This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

The EU guarantees the free movement of persons. The citizens of the EU Member States have the right to move freely without barriers within the EU borders and this result in an integration of the peoples in Europe. The integration result in several international family relationships. It is not unusual in the present situation that families have international relations. For example, spouses in a married couple may have different nationality.

The aim of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, it is the production of a historical and chronological narrative describing the development of the Swedish Red Cross Hospital in Pusan during the years 1950-58. Secondly, it is the investigation of the objectives and aspirations of the organisations and institutions involved and how they affected how the hospital developed during the wartime years and up until the inauguration of the Scandinavian educational hospital, the National Medical Centre, in Seoul. Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 Sweden, a neutral nation, offered to send a contingent for the establishment of a 200 bed mobile field hospital which was to be subjected to the command of the Eighth US Army in Korea. In the end a larger semimobile evacuation hospital was set up in Pusan where both UN soldiers and PoWs were treated, and it came to be known as the Swedish Red Cross Hospital. The decrease in and finally the cessation of hostilities in 1953 opened up for treatment of Korean civilian patients and such work was conducted not only at the Swedish hospital but all over Pusan, though initially it was not formally sanctioned by American and UN authorities.

This report is about changes in an organization. Changes is something that every organization sooner or later is bound to do. In many cases the changes leads to problems and conflicts. I have chosen to study one change process in the home help service of the municipality of Bollnäs. The change process I have chosen to study is about changes in the day-to-day work for the employees at the home help service.

The average life expectancy and the proportion of elderly are increasing globally and inSweden, causing challenges for the society. Physical activity has proven to bring a number ofpositive benefits in older people, making the promotion of physical activity an important partof healthy aging attempts. The degree of physical activity in Sweden?s elderly population isgreater than in previous generations, making this group a positive exception from a widerperspective. A cross sectional study was made in order to investigate which motives tophysical activity that was considered most important among people above 60.

This thesis aims at exploring a national collaborative gateway-service, PictureAustralia, hosted at the National Library of Australia. This will be done by means of investigating some underlying principles for descriptive standards and conventions as of the library discourse which is the objective of bibliographic control and access. The reason to do this is to bring some main features of these principles into the context of a cross-institutional cooperation between libraries, galleries/museums and archives in a picture database service. The attention will lay on the objectives of what functions the system is designed to perform to give access, as defined by Elaine Svenonius in the Intellectual Foundations of Information Organization 2000, and how these objectives will affect this particular database-service collocating performance, which is a system- and logical approach. Though, this study will be done in an explorative and qualitative way, by a case-study, which is to examine some sample metadata records emanated from different institutions in this project.

Glulam is a product that was engineered to make use of timber in a more efficient way. Bychoosing timber of similar quality and discarding natural defects during production, thedevelopment of a stronger cross-section is achieved.Carbon fiber is a relatively new material with a high tension capacity. This feature is used toexamine how the bending capacity of the beams improve by adhering carbon fiber laminateson the lower edge of the beamsThe strength of the material is tested with three experiments: carbon fiber on the bottom of thebeam (a), carbon fiber attached to the lower sides of the beam (b) and carbon fiber in thebeam, covered with a layer of wood (c)The results show that the first case, where the carbon fiber is attached to the bottom of thebeam, gave the best result with an increase in capacity of 59 % compared to the nonreinforcedcontrol. The other two cases also show an improvement in capacity, beam-type 3had a capacity increase of 47% and beam-type 4 increased with 25 %Tests were also made with glulam beams reinforced with fiberglass, but these tests were notanalyzed in depth because the purpose was to compare the capacity to carbon fiber. Thisbeam improved its capacity by 40.3%.The tests show that carbon fiber as a reinforcement material for glulam is a good choice whenthere is a requirement for stronger cross-sections in both new production and renovation ofold buildings.

The matter of CSR and sustainable products has gained an increased amount of interest in recent years as "green products" are becoming a trend with more "eco"-alternatives in the assortment of many retailers. However, among the increasing number of socially oriented customers, it seems that although they claim an increased demand for these kind of products, its easier to "talk the talk" that to actually "walk the walk". This is due to a discrepancy between attitude and behavior, called the attitude-behavior gap. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to overcome this gap by using three different studies to get a nuanced and reality-based view of the problem. The focus within these different studies is on the potential effects inside the store and how information provided has an effect on perceived credibility and purchase intention.

Eventing is often called as the formula 1 in equestrian sports and comprises three disciplines: dressage, show jumping and cross-country. The sport provides excitement, challenge and joy and is the ultimate sport for intelligent riders and horses. Many are fascinated by the challenges the sport offers while other consider it foolhardy to ride a cross-country. Eventing is not a risk-free sport and has even been given the label of being one of the world´s most dangerous sports. What do those risks mean to the horse? And particularly, is it associated with good animal ethics to use the horse for eventing? Finding answers to these questions is not easy as it probably is not a clear and simple answer.

Sarah Kane?s first play Blasted (1995) has often been read in a normative and biographical way by critics, authors and previous researchers. This essay makes a supplementary close reading of Blasted from gender and genealogical perspectives and utilizes theoretical works by Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray and Michel Foucault. My study makes clear that the characters different positions in language and talk create and maintain a power imbalance between them. Efforts to change and develop one?s individual position in language and talk are being made throughout the play since it is the only way to bring about a change in the social power structure.

This essay is about the meeting of the pedagogic mission and the reality of the conditions in preschools. It is about the frustrations that I, as a pedagogue, experience when I cannot fulfill this mission. An example of this is working when understaffed.My purpose is the acknowledgment of two main areas of the curriculum: caring and learning. This essay demonstrates the diversity of the occupation and it ?s constant need of positioning.

Many pedigree dogs are suffering from inherited diseases or personality disorders caused by selective breeding. The Swedish lapphund is a breed that has been suffering from some loss of genetic variation due to the heavy use of only a few males. Concerns have arisen and crossbreeding has been discussed as a way to manage gene loss. Four breeds has been taken into consideration for this purpose; schipperke, finish lapphund, Norwegian buhund and Norwegian elkhound, black. These breeds has been tested theoretical by a comparison of mentality and health.

The aim of this essay is to study the importance of team organisation of teachers? learning of teaching and learning and to find out different obstacles and possibilities.I carried out the study at a schooldistrict in a community in the south of Sweden. Data was collected by group interviews and document studies. To get all kinds of teachers, from pre-school to year six, in the groups the sample was made by the headmaster of the schooldistrict. Since it is a case study the findings can not be considered as general, but they can hopefully contribute the pedagogical discussion and future research.The findings show that there exists a difference between the expectations on policy level on the one hand and on the team level on the other hand.

Syfte och frågeställningar                                                                                                  Syftet har varit att kartlägga erfarenheter av och attityder till Self-talk (ST) i samband med idrottslig prestation bland elitboxare inom svensk Amatörboxning.Vad har boxarna för erfarenheter av ST i samband med prestation?Hur ser boxarna på kopplingen mellan ST och prestationsförmågan?Tränar boxarna på att förbättra sitt ST?Metod                                                                                                                                       Den kvalitativa forskningsmetod som använts för att besvara frågeställningarna är halvstrukturerade intervjuer av fem manliga och kvinnliga svenska landslagsboxare på seniornivå i åldrarna 20 ? 31 år. Resultat                                                                                                                              Boxarna delade med sig av sina många och rika erfarenheter av ST i samband med match och träning. De redogjorde för upplevelser av positivt ST som främjande för prestationen genom dess fördelaktiga inverkan på självförtroende, motivation, koncentration och anspänning. Användning av undervisande ST skildrades av boxarna för att understödja teknikträning, genom ledord påminna om teknik och taktik, bekräfta väl genomförda tekniker och tillsammans med visualisering användas för taktisk planering.

The aim of the present thesis is to examine discourses about teaching information seeking in upper secondary school teachers. The main questions are: (1) What different interpretative repertoires can be identified among teachers talking about teaching information seeking in relation to students? problem-based tasks? (2) How are these repertoires constructed and what functions can be observed? The theoretical framework is discursive psychology. Two teacher teams from two different upper secondary schools in the Gothenburg area participated in focus group interviews. Group A consisted of four teachers from the Individual Programme and group B of seven teachers from the Social Science Programme.