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.

The project was performed in collaboration with Husqvarna, one of the world?s leading manufacturer in the market of electric outdoor products. The report is a thesis work of a bachelor mechanical engineer program, in the field product development and design.The project is a study of the development opportunities within drive belt for a gear driven gearbox to one of Husqvarnas petrol powered hedge trimmers. A big part of the project was also to find combinations of materials for all components in the gearbox, to reduce weight and maintain or improve the performance of the system. Belt drive was of interest to investigate as an alternative solution to the current design that can reduce wear on the system at a performance test performed in the company before the product is released to market.

In this paper we investigate 67 Swedish buyouts in the manufacturing and retailing sector between the years 2004-2012. The purpose is to measure changes in a set of financial key ratios to see if private equity firms are able to improve performance in their portfolio companies compared to a peer group consisting of other firms within the same industries. Furthermore, we examine if there is a difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors. The key results are that the private equity owned firms have not outperformed their peers with respect to the chosen key ratios. We also conclude that there is no significant difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors..

Syftet med studien var att skapa en bättre förståelse för hur några juniorishockeyspelare och deras tränare ser på hur faktorerna lagsammanhållning, spelaromsättning, roller och prestation förhåller sig till varandra och hur de arbetade med dessa faktorer. Instrumenten som användes var GEQ (Group Environment Questionnaire) och två helstrukturerade intervjuguider. Deltagarna i studien var ishockeyspelarna i ett J18-lag (n=18) och deras tränare (n=1) i en medelstor klubb i Sverige. Resultatet visade att samtliga intervjudeltagare upplevde ett positivt samband mellan lagsammanhållning, spelaromsättning, rollklarhet och prestation. Sambandet beskrevs dock som cirkulärt, att alla faktorerna var beroende av varandra och påverkades av varandra.

The purpose of this study was to describe experiences in daily social life of parents of children with psychotic illness. Five parents with long-term experience of psychotic illness have been interviewed. The frame of reference in emotion theories of Thomas Scheff and Randall Collins have been used to analyze the results. The study is qualitative and has a phenomenological approach to shed lights of meanings in daily social life. The following meanings was found: Openness with certain reservation shows that honesty is important for the feeling of solidarity, Social expectations in daily life describes the parents´own expectations as well as expectations from others.

The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam?s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development.

In the last couple of decades, corporate law firms have rapidly grown to become both influential and highly profitable corporations in the business world. Today, the largest law firms are assumed to bear far greater resemblance to large and often multinational public limited companies than the small businesses generally associated with legal services. However, one interesting specific set them apart from the majority of other companies; the partnership and its interrelated profit sharing. The aim of this study has therefore been to investigate partner compensation systems in corporate law firms and further examine what implications chosen compensation systems have on the organizations. Using a multiple case study, including 7 of Scandinavia?s largest and most well known law firms, the results show that partner compensation systems are highly individual and the critical question is whether to employ seniority based or performance based compensation systems.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate what kind of motives where behind the long term decisions for the Swedish military defense in 2000 and 2004. This leads to the questions that the essay is meant to answer; 1. Were the motives behind the two decisions for the Swedish military defense of economic character or an adjustment of security and defense policy? 2. Was the parliament united in the two decisions and if they were not, why? 3.

The DuPont formula is one of the most well known and basic tools used for financial statement analysis and is highly useful for understanding firms strategies and operating environment. Previous studies on American listed companies have also shown that analysis of the changes in the DuPont components is useful in forecasting contexts. In this thesis we test whether disaggregating the change in return on net operating assets provides incremental information about future performance for Swedish listed and not listed companies. We find that the change in asset turnover is a leading indicator of increased profitability for both listed and private companies, regardless of size. We also find evidence that the usefulness of the disaggregation for understanding future performance is greater in capital intense industries and lesser in service industries..

The thesis focus on how organizations can improve the ability of absorbing coworkers ideas in purpose of gaining long term competitive advantage through innovations. The study was conducted at IKEA AB where a campaign to collect coworkers ideas was a big success given the quantity of ideas collected. This fact allows a comparative analysis of idea management in the shape of campaigns and in comparison, idea management in the everyday line-organization.The analysis show that fundamental factors for innovative environments such as organizational climate, culture and leadership perceives auspiciously by the respondents. However, lack of infrastructure such as systems and processes hinders coworkers ambitions to contribute with ideas.An important issue in idea management is the treatment of incentives for innovation. Results of the study show that the ?soft? incentives ?feedback, encouragement and attention have a higher impact in coworkers willingness to the contribution of ideas than for instance monetary rewards..

The actual project presents the development of a testing rig for a steam engine. A short overviewabout the development of steam engines is presented, until arriving to the development of thepresent engine, which will require to be tested in different ways.The testing rig studied on this project (based on a Lanchester engine) will be used to testdifferent materials and layouts for the group Piston-Cylinder.The engine is a high performance steam power engine, which is going to have a highpower/dimensions ratio, what will lead to require high performance components and materials.An introduction to the testing rig is presented, and the entire design project is done in order toreplace the disappeared documentation of the current testing rig, built on the 1970?s. Also somemodifications done in the original testing rig are presented, as well as some detected problemsand their possible solutions..

In 1936 a governmental breeding project was started with aim on military use. The police later came to use dogs from this project as well. In order to utilize dogs that could fit for other purposes training and education of dogs for search of different substances and of guide dogs for blind persons was performed. A political decision to privatize the whole dog programme was taken in 1992. During most part of the time one had serious economical issues since too few of the dogs that were bred could be considered to fulfil the basic demands for service. To satisfy the need of service dogs private bred dogs were bought as well.

Organizational learning has become more and more important in the last decades as the environment in which organizations exist continues to change rapidly and unexpectedly. In order for organizational learning to happen, the individuals within the organization must learn. Just as different individuals possess different skills, each individual also has their own learning style. As the use of teamwork increases, so does the need for techniques to put high performing teams together and with organizational learning as one of the objectives the question is, how do we maximize learning, efficiency and performance in teams? This study uses a quantitative method to examine how teams, from a course at the Stockholm School of Economics, perform on the individual learning, team efficiency and team performance scale based on the individual learning styles within the team.

This master thesis is about sustainable city planning and its debate. It is also concerned with networking, communication and web-based communication. Theories of sustainable development are discussed, along with the importance of communication for sustainable development. The report is directed towards landscape architects, architects, town planners, other designers and other interested readers.MotivationI believe that there is a need for an increased discussion concerning sustainability. Sustainable development is an important issue for city planners.

Prior research in human bird relations is relatively small and discussion about bird ecology in relation to humans is largely not discussed. The study means to understand how a difference in usage of birds and symbolization of a bird occurs. This will be answered through analysis of two bird species. The study uses three different sources of material to conclude its answers. The sources are graves with bones of predatory birds, material culture representing bird motifs and historical sources discussing mythology.