Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om vistelse på hög höjd påverkar den anaeroba arbetsförmågan. Sex aktiva universitetsstudenter, fyra män och två kvinnor, deltog frivilligt i studien. Expeditionen till Nepal varade i 40 dagar och under den perioden sov och vandrade försökspersonerna mellan 1400 och 5100 meter över havet. Före och efter expeditionen genomförde försökspersonerna ett anaerobt wingatetest där peak power, average power, minimum power and power drop uppmättes. Resultatet visade en signifikant sänkning av average power efter den genomförda expeditionen på hög höjd, med ett medelvärde på 8.44 ± 0,84 w/kg före expeditionen och 7.81 ± 0,87 w/kg efter expeditionen.

The purpose of this study has been to maintain a deeper understanding of how unestablished, professional musicians can get discovered by the music industry by communication, branding and positioning of their brand at social media.We found that fans have a greater impact on unestablished musicians than we previously thought. They have to create an identity for their brand, keep active on social media and engage their fans. Musical artists must maintain an ongoing dialogue to keep their fanbase, preferably with emotions involved. No fans equals minimum attention from the industry. Uniformity and professionalism is also important, because it evokes seriousness.

A group of scientist, called the council of democracy in Sweden made a predictionabout members of political parties, in 2013 members should not exist. In this essaythat statement going to be questioned. It shows that most of the political parties losesmembers in Sweden. The only differences from year 2000 and now is that in 14 yearsthe parties has lost 65000 members, between 1991-1999 it was about 220000members. Something has changed.

Surrogate boycotts are highly threatening for corporations in terms of both economical cost and image damage. All corporations are due to our globalized environment and increased stakeholder fragmentation gradually more risking to become victims of surrogate boycotts, which of nature is hard if not impossible to predict and prevent. Corporations are generally recommended to build clear and strong corporate identities, which should be reflected in their most important stakeholders, as this will secure minimum damage on the corporate image. Even a surrogate boycott situation can have positive effects on corporations, especially in terms of image, as such situation increases the brand involvement and thereby make it possible for corporations to connect with important stakeholders on an emotional level. .

This investigation is a pilot survey whose main purpose is to investigate with work evaluation and attitude analysis whether the orthopedists and surgeons work can be equaled, why the wages differences exists between women and men, and also which preventive measures the organization can use to even out the wages differences between the genders. In relation with the investigation I have applied the reflexive way of thinking to establish which difficulties come up in the work of gender-equality.The result?s from work evaluation displays that the works are equivalent but the salaries are not, which can depend on value discrimination,gender discrimination and the organization theory.Wages differences between women and men depend on, according to the informers, partly by historical explanation and partly by the old directors who was allowed to retain regular salary when theypost transformed. The common point of view is that men have a larger work experience and therefore a higher salary.The managements attitude towards gender-equality issues is of absolute importance in order to achieve and bring a change within the organization.The measure positive special treatment is proposed to be used as an improving method to achieve (gender)equality between the posts and to even out the wages difference between the sexes.To establish whether or not gender discrimination exist in the investigated organization there needs to be done a whole lot supplementary studies like a complete wage (salary) mapping which includes all supplements and more interviews among the organizations all occupation groups..

The application of performance-based pay system among enterprises is becoming more frequent. Performance-based pay systems is used by organizations in hope of increasing productivity and have become more flexible. Employees may perceive the performance-based salary as a motivator or a threat depending on lifesituation and personality. At a perceived threat, the employee may become stressed. Work-related stress has become a serious social problem that can have consequences for both companies and individuals.

This degree project was conducted in collaboration with Gremo AB located in Ätran.The aim of the project was to develop a solution to secure quality and to help assemblingthe locknut holding the vertical hinge on the harvesters and foresters from Gremo.At this time the nut is assembled manually by the aid of an overhead crane. The nut istightened differently from time to time, and there was no specified torque to which it istightened. Another present problem was the locking washer which sometimes getsdamaged during assembly, when this happens the procedure has to be started over fromthe beginning. The current assembly procedure is very time consuming and lengthy forthe employees.Our task was to design a machine that could tighten the nut to a specified torque with amargin of error of ± 3%. The assembly procedure will be held simple and the timerequired at a minimum.The project started by developing several principle solutions, the one solution that bestmatched our specifications were developed to a primary solution.Today we have started manufacturing and assembling our prototype.

Denna uppsats undersöker en informationskampanj från Fair Trade Center (FTC) som drevs under hösten 2012 under namnet A wage to live on. Uppsatsens syfte är att utröna om Fair Trade Center har nått ut med sitt budskap till media och söker detta svar genom fyra frågeställningar; Har FTC nått ut med sitt budskap till de undersökta medierna (Aftonbladet, Expressen, DN och SvD)? Vilket budskap har FTC med sin kampanj (utifrån mål och material)? Verkar Kalla Faktas reportage ha påverkat medias respons? Är FTCs budskap samstämmigt i mål och material? Fokus för uppsatsen ligger på vecka 43 2012 då detta var fokusvecka för kampanjen. Mot en bakgrund kring teorier om budskapsstrategier, målgrupper och olika mål och tidigare forskning kring framgångsrika kampanjer har jag genom retorikanalys som huvudsaklig metod gått igenom utvalt material. Materielet består av Fair Trade Centers egna pressmeddelande och debattartikel samt utvalda tidningars respons under fokus perioden.

Surrogate boycotts are highly threatening for corporations in terms of both economical cost and image damage. All corporations are due to our globalized environment and increased stakeholder fragmentation gradually more risking to become victims of surrogate boycotts, which of nature is hard if not impossible to predict and prevent. Corporations are generally recommended to build clear and strong corporate identities, which should be reflected in their most important stakeholders, as this will secure minimum damage on the corporate image.Even a surrogate boycott situation can have positive effects on corporations, especially in terms of image, as such situation increases the brand involvement and thereby make it possible for corporations to connect with important stakeholders on an emotional level..

Den ekonomiska globaliseringen och ökade världshandeln har lett till att multinationellaföretag till viss del fått ta sig an den roll som stater tidigare har haft och många företaghar börjat använda sig av corporate social responsibility (CSR) som ett verktyg för detta.Frågan är om utvecklingen har gjort att andra aktörer, såsom fackföreningar, som tidigarevarit en självklar aktör på den politiska arenan och en given del av den svenskaföretagssfären, nu kommit i skymundan. Det leder vidare till frågan om vadfackföreningar i så fall har för roll idag. Det föreligger ett gap i forskningen vad gällerfackföreningarnas roll i CSR-diskursen samt levnadslöner i utvecklingsvärlden, som kanses som en del av CSR-konceptet. Ambitionen är att denna kvalitativa flerfallsstudie skakunna bidra till den kunskapsbrist som tycks finnas gällande svenska fackföreningar ochderas syn och roll vad gäller CSR och specifikt levnadslöner. Resultatet av studien visaratt svenska fackföreningar överlag är skeptiska till CSR och att ett införande avlevnadslöner är komplext.

Purpose: Our purpose is to achieve a higher understanding of which factors University of Uppsala is using to attract and keep their existing workers.Theory: We have worked with Barrow & Mosley's the employer brand mix, this modelexplains 12 important factors that exists within the employer branding process. External reputation, internal communication, the board, values and corporate social responsibility, internalmeasuring systems, service support, work environment, rewards and acknowledgements, learningand development, performance estimation, team management and recruitment and introduction.Method: To achieve an understanding of our subject we have chosen to work with a qualitativemethod. This type of method is more considerate of the interviewed person?s way of seeingthings and also accounts for how the person answers. To answer our problem statement we haveconducted a case study on University of Uppsala where we used semi structured interviewsbecause we wanted to limit the risk of leading questions.Empirical findings: University of Uppsala were used as material for our empirical discussionContext: The main reasons that workers is attracted to and are staying at the university dependson the external status they achieve when working there, this combined with that the workers getsto be a part of the university's brand.

Despite ongoing efforts toward equality, persistent wage gaps between men and women in Sweden still remain, particularly within male dominated industries, such as finance. Gender equality is a prominent topic in public discourse, yet progress towards achieving equal pay between men and women continues to be slow. This study aims to contribute to the research area and offers a unique perspective by examining gender related expectations from both men and women, managers and employees. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, and if so how, gender related expectations influence salary setting processes in the financial industry. Through a qualitative study based on semistructured interviews, the study explores how both employee?s and manager?s gender related expectations affect attitudes, salary negotiations and potential outcomes of salary setting.

A group of scientist, called the council of democracy in Sweden made a predictionabout members of political parties, in 2013 members should not exist. In this essaythat statement going to be questioned. It shows that most of the political parties losesmembers in Sweden. The only differences from year 2000 and now is that in 14 yearsthe parties has lost 65000 members, between 1991-1999 it was about 220000members. Something has changed.

Title: Inflation and Investments, with Focus on Inflation-linked Bonds.Investors face many types of risks when allocating assets in a portfolio, e.g. volatility and inflation risk. Inflation risk will mainly affect investments in the long perspective. This thesis will examine those risks that an investor is commonly exposed to when allocating assets in a portfolio and in particular inflation-linked risk and how to eliminate it. We examine the correlation between different assets and inflation to determine the assets? ability to hedge inflation risk.