CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, has become increasingly important in a globalised world where the responsibilities of companies and governments are somewhat blurry. The textile industry is an industry where long supply chains and raw material production in developing countries are factors adding to the complexity and difficulties of solving ethical issues. Cotton production faces many environmental, social and financial challenges in the value chain. Therefore this case study takes a closer look at five Nordic home textile companies, Ikea, Hemtex, S Group, Moko and Finlayson, and how these companies choose their cotton related CSR tools and communicate their work on this area. These companies are of various sizes and therefore the resources for CSR work are also different, as well as the perceived values for working with CSR.

In a global context the traditional democratic process is facing new challenges. Scholars are talking about a transition from government to governance, where local and regional networks as well as international collaboration are an important part in how regional policy is produced and implemented. In this paper the processes in regional projects funded by the European Union are considered, and related to the traditional democratic process. The study has been fulfilled through informant interviews with representatives from four EU-projects. The interviews are supplemented by a qualitative text analysis of current statutes.

Background: The Swedish Police authorities have accomplished several changes the last years. We have studied one of these changes, the co-ordination of two supporting functions, economy and staffadministration at the Police authorities in Östergötland, Jönköping, Södermanland and SKL (Swedish crime technical laboratory). The initiative to this change was taken in 2002 and in 2003 a decision was made to create a joint servicecenter.Purpose: The purpose of this rapport is, in a collaborator perspective, to study the employees´ experiences of the change process.Method: The empirical material was collected throw interviews with the employees who have taken part in the change process. Even the leader of the project has been interviewed.Results: We have distinguished five central aspects in the change process. These are information/communication and understanding, the project leader, teamwork, timeaspect/reflexion and the leadership.

This essay is based on seven lifestoryinterviews with people who are undergoing orhave undergone a long asylum process. Four women and three men have contributedwith their stories about their experiences of waiting for a determination of theirapplication for residence permit. The main aim of the essay is to give betterunderstanding of how to be a refugee and a long asylum process affects people's abilityto narrate and thus examine their opportunities to be active in the construction of theirown identity.The questions that are debated and discussed are:? What can it mean for an individual's identity to escape her country and for a longtime wait for decision of asylum?? What stories can be told?? What reality are highlighted as central in the stories?? How do they handle their situation and give meaning to their lives?The analysis is based on two main theoretical perspectives: narrative theory and identitytheory. The approach is that people create meaning of events through storytelling andthat they through this process of narrating construct (and reconstruct) their identities -the self image as one have and wants to present to others.In the analysis three different types of stories are distinguished, stories that arerepresented in the empirical material: the story that can not be told, the story that mustbe told and the story that are gladly told.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how librarians solve difficult reference questions. The aim is to discuss the nature of reference work ? do librarians make conscious decisions regarding search strategies or do they rely principally on their instincts, or simply chance. The thesis is a qualitative study.

Vårt syfte med denna uppsats är att bidra till en ökad kunskap om begreppet edutainment samt att vi vill undersöka begreppets applicerbarhet inom turism. Vi vill dessutom utifrån ett kundperspektiv undersöka om och isåfall hur edutainment i ett turismsammanhang kan relateras till människors identitetsskapande process. Med hjälp av den kvalitativa metod vi använt oss av i vårt insamlande av empiriskt material, har vi i vårt arbetssätt tagit vår utgångspunkt i teorin. På så vis har vi genom triangulering i form av en överblickande analys av skriftligt material, kvalitativa intervjuer och en i viss mån kvalitativ enkätundersökning, ämnat ta reda på om teorin går att urskilja i ett empiriskt exempel, varpå vi valt arrangerade dansresor med fokus på salsa. Resenärer efterfrågar idag upplevelsebaserade och kunskapsalstrande nöjesresor, varpå vi menar att begreppet edutainment mer än väl kan appliceras i turismsammanhang.

This essay revolves around the Christianisation of the Danish kingdom during the middle ages. Issues like; the length of the Christianisation process and the influence it had on thevillages? structural appearance in the Danish kingdom. A special case study of the villages Kyrkheddinge and Fjälkinge, Scania, is an essential part of the essay. Through writtenmaterial and excavation reports from the both villages the study enlightens the structural appearance of the village and the hierarchy of the farms in the village.

This thesis has been performed at Uddeholms AB with the purpose to investigate theparameters affecting the formation of inclusions during the manufacturing of a low carbonmanganese-steel.A follow-up, steel and slag sampling and evaluations in microscope have been done for a totalof five heats.The results for each heat have been evaluated in relation to the theory from the literaturesurvey and suggestions for changes in the process to reduce the amount of inclusions whichhave a negative effect on the steel quality have been given.The project extends over a large process where many parameters affect the formation ofinclusions. However, a tendency that a higher addition of alloys seems to increase the totalamount of inclusions before and after the vacuum degassing is seen.The majority of the studied inclusions seem to approach the composition of the top slag aftervacuum degassing. Ladle glaze may cause the inclusions which had a different compositioncompared to that of the slag.A high or low ladleage together with a high argon flow during vacuum degassing seems todissolve particles from the refractory which later on get trapped inside the inclusions.The floatation for two heats has been studied where a short floatation seems to give a higheramount of inclusions in casted material.In machined material so called stringers were found. The main composition of those stringerswas pure alumina. Inclusions with a composition of pure alumina were not found in the liquidsteel, thus the pure alumina inclusions must be formed during the casting.

On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport.

It is important that companies knows how to handle a complaint when they receive one from a customer. This information could the company take care of and use when they develop new services. Furthermore a good complain handling leads to satisfied and loyal customers which increases the revenue for the company. We have examined how SAS handle their internal information process and if this process affects the information and in that case how. The study is performed with a qualitative method, based on deep interviews.

As break downs of production transformers are costly and often result in long outages it is essential for reliability of operation that the transformers are manufactured to be robust. The aim of this M.Sc. thesis is to investigate if deviations should be made from the standard IEC 60076 ? Power Transformers in order to describe a robust large power transformer for procurement.The investigation has been conducted in three stages. In the first stage a definition of the term robust was developed in consultation with the client Vattenfall Vattenkraft.

The notion of firms interacting with technology is not new; these types of systems were already in place in the mid eighties. E-business users worked with connections between their inbound logistics and procurement systems, and suppliers? order-entry systems. When these connections were described for the first time the vertical links between two, or more, value chains in a value system received more attention in firm strategy. The design of the linkages in the value system was said to be a product of the need for coordination and relative bargaining power.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the implementation process and the implementation steering of the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg in the period of 2004-2007.The study asks three questions: 1) How have the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, been implemented in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg? 2) What has facilitated or hindered the implementation of the two social development aspects? 3) What possibilities to steer the implementation process of the two social development aspects exist at the governmental and at the regional level?In order to answer these questions a qualitative method has been used. To be able to analyse the empirical material, which consists of documents and interviews, the theoretical framework comprehends the policy process and implementation steering. The conclusion is that the incorporation of the social development aspects in the regional development program does not fully correspond with the central intentions, and that is due to circumstances at the regional level..

Process standardization is a topic that has generated a lot of research and literature. At first, the focus was on production; today processes are used in all different kind of business areas.The aim of this study has been to analyze how processes can be applied on development businesses and how IT systems affect the result of the process. To accomplish this, we have asked questions such as what standardization is in a development process? Why are the processes standardized? What difficulties can appear with standardization? And how the IT-systems affect the result of the process?To answer these questions, we have preformed a case study on Saab. Saab is a well know Swedish company who are working with a project called the GMS-project, where they develop processes to cover the whole company´s business areas.The literature gives the reader an understanding of processes and standardization.

This study takes place within a publicly owned art producing organization and dwells on the problems of a change process that the organization was involved in. Both leaders and staff were disappointed by the way the change process had developed. The management team explained the outcome by referring to the uniqueness of working with artists who constantly put their own personal objectives before the benefit of the whole. The aim of this study is to find a complementary explanation to the one the management team provided us with; an explanation that can help in the understanding of the dynamics of a change process. Can perhaps theories on information, communication and change processes give an alternative explanation to why the change process faltered? To investigate this, we have used a qualitative single case study.