Due to their complexity and heavy wear from rail traffic, switches are a sensitive part of the railway infrastructure and moreover expensive to maintain. Furthermore, increasing railway traffic not only accelerates the wear rate but also obstructs the necessary maintenance measures. This paper examines the opportunities for a transition to a long-term maintenance strategy in the Swedish railway network. It contains a study of the maintenance strategy of Banverket, and also analyses statistics of errors in the railway infrastructure. The survey was completed utilising interviews with infrastructure Managers, maintenance contractors, planners of railway operations and the Banverket material service department.

The environment became an established issue on the international political agenda after World War 2. How to preserve natural resources became an issue that concerned several powerful participants, affected by changed conditions in the environmental legislation. This paper is a study of the growing environmental work within the multinational Swedish corporations Boliden, IKEA and SAS and how it was affected by the globalization. The material studied is environmentally related information produced by the companies and also interviews with the Environmental Managers. The information provided has been analyzed and compared with well-known opinions of globalization, trying to find out how the process of globalization has affected the handling of environmental work within the companies.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera företaget ÅF:s employer branding-arbete, närmare bestämt samverkan mellan ledningen, HR-avdelningen och marknadsavdelningen.Uppsatsen är av kvalitativ fallstudiekaraktär ochämnar utveckla teori genom en kombination av en deduktiv och induktiv undersökningsansats. Insamlad data är baserad på intervjuer medrepresentanter på ÅF.Sammanfattningsvis har vi kommit fram till att ÅF:s samverkan inom employer branding-arbetet i stort överensstämmer med den teoretiska modell som presenteras. Det finns en huvudsakligen god samordning av ledningens, HR- och marknadsavdelningens samt employer brandManagers aktiviteter som syftar till att stärka arbetsgivarvarumärket. Dock finner vi en diskrepans mellan ÅF:s och litteraturens definition av begreppet samt en allt för stor fokus på de externa aktiviteterna som en följd av employer brand Managers starka band till marknadsavdelningen..

Changes are occurring in most organizations today and due to the fact that changes often are harder to implement than they seem, it often takes much longer time to implement them than the management have planned. During an organizational change theorist claim that communication between Managers and employees is one of the most important things to consider. Therefore, in this essay, our aim is to closer investigate which needs of information and communication co-workers have during a planned organizational change. To collect data, we interviewed five co-workers and one manager who works in an organization which has gone through a major change. Our theoretical framework comprises former research of organizational communication, employee?s needs of communication, change communication and theories of uncertainty during organizational change.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur rekryteringsprocessen vid anställning av chef går till samt vikten av organisatorisk och personlig matchning av chef och företag. Författarna är även intresserade av betydelsen av psykologiska kontrakt i rekryteringssammanhang. Studien är inriktad mot rekryteringsföretag specialiserade på chefsrekrytering som organisationsmässigt skiljer sig så mycket som möjligt från varandra för att få en bredare syn. Undersökningen har delats in i olika områden som består av rekryteringsprocessen, meriter och personlighet samt organisatorisk passform. Studien är utförd genom intervjuer på sju deltagande rekryteringsföretag belägna i Mälardalen.

Mergers and acquisitions are common phenomenon in today´s society in order to increase shareholder value. Two years ago a fusion of Sweden´s two largest companies in the industry of real estate took place and even though three out of four mergers and acquisitions financially fail this certain case turned out highly successful. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the organizational structure and the management control have been designed and characterized the organizational performance and furthermore what are the success factors of the integration. By studying an acquisition and its potential effects on organizational structure and management control parallel to a model that describes the best practice guidelines for Managers to successfully deliver value from their acquisitions, it can be shown that an acquisition has direct effects both on the acquirer and the acquired company and thus the new organizational structure. The main results, thus, is that through active leadership, increased specialization, and more decentralized and thus efficient management control a new organization has emerged consisting of the best features of two separate worlds..

Bakgrunden till studien är mina egna tankar om hur de lönesättande samtalen inom arbetslivet egentligen fungerar nu när de har blivit alltmer vanliga på arbetsplatserna. Syftet med studien är dels att undersöka hur kommunikationen hanteras och upplevs under ett lönesättande samtal av medarbetare respektive ledare dels att utveckla kunskapen om vilken betydelse kommunikationens påverkan har för samspelet under det lönesättande samtalet. Studiens forskningsfråga har varit hur medarbetarna och ledarna upplever samspelet under samtalet, varför den sociokulturella teorin har använts tillsammans med andra kommunikativa begrepp och teorier. Studien har av den anledningen haft en fenomenologisk ansats för att få fram respondenternas subjektiva upplevelser av samspelet under det lönesättande samtalet. Som metod användes en öppen intervju med en frågeguide som innehåll ett antal olika teman som de olika respondenterna själva fick resonera kring.

The aim of this thesis is to study the effects of self-service on professional qualifications of library assistants in three public libraries in Sweden. The research questions are: - How do the library assistants experience that their professional qualifications have changed since self-service was introduced at the library? - Does the view on library assistants? professional qualifications and future differ between library Managers and library assistants? - Does the view on library assistants? professional qualifications and future differ between the three different libraries? The method used is qualitative interviews with six library assistants and three head of libraries from three different public libraries. The theoretical framework for this study is constructed by theoretical ideas about professional qualifications and technology's impact on professionalism. The results indicate that the cognitive qualifications of library assistants have increased and social qualifications both increased and decreased.

The interest for organic food has grown a lot over the last 15 years. Even so, only 3.5 % ofthe share of wallet in Sweden goes to organic food. The purpose of this study is to examine and describe how retailers can get consumers to buy more organic fruits and vegetables. The study was carried out by visiting six Coop Konsum-stores, of which three performed poorly and three performed well in organic sales. We conducted interviews with the department Managers, customer surveys and in-store observations.

The purpose of this study is to look at the line extensions of the Swedish dairy company Skånemejerier. We have chosen to focus on how trends in ecological products and Functional Food influence the line extensions. The competition in the food sector have made it harder for companies to be seen in the market area and the companies have to make their brands more visible. That is one of the reasons why companies work with line extensions. The study is based on a qualitative approach because we wanted to come closer to our subject in order to establish a greater understanding for the case itself.

Degeneration of trademarks - a legal construction or a marketing problem? This paper discusses the issue of degeneration of trademarks. The study has its starting point in the conflict that may arise between the principles of marketing and the legislation concerning IP rights and market law. In this study several verdicts are studied in which degeneration has been addressed. Analyzing these rulings as well as the current legislation in the light of marketing theory, a conflict between marketing and legislation can be noted.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of virtual communities for independent record companies. It also aims to examine how these companies use virtual communities in their marketing activities and how to gain competitive advantages by working with virtual communities. A case study based on interviews was conducted with Managers from two independent record companies, Music Is My Girlfriend Recordings and B&B Records. Our study has shown that virtual communities are important for independent record companies as tools for finding and addressing the right target market. Useful information about the members of these communities can easily be gathered with the use of the various search options that are available.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze green marketing and green brand building from a managerial perspective, with the intention to create an implementation guide for companies in the Swedish consumer market.  The essay is based on a qualitative approach with a mixture of inductive and deductive elements. We have interviewed five people with close links to green marketing. We have during the study identified a number of touch points to be particularly important in the process of incorporating green marketing. These findings are presented in full in chapter five. We have found that the framework of green marketing is established during the company?s choice of green strategy.

Title Greenlighted employees ? The internal value of Schenker?s environmental work.Author David Fridner.Course Master thesis in Science of Media and Communication.Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Gothenburg.Semester Spring semester 2009.Tutor Professor Monika Djerf-Pierre.Number of pages 55 (appendix 23).Aim The aim is to study the internal value of Schenker?s environmental work.Method Qualitative and quantitative method.Material 20 interviews from four workgroups: Managers (4), sales (5), customer-services (4) and truck drivers (7). 148 websurveys from two workgroups: sales (106) and customer-services (42).Main result Schenker is perceived as an environmentally friendly enterprise. Much due to the fact that the company?s impact on nature only has little to do with how the staff evaluate its ?greenness?.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a highly used concept in contemporary organizations, especially in the recruitment process or education of employees and Managers. The aim of this study was to examine the discursive production of the concept emotional intelligence and how it, linked to an organizational context, is expressed in web-based articles and course homepages. In total 11 texts related to emotional intelligence and organizational contexts were used as the object of study. A three-stage model was used as a method for analysis. The model included a content analysis, argument analysis and a deconstruction analysis in order to expose what was said about emotional intelligence and how it was said.