This study puts emphasis on an international discourse describing how cities frequently compete against each other, and also describing factors that cities should enhance to make themselves more competitive. The discourse in this study has therefore been used to seek understanding how three different municipalities Borlänge, Karlstad and Malmö strive for growth by applying central factors from the discourse on the municipalities strategic documents. What the study shows is that the central factors from the discourse strongly imprints the strategic documents, but the presence of the factors varies between the municipalities and also to what meaning that lies behind the strategic goals..

Due to fast growing and rapid changes in markets today, most of the organizationsthat are trying keep up with these changes have a high demand for software that areof high quality and comes with a low price. To meet these goals software companieshave to implement new methods to develop software that are suited for rapidchanges. The concept of agile methods can fulfill this need. Our purpose with thisthesis was to investigate how well agile methods could be applied in organizationsthat could be identified as adhocracies. A case study was conducted in anorganization which we could identify as an adhocracy.

Skatka, Emma & Wiklund, Martina. (2006). Det ömsesidiga mötet ? hur föräldrar möter pedagoger och hur pedagoger möter föräldrar. (The Mutual Meeting - Parents Meet Pre-School Teachers and Pre-School Teachers Meet Parents). Föräldrakontakten är en stor del av arbetet som förskollärare och ytterst viktig.

This report is a master thesis performed by Adam Lundin at the company Sandvik Coromants production facility in Gimo. The work started in January 2013 and went on for the duration of 20 weeks, which is equivalent to 30 hp. The project was executed at the department GVR10. The scope of the project was to create a base for improvements in the purchasing process of direct material to the production. The background to the project was that the centralized purchasing department has gone through changes and decision was taken to decentralize the purchasing of direct material to Gimo.

This paper deals with the question: "Why does the U.S. aid project to cambat HIV/AIDS in Africa, called PEPFAR, use a strategy that has been shown to be couterproductive?" The author uses an anthropological approach, based on theory of "aid as a gift" inspired by work of Mauss and Stirrat& Henkel. The study demonstrates that the interests that lie behind PEPFAR have had a greater influence on the choice of strategy than the declared goals. It is concluded that evaluations of development assistance should focus as much on the background interests of the givers as the declared objectives..

Social exclusion is a problem in today?s society that we feel public libraries can help resolve since they are based on the idea of equality and openness. The purpose of this essay is to examine how public librarians think and reason about the concept ?integration? as well as what role public libraries can play in immigrants? integration process. With Jose Alberto Diaz? theory on the integration process, and Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model for analysis of the local library profile as theoretical framework, we analyzed the responses from two qualitative interviews in small groups of 2-3 librarians from two different public libraries.

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.

The purpose of this study is to conduce to the understanding of what challenges the HRdepartmentfaces in the work with the psychosocial work environment in nonprofit organizationsin Sweden. A particular focus in the study is on how the certain features of the nonprofit sectoraffect and tend to contribute to these challenges. In both Swedish and International research thereappears to be a lack of studies that deal with the psychosocial work environment in the nonprofitsector, which is one of the main reasons for this study. International research show, among otherthings, that employees in this sector have a higher degree of work satisfaction than in othersectors. Especially, they value the sense of making a contribution to the society, to get feedbackon their work performance as well as they expect a high level of co-determination.

Authors: Stina Johansson, Anna Lennartsson, Caroline WennerstenTutors: Peter Caesar Title: Communication without boundaries? ? a study about the problems of Gothenburg culture festival communications to multicultural areas.Keywords: communication, multucultural areas, communicationmodel, attitudes, diversity marketing, culture, Gothenburg Culture Festival  Background: There can be many problems with communication in multicultural areas. It has become more important for companies to communicate in order to gain competitive advantage. Gothenburg Culturefestival has a large number of visitors and since last year they have noticed that there are not as many visitors from some multicultual areas in Gothenburg. This makes it interesting to see what kind of problems that exists in the current communication. Problem statement: What noise is there in communicating to a multicultural target group and how does they affect the goals and the result with the communication?Purpose: The purpose of this paper is based on the communicationmodel and from there describe the communication between companies and multicultural areas, and from this identify problems with such communication.Method: 118 respondents were selected through a convenience sample and then  asked questions through structured interviews based on a questionnaire.

The subject of this paper is the mediation of norms about sexuality, from personnel working at the Swedish ?ungdomsmottagning? (youth centre for service and counselling about sexual health), to the visiting teenagers. The purpose of the empirical study is to investigate how the staff understands the part of their work that implies giving advice about sexuality; how they work, which norms they have about youth sexuality and how they see their roll as advisers. To answer these questions, I have interviewed six staff members working at different youth centres. Three of them work as social counsellors and three as midwifes.The main area of work at the centre consists of individual appointments, but another important task is meeting with school classes visiting for purposes of study.

The European Union is a 60 year long collaboration between the European countries. It was born from the intention to ease trade and thereby reassure peace. Within the 60 years EU has functioned it has developed and expanded further. In 1952 it evolved around the trade of coal and steel between six countries, today it includes 27 nations and oversees a large number of topics such as foreign affairs, a common currency and regional politics. EU has grown at several times, the latest expansion was the largest where 12 new countries became members. The unions of countries that only 60 years ago were at different sides of a world war can be considered an accomplishment.

Fungi are everywhere around us and recently, there has been an increased interest in their role and importance in the forest. The fungi have several strategies to acquire energy and nutrition; one example is a mutual symbiosis with trees and plants - another being dissolving organic materials. Attempts have been made to better understand the circulation of nutrition in coniferous forests, and how fungi cooperate. Trees and plants have adapted with mycorrhizae and are now interdependent which is important to consider in forestry. A great number of fungi depend on dead wood and old trees to set fruiting bodies and spread further. These fungi also create environments for other species, such as birds and insects. The vegetation of a forest is determined by a series of factors; tree species, how old the forest is, soil type, as well as the ability of the fungal spores to spread and establish. Furthermore, in determining vegetation, the fungi?s ability to compete in the soil matters. These factors are nearly unexplored. Researching fungi knowledge and interest, a survey was distributed to five groups of people. The groups included forest owners, high school teachers, high school students, senior citizens, and a fifth group - ?o he ? - consisting of people of mixed ages and backgrounds.

One of the purposes of this work was to find out what it means to have a conceptual understanding of geometry. It describes how the geometry evolved from history and the geometry that is taught in grade one to nine and collage. The area examined was based on fundamental geometric objects for example two- and three- dimensional objects and its characteristics and especially focusing on the areas of perimeter, area and volume. The literature- review showed that the conceptual understanding was primary to developing a good knowledge of geometry. The second purpose of his study examined whether pupils achieved the goals in geometry by working with a Mathematics Book.

This study is an attempt to shed light on the importance of fiction as a bridge between different cultures and traditions. The objective of this essay is threefold. First it explores the potentiality of fiction as a communication channel between different cultures, societies and social groups. Secondly, it studies the availability of foreign fiction in Swedish language. And thirdly it tries to approach and analyze the structures and mechanisms behind that availability.

The study concerns the history and development of hospitallibraries in Sweden in the beginning of the 1900 century.Focus is on the 1930 decade, the time of major expansionof the area. The study is based on study of literature, mainlyfrom articles but also from a few booklets from the time.The purpose of the study is to find out how the librarieswere described in the literature of the time and which goalsand tasks they had. It is also to make it possible to increaseunderstanding of the history of hospital libraries, using it asan inspirational source for development of today´s businessin a time of major change. The result of the study showsthat those goals and ideas are still valid and serve well as aninspirational basis for development of today´s hospitallibraries..