Performance appraisals- a study of the performance appraisals significance as a tool for development in the public sector.Anders Larsson and Åsalill OlssonPerformance appraisals have been given a central role in leading businesses in the public sector and are seen as a tool to create development opportunities and achieve better results. This has resulted that performance appraisal in many organizations takes up capacity and time. This was the starting point of our interest to study whether the time spent on performance appraisals effectively pays for itself in the organization, in other words whether the effects expected actually are achieved. The paper examines first line managers` views on staff appraisal purposes and effects of a function within the Landstinget. The survey design, methodology and transaction are of qualitative and quantitative method with three different sources: literature review of previous research, interviews with first line managers in Landstinget Västmanland and the results from an employee satisfaction survey conducted on behalf of Landstinget Västmanland.

Our study aimed at gaining insight of co-workers experiences of different factors that affects the verbal communication and leads to dialogue and misunderstanding between co-workers and their managers. The empirical material was gained from semi-structured interviews with co-workers at various departments within the same organization. We used a hermeneutic interpretive approach and our data was analyzed concerning different factors affecting communication. The result has been interpreted using the theories of deliberative conversations and dialogue competence. We have also used Illeris theory of learning. The result shows a number of factors that affects communication between co-workers and managers.

This study is conducted with a focus on managers and its different forms as found in a nation wide Swedish bedroom specialist-organisation, Sängjätten. Leadership is perceived in many forms and depends on a large variety of factors within and outside the organisation. One of these factors is ownership and the characteristics these imply on the forms in which the manager works. Within the studied organisation there were two distinctive forms of ownership regarding to the stores we studied; such as franchising compared to the franchiser owned through a national headquarter, so-called ?self-proprietary stores?.

 This paper is about the conflict between the Middle East and the Western world after the Danish newspapers? cartoon publications of the prophet Muhammed in October 2005. The conflict resulted in massive reactions in the Middle East and the Danish-Swedish dairy company Arla Foods, was boycotted during six months in 2006. The aim of this study is to describe how the biggest Swedish daily newspaper,Dagens Nyheter and three Saudiarabic newspapers Al-Hayat, Al-Watan and Shark Al-Awsat described "the Other" during the crisis in the year of 2006. Another aim is to describe how Arla Foods managed the consumer boycott.

More and more companies open up facilities and stores in countries all around the world. Entering a new country means a new culture, a new language, different norms and values and new people with a different way of thinking unlike what you are used to. In order to survive and be successful in this new country means that you have to adapt to the new culture and its components you encounter.The purpose of this thesis has been to identify possibilities and barriers in the Middle Eastern culture affecting international clothing companies. Furthermore it has been investigated how these companies must adapt their products and promotion to this culture.In order to obtain relevant data for achieving the purpose of the study interviews and observations was made at three international clothing companies in Tehran, Iran. These were Mango, United Colors of Benetton and adidas.

The meaning of being someone and standing for something is getting more important today in the Swedish business market. Our thesis has a qualitative approach that aims to study the usage of personal branding in the upper-management of Swedish organizations. Theories collected from literature and articles include marketing branding, personal branding and leadership. Our main target is to identify components that obtain usage of personal branding which are, attributes and strengths, communication, values, and vision and mission. The empirical data is gathered from six personal interviews with managers.

Occupational stress and the use of alcohol to reduce stress are both separately common in our society. A few researchers have combined the two factors.The aim of this essay was to obtain an increased understanding of how male and female managers estimate their alcohol habits in relation to their occupational stress.We have interviewed nine managers who work at a social services department in Scania. Our main theories were the theory of psychosocial work environment of Lazarus, Karaseks demand/control model, epidemiology- and cultural perspective.Our results were;· Psychosocial work environment contributes to if the interviewed people experienced stress at work.· The grade of control has great influence if the interviewed people experience stress.· There weren't any correlation between stress and increased consumption of alcohol..

The aim of this study was to provide SCA Forest Norrbotten District with material to assist in their work towards decreasing the frequency of bucking splits in their saw timber logs. SCA Forest supplies the Munksund sawmill with pine timber. Periodically the sawmill experiences problems related to bucking splits in their logs. The purpose of this study was to find an available method to measure the occurrence of splits directly on incoming timber. The ambition was also to gain some knowledge about possible variations between different logging crews in terms of split frequency. If possible, this information could be used to investigate if certain crews produced more splits than others, and thereby making it possible to provide feedback to the logging machine operators. The study consisted of two major parts, a literature review, and a practical sawmill study.

During the latter part of the 20th century the situation for people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden changed and developed. Clients have the right to participation and self-determination in society and in applied measures under the law of individual rights legislation; LSS. The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how team-leaders and managers in day-centres in a municipality works with participation and self-determination for clients, and what the professionals consider affects the client's possibility to self-determination and participation. The research questions intended to be answered are:? How does the team-leaders and managers work to enable self-determination and participation of the users in the public day-centres?? What does the team-leaders and managers describe and understand as enabling and limiting factors for the client?s possibility to self-determination and participation?The study is qualitative and interviews have been held with eight interviewees, which I contacted through snowball sampling.

Intresset för ämnet uppstod efter en lång yrkesverksamhet i människobehandlande organisationer och den brist på samverkan och förståelse för andra yrkesområdens perspektiv som framkommit i den dagliga verksamheten. En önskan att se hur samverkansarbetet praktiseras, hos dem i vars uppgifter samarbete över institutionsgränserna ingår som en central del. Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka hur case managers organiserar sitt arbete utifrån frågetällningarna: vilka uppgifter har en case manager? Hur beskriver de sin respektive arbetsmodell och vilka för- och nackdelar ser de med sitt arbete? För att svara på frågorna genomfördes kvalitativa intervjuer med sju case managers i tre skilda arbetsmodeller: klinisk case management, personligt ombud och Assertive Community Treatment (ACT). Teoridelen består av en sammankoppling av de tre begreppen: biopsykosocialt perspektiv, samverkan och människobehandlande organisationer.

Titel: Den kommunalt fängslade mellanchefen: En kvalitativ beskrivning av mellanchefers utövande av ledarskap. Inledning: Kommunal verksamhet är starkt påverkbar av sin omgivning och måste kontinuerligt anpassa sig till denna samtidigt som den strävar efter en förutsägbarhet. Denna komplexa miljö inverkar på mellanchefers möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap, och därför ställs det krav på att man som chef är anpassningsbar och medveten om sitt personliga ledarskap.Problemformulering: Hur ser chefer i olika hierarkiska positioner på sin möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap?Syfte: Syftet med vårt arbete är att undersöka, beskriva och skapa en förståelse för chefers möjlighet att, på olika hierarkiska nivåer, utöva sitt personliga ledarskap i ett sammanhang påverkat av inre och yttre faktorer.Metod: För att besvara vårt forskningsproblem valde vi att använda oss av en kvalitativ metod. Genom ett hermeneutiskt tolkningssätt och ett abduktivt angreppssätt så analyserade vi de sex semi-strukturerade intervjuer vi utförde.Slutsats: Den slutsats vi drog är att ledarskapsutbildningens utformning och den begränsade rörelsefrihet som ges, resulterar i en konflikt mellan organisationens mål och en chefs möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap. .

Design management är ett arbetssätt som har börjat tillämpas av allt fler företag de senaste åren, men det kan fortfarande vara svårt att förstå betydelsen av design management. I uppsatsen undersöks det vilken betydelse en design managers kompetens och position har för samarbetet mellan det designköpande företaget och en designkonsult under ett designinköp. Genom ett flertal intervjuer, utifrån både design managers och designkonsulters perspektiv, undersöks det hur samarbetet fungerar mellan dessa parter. En analys av intervjumaterial med hjälp av en teoretisk referensram bestående av design management-teori, design som en integrerad process och beslutsrollsteori har lett fram till ett antal slutsatser om design management. Några av slutsatserna är att design management, enligt teorierna, som arbetssätt inte är så vanligt och att det finns en viss samarbetsbrist enligt de intervjuade designkonsulterna, som i viss mån underlättas om design managern har kunskap om vad design innebär..

Since the mid 1900s the organizational perspective in media producing companies has changed. The focus has shifted from just being a laborer to the person behind the effort. The most important for an efficient and smooth organization is the motivation of the employees and the social working environment. Former research argues that managers must be coaches and that crucial factors for the survival of organizations are creativity, innovation and adaptability. With this study we investigate what motivates employees to use their creative skills.

The workplace is a good arena for healthy activities because of its ability to reach big target groups. A preventive health care program prevents ill-health and since 2001 Centralsjukhuset Kristianstad has a health care program, ?Främja hälsan?. Leadership is important in the health promotion work when to get the collaborators motivated and involved in the health care program. The aim of the cross-sectional study was to investigate the collaborators opinion about the managers? pedagogical role in the health promotion work at Centralsjukhuset Kristianstad.

I dagens samhälle kan vi se en allt starkare trend i riktning mot internationalisering och globalisering. Genom att det har blivit lättare att förflytta sig över nationsgränserna har detta öppnat dörrar för såväl privatpersoner som företag. I och med detta har många företag och organisationer fått anpassa sig till, lära sig att förstå och hantera kulturell mångfald. I globala företag är det inte ovanligt att man som manager eller ledare arbetar tillsammans med eller leder anställda med annan nationell kulturell bakgrund än sin egen. Detta kan ibland leda till missförstånd och merjobb, men bidrar även till dynamik och inspiration på arbetsplatsen.Vi genomförde en kvalitativ undersökning som grundade sig på tre djupgående intervjuer med managers på olika nivåer på ett multinationellt callcenter i Wien.