The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

This study investigates a Swedish educational project aimed to incorporate young people with intellectual disabilities into the labor market through internship. This qualitative interview study was conducted with six of the project student?s internship supervisors. The purpose of this study is thus to examine the motives behind the decision to take on a trainee from the program at the workplace. In addition, the study also aims to examine whether and how dif-ferent factors of the workplace affect the trainee?s opportunities for social inclusion in the workplace.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.

Good conditions in the workplace, fairness in the workplace and the social differences contribute to a general improvement in public health. A health-promoting leader is working to create a workplace that promotes health, supports its employees and contributes to their wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the first-line managers in the city of Västerås experience and deal with their conditions and obstacles in the health-promoting leadership. A qualitative approach was chosen and the selection was six first-line managers working in three different areas of the City of Västerås. Managers were interviewed by an interviewguide and the material was analyzed with a manifest content analysis, with an inductive approach.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a recognized social problem. The IPV is common in all types of intimate relations, this essays purpose was focused on the violence performed by women against men. To find the social workers conceptions the study conducted a survey sent to local social service in Sweden. The essay had a statistic approach to visualize the social workers conceptions, and a discursive approach to focus on the language used in text answers. Different aspects of the violence were explored to find the conceptions.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

This thesis emphasizes the importance of understanding the employees? attitude and motivation towards their workplace at a company that works in the advertising business. An example company; thcommunication agency PS Communication in Stockholm, was used for the empirical part to investigate the purpose. The topic is interesting since the company works in a fast changing environment with new techniques,tools and professionals and the company is also going through an expansion that include many new recruitments.The purpose in this thesis is as follows: ?the purpose of this study is to elucidate the fate of attitude and motivation of employees in relation to the workplace during business expansion, if performance is reduced and competition increases.?The analysis and results shows that attitudes andmotivation among the employees in the workplace has deteriorated, the employees agree that it is due to expansion the company is undergoing.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine relevance of the proposition made by new insitutionalists about institutional and technical environment. This proposition originaly made by Meyer & Rowan (1977) has two core assumptions: The first is that all organizations are controlled by combinations of types of demands; technical demands for efficient production and institutional demands to adept to cultural and normative expectations. The second assumption is that there exists a few organizations dominated almost entirely by one typy of demand. Organizations dominated by institutional demands are said to live in an institutional environment, while technical organizations is said operate in a technical environment. This thesis has examined if these assumptions are still applicable in describing organizational interaction with the environment.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the constructions andinterplay of gender, ethnicity and sexuality between female and male careworkersand residents in a nursing home. To explore this from a qualitativeeveryday life?s approach, material was collected through participating observations,interviews, and informal conversation with careworkers and residents.The result points out that historical patterns of gender and caring relatedto this context still matter and affect both careworkers and residents. Forexample, female careworkers talked about the concept of caring as a genuinefemale experience, while male careworkers, who were in a minority, insteadtalked about caring in more gender-neutral words. The result also indicatesthat a larger number of male careworkers not necessarily leads to a highergrade of gender equality.

Today there are several generations who have grown up watching Disney?s films. Disney has become a central storyteller in our society with children and their families as their main audience. Disney's storytelling is often with the children from an early age and they get to learn about right and wrong, good and evil through the films. A picture of how the world looks and how you should and should not behave is presented in Disney's films.

Purpose This thesis tries to create an understanding of how male homosexual entrepreneurs, both as persons and as a concept, relates to the fact that entrepreneurship, as well as the society as a whole, is heteronormative. Moreover, it examines by what methods the male homosexual entrepreneurs cope with the seemingly paradox of a homosexual man who also is an entrepreneur. Method The method has been qualitative from a social construction-point of view. We have made semi-structured interviews with nine male homosexual entrepreneurs and structured the findings from the interviews with a computer programme and mind mapping techniques. We have compared the structured findings with theories, in an abducting manner, to find out an answer to the purpose of this thesis.

Men?s magazines is a form of media that has been present and popular among men for decades and even centuries. In the beginning of 1990 the popularity for men?s magazines boosted as the new ideal man was presented. The new lad represented a new masculinity that was more honest about its ideals and point of views.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

Media brings attention to the concept of preschools being in large need of more male teachers. In order to implement an increase of male teachers, various methods have been employed, most of which are based on the concepts of gender and equality. In question however, are the views of present teachers on the need for male teachers, and their expectations of those men! Or in other terms: What particular type of men are requested? And how does this correspond with the gender patterns induced by male teachers in their daily practical work? The purpose of this survey is to analyze expectations of male teachers and their role in the preschool context, through a gender perspective. I want to shed light on this purpose based on two questions: What ?kind? of men are requested by the present teachers? and Which gender patterns will the men induce to their daily work chores, and to their interaction with the children? The survey was conducted by means of interviews, polls, and observations, and the results were obtained from two preschools of which one in particular has extended focus on gender issues.

This study deals with the complex phenomenon of occupational health. There is knowledge of how a good work environment should look like, but despite this, many employees experiences ill health in the workplace mainly in the form of neck and back pain. This study is a case study conducted in a high-risk workplace. The overall purpose was to describe and analyze the health situation of a specific company with neck and back problems. Mainly, eight interviews had been used as the data collection method, but additional observations had also been implemented.