The purpose of this essay is to examine whether and how labor consultants, job coaches, guidance counselors promote the possibility of self-realization of the clients they encounter in their work. By analyzing, based on the theoretical framework, six semi-structured interviews of people having the chosen professions answer the questions "Do counselors promote client's opportunities for self-realization in their work?" and "If so: how is this practiced?". In the theoretical framework three important concepts are addressed: "identity", "recognition" and "self-realization". These are explained with the help of works by including Emma Engdahl, Anthony Giddens, Axel Honneth and Allison Weir.

Many? luxury? companies? within? the? fashion? industry? today? choose? to? extend? their? brands downwards? in? order? to? reach? new? customer? segments? and? hence? increase? their? profitability.? A? brand? extension? strategy? that? leverages? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? is? a ?new ?possibility ?for ?luxury ?brands ?to ?position ?themselves ?towards ?a ?broader ?customer ?base.?? Meanwhile? there? is? a? risk? that? the? extension? dilutes? the? image? of? the? luxury? brand? and? has? a? negative? effect? on? the? company? in? the? long? term.? Thus? a? tradeoff? exists? between? becoming? more? accessible? and? maintaining? the? exclusivity? of? the? luxury? brand.? The? objective? of? this? thesis ?is ?to ?investigate ?how ?luxury ?brands ?that ?perform? downward ?brand ?extensions ?to? reach? new? markets? can? succeed? with? this? strategy? without? diluting? the? brand? image.? This? is? achieved? by? studying? the? perceptions? of? the? new? target? segment? towards? the? extension? of? luxury? brands.? The? results? of? the? study? show? that? the? risk? of? brand? dilution? is? minimized when? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? are? transferred? to? the? brand? extension? while? the extension ?at ?the ?same ?time ?is ?successfully ?targeted ?towards ?the ?specific ?customer? segment..

The majority of managers of public libraries in Sweden also work as librarians on an operative level within the organisation. This thesis discusses how the manager role is affected by his/her specific assignments and multiple tasks. Seven public library managers, who work in districts with around 10 000 25 000 inhabitants, have been interviewed. They reflect upon their experience of leadership and different assignments. The main focus lies on: - leadership - communication - decision making - organisational development The interviews show some positive effects, the manager is present most of the time, has a great knowledge about everyday work and daily routines, and is also able to represent the library successfully in the local community.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to find out how young adults experience the library and the space that they have access to. I used semi-structured interviews to find out about this and interviewed eight youths between the ages of 15 and 18 in a medium sized city in the province of Västra Götaland in Sweden. I then analyzed the material with the help of Goffman?s theory about front stage and back stage. I also did a small comparison with results from previous studies.The result showed that the youths generally liked the library and the staff but they had opinions on some issues.

The purpose of this essay is to study how parents of children with disabilities young people make their choice of support and service LSS. The study takes its lead from questions designed to determine which interventions parents use for their children. What parents think about today's choice and if satisfactory, or if they have other wishes. It is also about how parents experience the freedom of choice and participation in the selection of interventions. Furthermore how the parent discuss the topic of choice from childhood and parental perspective.

This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of interest rate swap spreads in Sweden during the period 1999-2003. The results suggest that the spread between STIBOR and the general collateral repo rate is positively related to shorter maturity swap spreads. The risk premium associated with commercial bonds is positively related to swap spreads of all maturities. A negative relationship is observed between the term structure of interest rates and swap spreads. The short-term interest rate is positively related to spreads with shorter maturities.

This paper intends to examine the knowledge challenges in small IT companies which is going through rapid growth. The movement of information and knowledge is a social and very complex process. The challenge for technology is the social as information and knowledge requires. To believe blindly that technology will solve the problem is what many people think. In order to understand how technology can support information and knowledge management one needs to understand what information and knowledge is.

The purpose of this essay is to describe how probation service officers regard their professional role and their liberty of action within the motivational treatment program, MIK, and the probation organization. To answer the purpose three questions were formulated: 1) Does the probation service organization affect the individual discretion for the probation service officers, and in that case how? 2) Does the motivational treatment program, MIK, influence the probation officers? professionalism and their professional role? 3) What advantages and disadvantages do the probation service officers consider MIK being related to? The method conducted in the study was interviews with five probation service officers in Stockholm. The interviews were combined with a theoretical framework based on themes as organization, professional role, professionalism and motivation. The result showed that probation officers consider themselves to have a relatively high discretion within their work.

Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

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.

Mental illness is today the leading cause of long-term sick leave and insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout are among the most common conditions. The aim of the study was to investigate the stability of these conditions and how this is influenced by gender and age, as well as the extent to which these states are risk factors for each other. The participants were a random sample (n = 2336) from the general population in the age of 18-79 years. The results showed that stable illness was more common among women than men, and that stable illness decreased with aging. The stability itself was not affected by gender or age. Relations between the conditions were bidirectional and they constitute major risk factors for each other (odds ratios, OK = 2.37 to 6.46). The largest risk factor for a condition is, however, previous occurrence of the same problem. Previous burnout was found to be a significantly larger risk factor for future burnout than previous insomnia for future insomnia (OK = 9.63 and 5.74, respectively). The results suggest that insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout, despite their differences, are similar regarding symptoms and underlying causes. The importance of early interventions to prevent comorbid conditions which are more complicated and more difficult to treat is emphasized..

This thesis aims to describe how a fashion designer should balance art and commerce in order to succeed in the fashion industry. We aim to define the Swedish term KRÄDD, and sort out how a designer or CEO in the fashion business should relate to the term, as well as the balance between cultural and economic capital. We present theories of the origins and fluctuations of fashion, as well as social studies on cultural capital, and brand building. The study is made in a qualitative manner where the empirics consist of interviews with 13 respondents that have different positions in, and experience from the fashion industry, including designers, journalists, buyers, a CEO and a PR-professional. In our conclusion, we emphasize the need for a balance between cultural and economic capital in order to succeed as a fashion designer.

The curriculum of the Swedish school system explains how the transitions between the preschool class and the pre-school should be. The co-operation between the organisations should aim for a long term perspective with the students learning process in mind (Lgr11).The pre-school has almost the same aim in their curriculum, as the curriculum of the Swedish school system.The aim with my study is to examine how the teachers from the different organizations relate to knowledge and how they look at the students social interactions. Also how the transition between the pre-school and the pre-school class is viewed from their point of view. How do the teachers from the different organisations comprehend knowledge?How do the teachers from the different organisations comprehend the social abilities?How do the teachers from the different organisations work and interact in terms of the transition between the pre-school and the pre-school class?The study that has been made is about the transitions between the pre-school and the pre-school class. It´s been investigated by doing interviews with teachers from both the pre-school and the pre-school class.

The Swedish old-age care will in the near future face an extensive need to recruit enrolled nurses by virtues of the demographical development. The generation born in the 1940s will soon retire, and at the same time the rest of the population is growing older. One thing that becomes more important in how to draw more people to the old-age care, is to understand how the ones who allready work there experience their own worksituation.The purpose of this study was to find out how enrolled nurses from two different generations experienced their own occupational role and make similarities and differences between the two generations experiences visible. The topics of interest in our study are the respondents own thoughts about their education, their worksituation today, what they think of the future and how they believe others regard their work. To fulfill the purpose of our study we used qualitative interviews.