In Sweden exist a Swedish institute for children?s book which is a national information center. They have an annual "Book tasting" where they present statistics and trends from the latest publications of literature for youth and children.In their ?book tasting?? from 2010 a number of picture books had, as they say, children who descend from non-Swedish culture (Swedish institute for children?s book, 2010). The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the ethnical diversity describes in these picture books from 2010. To understand how the ethnical diversity describes in these books I had two questions which helped me in my research.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how board structure influences CEO compensation for companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 2004. The theoretical frame of reference is based upon the corporate governance theory, the principal-agent theory and previous empirical research in the area. A cross sectional regression analysis is used, where a number of control variables are included and significance tests are conducted. The study is based on information regarding CEO compensation, and possible factors affecting the compensation, from 267 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list in the year 2004. We find that the board structure has no significant effect on the CEO compensation.

I have conducted a qualitative study were the aim was to understand how the freedom of choice act in eldercare is handled at a municipality level as well as a national level and the effects that can occur. The methods I have used for this study is a document analysis and semi-structed interviews.     I have conducted semi-structed interviews with three professionals in the eldercare organization in a large municipality in the south of Sweden, I have also conducted a phone interview with a representative from Socialstyrelsen. The professionals that I chose for my study was a chief of staff, an aid case worker and a person who worked in the municipality with the implementation of freedom of choice act.     The study shows that the work quality is expected to rise with the freedom of choice as a consequence of the customer and performer model and will give the caretakers a higher level of influence. The study also shows that the municipality will get a greater responsibility and the aid case workers will get extended tasks though they will have to inform the caretakers regarding the options and they will also be mediate between the caretaker and the performers. However the study also show concerns regarding rough traders whose aim is to make money and does not have the same rehabilitation agenda.     There are also concerns for those who can´t chose for them self though they will not be able to be a part of the freedom of choice act in the same way and that is something the municipality needs to work out a system for.

This Bachelor Thesis looks at the cooperation between the Swedish civil society and theEuropean Union (EU), and it aims at evaluating Swedish civil society organizations' influencewithin the EU's development work on policy level. It focuses primarily on eight civil societyorganizations, and it is based on empirical material collected in Stockholm and Gothenburg,Sweden. The material has been analyzed using three theoretical frameworks. The firstdetermines whether the structure of the EU allows bottom-up influence, the second looks atthe communication between the EU and civil society organizations, and the third assesseswhether the civil society has the ability to influence the political agenda within the EU?sdevelopment work.Conclusions of the thesis include determining the complex structure of the EU as a mainobstacle to influencing the EU's development work.

För att ta reda på hur väl en Multi-Agent-Systems-bot kan stå sig mot andra, icke-MAS-bottar, så har vi implementerat en bot till brädspelet Arimaa. Botten är implementerad i C++ och den kan spela mot andra bottar, eller människor, genom Arimaas officiella hemsida. Syftet har varit att skapa en fullfjädrad bot som både klarar av att spela korrekt, och att spela bra. För att ta reda på om MAS är en bra designfilosofi för Arimaa så har vi utmanat ett antal av de bottar som andra människor skapat och lagt upp på hemsidan. Alla bottarna har under tiden de legat uppe blivit rankade genom tävlingar och utmaningar och flera av dessa har tävlat om stora pengar, vilket betyder att människor har lagt mycket tid på dem.

In this essay a proposal of city renewal is made for the new train station area built on highly productive agricultural land in Landskrona. The proposal is based on how the situation for the agricultural land in terms of exploitation looks like today and also on theories of urban governance to find out why the area turned out the way it did..

This thesis investigates how the level of implementation of New Public Management affects an organization?s efficiency. According to theory, a high level of implementation leads to a more efficient organization. This thesis is based on two case studies conducted on two units within Stockholms Stad. One of the units shows a high level of implementation of NPM and a high level of efficiency.

AbstractFörfattare ? Malin Andersson och Slaven MarasTitel ? Aspects of decentralizations effect on eldercare ? a qualitative study of three municipal authority office/ Aspekter på decentraliseringens effekter på äldreomsorg ? En kvalitativ studie i tre kommuners myndighetskontorHandledare ? Linda ErlandssonExaminator: Jan Petersson This is a qualitative study of the phenomenon of decentralization and its impact on care managers working in elderly care. The aim of the study was to examine how care managers margin for maneuver and need assessments continually are shaped by organizational conditions and municipal governance. With these aspects in mind, we wanted to identify similarities and differences in three different municipalities? ways to work with care management in the elderly care.

Profit in first commercial thinnings of today is hard to achieve. This is because of prevailing pulpwood prices and because of high costs of logging and transport. To reduce these costs higher productivity is advocated. One way to increase the productivity is the use of multi-tree handling harvester heads. The aim of this study was to calculate logging and transport costs in first thinnings, where multi-tree handling has been used.

After a series of corporate scandals around the world the trust in the business world was damaged, probably most in the United States but also in Sweden. Voices were raised for an increase in the openness and insight into the affairs of the company whereupon different corporate governance codes were developed in a majority of countries. A Swedish corporate governance code was issued in December 2004 with the purpose to re-establish the damaged trust for the companies and the business world. The Swedish code was accepted by the Stockholm Stock Exchange as an exchange rule for A-listed and larger O-listed companies as of July 2005. The purpose of this essay is to study how the Swedish corporate governance code in fact leads to an increase in trust in the stock market and to study the companies? attitudes towards this code.To fulfil the purpose of this essay, the authors have carried out a survey among the concerned companies where the companies? attitudes towards the Swedish code were collected.

Our essay is about the grammar structure that the participants in A- and B- level of a school in the middle of Sweden, in the subject, Swedish as a second language, process. We have collected written productions from an A-level group and a B-level group and made a comparison between them morphologically and syntactically according to the processability theory by Pienemann.Processability theory was applied to Swedish by Pienemann & Håkansson (1999), with five steps in syntax and four steps in morphology. It turned out that the B-level group had much higher processing level of grammar than the A level group and one of the reasons for this can be that grammar is explicitly taught during the first year of studying Swedish as a second language in the school we have chosen to study..

The focus on this essay is derived from an international and national dialogue for sustainable development. The recommendation from international level has been to find solutions for governments to implement strategies for sustainable development between local and regional level. This initiative is to improve and stimulate the dialogue between the local inhabitants, officials, entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the communities together with the authorities on the regional level. The purpose is to share knowledge and find ways to learn about the natural systems and how to co-operate in the work of preserving the natural resources and developing different processes for a sustainable development. Many scientists? today stress the importance that ecosystem resilience is promoted by biodiversity conservation and that we need to find solutions for local ecosystem management practices.This essay aims to find theoretical approaches and perspectives that can be used in a wider framework to study co-operative processes between the local (agent) and regional (structure) level.

This report discusses the IT archetypes "governance strategy" and how it could be linked to the IT benefits at the company. The study is based on IT investments that have taken place in ten banks operating in Sweden today, where the reality was modeled on the basis of a questionnaire survey and an additional interview. The aim was to examine whether it is possible to find any correlation between the governance in the banks and obtained benefits for an IT investments.While the competition is intensifying in most companies there is a greater demand for efficiency in IT. The need for IT solutions is greater than ever and the number of IT investments is increasing significantly in most workplaces today, especially on banks. But even if the investments are increasing in numbers it does not necessarily mean that all types of investments are effective and beneficial to the company.

In this study we have focused on the operational management of the public pre-school in Sweden. We have studied how the governance system is designed, why it is designed this way and what impact it has on the operational management. This has been analyzed from a theory stating that there are two types of organizations: pay-driven and function-driven. Through a case and document study we came to the conclusion that the pre-school is a function-driven organization but is nowadays acting on a market and have adopted characteristics of a pay-driven organization. We connect this change to the phenomenon New Public Management.

Bachelor essay in political science by Marie Åberg, autumn 2011. ?Harm or benefit? A critical view of the theoretical grounds of the international development aid?. Supervisor: Professor Mats Lindberg. The first of the dual purpose of this essay is to present international aid policy ideas and the theoretical grounds of international development aid.