Abstract Title: Enabling Smart Research and Development through Knowledge Conversation Seminar date: 2005-06-08 Course: Master thesis in business administration, 10 Swedish credits (15 ECTS) Authors: Andreas Johnsson, Johan Rosendahl Advisors: Lars Bengtsson Key words: Knowledge management, Knowledge conversation, Research and development, Ba, Trelleborg Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to create a model that shows how knowledge management aimed at research and development processes can be used and how the theoretical fields can be connected. Methodology: The thesis is based on abductive perspective where empirical and theoretical material has been mixed to create a foundation for the analysis. Theoretical perspectives: Theories concerning knowledge management and research and development have primarily been used. These have been complemented with material about team structures and incentive systems. Empirical foundation: The empirical material is based on semi structured, mostly qualitative interviews and strictly quantitative inquiries performed at Industrial Hose within the Trelleborg group.

AbstractThe concept project is today used in several contexts and has different meaning in different contexts. Lately, projects have been seen as a form of organization and more companies convert from traditional organizing to organizing in a project form. The purpose and focus of today?s project is not only to increase quality and competence development for management but also to integrate different actors in order to e.g. increase customer value.LänsTeknikCentrum AB (LTC) in Jönköping is running different projects in order to support companies in Jönköping County.

In this qualitative study the authors explores, by studying several quality-development models what quality in leadership is. The models are: Total Quality Management; SIQ?s model for customer-oriented organizational development; the EFQM excellence model; the ISO 9000:2000 standard; and Six Sigma. These models will be compared from Deming?s list for upper management; the Situational Leadership Theory; and the Contingency Theory.

Climate change is a phenomenon that know no boundaries. While focus on environment and climate change has become highly prioritized, nationalism has spread across Europe. Nationalism is by many considered to refuse action to combat climate change although some argue that nationalism could combat global climate change. Previous research on how nationalism is implemented in environment and climate politics has mainly focused on single parties. The thesis therefore aims to give a broad approach and compare how nationalism is used in environment and climate politics by analyzing 4 European parties with either ethnic or civic nationalism and different roles in their party system. With a qualitative content analysis on party programs and election manifestos the findings imply that parties use nationalism in the climate and environment discourse in a variety of ways.

The importance of energy- and environmental issues has increased, and the work towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions plays a major part. The European Union has set up goals for the membership countries to work towards this to happen. The carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden have been reduced the last few years, but there is still a lot to do. About 30 per cent of Sweden?s carbon dioxide emissions generate from energy usage related to housing, this is why the housing sector is of interest to examine.

This report is about Swedish statistics on work related accidents and work related diseases onboard Swedish ships. The authors analyzed collected statistics from two authorities and an insurance organization in an attempt to compare the data. In order to understand the need for statistics and why the authority publishes them; minor literature study was conducted. The results of the literature study are in the background chapter. The requirements for the different cases to be registered in the statistics have been investigated, in unity with the issue in question.

Skanska is using work schedules that are specifically designed for employees in the production. These work schedules are called best practice. These are guides containing technical descriptions, design references, capabilities, etc. for work activities. This support function facilitates the work preparation and planning of future work.

BackgroundToday a common approach to solve a complicated problem is to assemble a temporary workforce in order to solve the problem by working together within a project. One of the difficulties with working in projects is to maintain the planned budget. Working hours and costs are often exceeded. Many companies presume that any certain project will succeed, a presumption that leads companies not to anticipate risks involved in a project. In companies today there is seldom time for evaluation or moderation of a project, in order to have time for evaluation there is a great need for an adequate planning of the project.IntentThe intention with this study is to create a model for planning, budgeting and evaluation of projects within consultancy companies.MethodWith the help of interviews and discussions within the group Hamnar och Byggkonstruktioner at Sweco has evidence to present a proposal on planning, budgeting and monitoring been developed.ResultsA model has been developed to ease for consultancy companies to plan, budget, monitor and evaluate projects.

Social work as an traditional aid is an area that provides welfare services financed from public funds, which is one of the methods of microloans. Microloans have since the mid-1970s has become an increasingly common tool in the fight against poverty. Instead of purely assistance is now offered microloans from more banks and other institutions, as well as NGOs (non governmental organization). This paper aims to study whether and how microcredit can contribute to the empowerment of women in Bangladesh and India. This study is based on a qualitative text analysis, and has hence been based on a number of reports and articles. The paper examines, from a radical feminist perspective how microcredit can fight and eliminate poverty, and how empowerment can help women in developing countries to become independent and liberated. The introduction of micro-loan is considered to have positive effects on women's empowerment in the short term. But it is, however, the longer term effects that are considered to have the greatest positive impact on society's unequal structures.

This report is intended to give an insight in the Network Performance Assessment Modeland the parameters that is needed in the making of a fictitious grid that represents anoptimal grid. A main goal is to investigate how the construction of a real grid iscompared to the fictitious.One of the key parameters is how redundancy is treated in the model and to find theoptimal amount of redundancy versus the costs. Further is the dimensioning of the grid ofinterest. The fictitious grid is based on energy whereas the real grid often is based onsubscribed power and these two principles are compared and analyzed.The difference in the outcome of the model result due to variations in input data of themodel is also discussed in the report..

The competition for people´s attention becomes harder and harder. If the libraries want to continue to attract visitors it´s important that their business is promoted. The purpose of this thesis is to in-vestigate how two public libraries work with marketing. The study is based on a marketing model, introduced by Philip Kotler and further developed by Eileen Elliott de Sáez. Kotler believes that marketing is a social process and that everything can be promoted.

The main purpose of this study is to analyze texts written by pupils during the national test in the subject Swedish for grade 9 in order to identify and illustrate how they have met the instructions for the writing task including genre. The texts have been analyzed using Palmér & Östlund-Stjärnegårdh?s (2005) model for student text analysis. This model has been supplemented by studying word and sentence length, as well as indexes for level of readability (LIX) and word variation (OVIX) in order to illustrate possible differences in a gender perspective. The results of this study are in line with previous research, as the girls? texts are longer and more descriptive, while the boys? texts are shorter and show a wider range of word variation.

The Multispectral Canopy Reflectance Model (MCRM) by Kuusk (1995) has beenused to simulate the reflectance of a sugarbeet canopy. The simulated reflectancevalues show high absorptance in the VIS area, compared to field measurements, andhigh reflectance values in the NIR area. The errors may be due to overestimation ofclorophyll content in the sugarbeet leaves and scattered light during fieldmeasurements. The estimation of the clorophyll content where carried out using thePROSPECT-model by Jacquemoud & Baret (1990).During the vegetation period, the state of the canopy moves towards a closed canopy,with sparse vegetation in spring. The MCRM-model was used to perform a ?spring?simulation, which was compared to the original simulation.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how exchange students experience looking for information in their new life situation during a semester in Prague. A further purpose is to investigate what barriers they have faced and how this affected their information behavior. Six qualitative interviews of students constitute the empirical foundation for the study. The interviewees are from six different European countries, were all participating in the Erasmus program, and all had social sciences/humanities/art as their main subject.

The stakeholders for requirements elicitation need to be identified at an early stage and their knowledge is the basis for what is to become a requirements specification. Just because a stakeholder holds a lot of expertise and knowledge it does not mean that the stakeholder can communicate the knowledge in a clear way. Validation of knowledge means that knowledge is valued and recognized in a structured way. People and organizations can evolve by exchanging knowledge, experience and skills.  The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of knowledge management between requirement elicitation and external stakeholders.