short-term downturn while the competition is increasing. The result of this is that companies must find new ways to bring out their products. Traditional competitive strategies, such as low pricing, is not sufficient today as the customer is inquiring something more than just a good product. Higher demands are presented on an accurate, well functional, communication between customer and companies, as this has become an important strategic factor in achieving long-term profitability.The aim of this independent project was to analyze and evaluate the communication process between a company and its sales companies.In order to illustrate this process, a case study was carried out at Alfa Laval, their sales companies and employees at their distribution center in Tumba. In order to see the differences in attitudes between the management, the sales companies and the employees regarding communication and involvement a gap analysis were used.The theoretical part of the study considers theories about business mission, communication, involvement, quality and creating value.The result showed that a smaller gap exists between the sales companies and the management while a slightly larger one exists between the employees and the management.

Nature´s healing capacity is well known and is today an important asset in the protection against stress. Noise problems in cities and it´s green spaces are increasing which in turn provokes stress and in the long term can lead to cardiovascular diseases. To promote people?s health it is important that natural environments have good soundscapes, research show that visiting natural surroundings and listening to sounds of nature promote rehabilitation and relief stress. The purpose of this essay is to determine the value of rehabilitation in forests in Carlshem and Röbäck.