The purpose of this essay is to give the reader an insight in the subject of torture. This is done through both an historical perspective and by showing how torture methods are used today, even though torture is prohibited by law. Many refugees who come to Sweden today have survived torture, and the trauma can cause multiple illnesses related to the tragic memories. In addition to physical damage many also suffer from depression and post traumatic stress, due to the experiences of torture.Together with the Swedish Red Cross we designed a questionnaire which was sent to politicians and elected officials. In the questionnaire we asked questions concerning knowledge of injuries due to torture and what treatment options these people have in Sweden.

The most common preventive and treatment service for children in child welfare services in Sweden is the contact family program. The number of children who are involved in the program has steadily increased. Usually it is a single mother who apply for or is offered this service. The aim with a contact family is that the parent should get respite and that the child should have its network enlarged and sometimes get a male role model.The purpose of this study was to look into how children´s perspective was considered in the contact family process. I have studied the process in order to see how it works and to see to what extent children is participating.

AbstractPurpose/Aim: This essay deals with The Swedish Red Cross Society and their work concerning strategical information and communication about HIV and AIDS in the Swedish context. In a broader sense the relation between the global and the local will be investigated and a discussion about what it means to work in an organization operating on a global arena will be held.Material/Method: This essay is based on relevant theories about culture and health communication which I have studied, selected and put together, with purpose to analyse The Swedish Red Cross Society and their informational work with HIV and AIDS- prevention. Furthermore I have interviewed four of the organizations co- workers to collect data about their experiences in working in the Red Cross organization with this specific mission. Moreover I and my colleague Hillevi Good attended at seminars and lectures to observe activities held by the organization and to get inside information about what people working with HIV and AIDS are discussing and considering as critical issues. The study holds a qualitative approach focusing on understanding this typical case rather then generalizing facts in a larger sense.Main results: The Swedish National Society of The Red Cross has a difficult mission in their work to inform the public about HIV and AIDS, although it is the perfect organization when it comes to communication due to their well-known profile and a huge geographical spread.

What can make us identify ourselves with places? Why do we feel stronger for certain environments? Is it possible to change the identity and how can we do it? What exactly is building identity on a site, what elements it is safest to hang on to when the wind of change is blowing? In this paper, I?m going to discuss the subject identity in different ways and from different angles. Important questions I have had, has been how to analyze a site and what is the importance of identity and the possibility of changing it?The first part of the paper aims to provide an introduction to the concept of identity. I'm giving a short explanation of what identity is and how places relate to identity.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between self-determination theory and its three basic needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness, and commitment to change in an organizational change. Another purpose was to examine if the quality of the communication and the effects on the organization and way to work can predict commitment to change. Considering that organizational changes is very common today there is an interest to ease and improve the change process. The survey contained the scales Commitment to change scale and Basic need satisfaction at work scale and the participants were 39 office-workers who recently had gone through an organizational change. The result indicated that it?s possible to predict commitment to change from self-determination theory, communication and effects on organization and way to work.

BackgroundThere are different organizational structures and control and it has been proved difficult to find a combination between these that leads to goal congruence and improved efficiency. An organization can be structured according to hierarchical levels and the decision making can be either centralized or decentralized. Organizational control can be classified according to the amount of rules and balanced scorecard can be used to weld together the structure with the control.PurposeThe purpose is to create an understanding of how two types of structures and control in an organization appears and also to investigate how these differ from one another concerning the balanced scorecard as a control system. We will also investigate how the variables goal congruence and efficiency are affected by the implementation of the balanced scorecard.MethodTo answer the purpose of this thesis we have mainly used the qualitative method since we have studied two organizations thoroughly through interviews on different levels of the organization. The study also has some quantitative elements since we wanted to get a more truthful picture of the organizations.

Research has shown positive correlations between global self-esteem and physical activity, as well as between global self-esteem and school performance. However, research is ambiguous and other variables have shown importance for global self-esteem. This study aims to investigate the correlations between global self-esteem and physical activities, school performance and social participations within high-school students in the northern part of Sweden. The study also investigates gender differences regarding correlations between the variables. The study was conducted using a questionnaire that included Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and self-rated physical activity, social participation and grades in Swedish, English and mathematics.

The aim of this masters thesis, based on discourse analysis and organization theory, is to study how individuals in different Swedish cultural organizations- and agencys are working with disaster preparedness.The purpose of this is to examine whether organizational structures affect different persons work, cooperation and practical application concerning disaster preparedness in collaboration with both external and internal organizations.The research shows that disaster preparedness are affected by priority issues as well as financial resources causing consequences for future work concerning this kind of issues.Another problem which is also examined and discussed in this thesis are the problematic approach to personal initiative which today is the leading operation for the organizations to deal with disaster preparedness instead of creating professional titles for the persons handles these complex issues..

Abstract Author: Annika Sjögren ArvidsonTitle: The reflective leadership role in social service organizations Supervisor: Anders GiertzAssessor: Jan Petersson  I have studied the leadership role of unit managers in social service organizations and their relationship to the concept of reflective approach. I started from a curiosity about how and if unit managers within social services use the concept reflective approach in their leadership role, and how their organizations look upon this and what the consequences are. If in the long term, this affects the individual receiving assistance. All the interviewed persons come from different places, services and organizations. The study is qualitative, with a number of interviews conducted with unit managers.

Human Papilloma virus (HPV) can lead to cervical cancer, a common form of cancer in Sweden and globally. A vaccine has been developed for the most carcinogenic strains of HPV. In Sweden it is planned that the vaccine be included in the public national vaccination program for children. The aim of this study was to illustrate attitudes towards future sexual habits and preventive cervical cancer screening among young women and parents of girls vaccinated against HPV. This study is a part of a larger project where interviews with young women aged 17 to 26 years and parents of girls aged 13 to 17 years compose the foundation.

Employee turnover can cost an organization a significant amount of money. In addition, retention of employees can beneficial towards to an organization as it e.g. allows to save costs related torecruitment and training of new employees. The fast food industry is recognized as an industry which employs low-skilled employees and is especially in the United States known to be prone to high employee turnover. With regards to Europe, only little information is available in the field of low-skilled employee retention in the fast food industry.

The purpose of this study is to describe how the employee appraisal is perceived by managers, employees and representatives from human resources departments. The empirical material con-sists of 15 interviews: respondents were two representatives of the human resources departments, four unit managers and nine employees who work at a state institution or municipal management. In the study, I adopt a sociocultural perspective, with the communicative relational perspective. The latter is a special education perspective in which the interpenetration of participation, com-munication and learning emphasized.The result shows that the majority of employees would like to see that the talks will be held more frequently than once a year. One of the managers has in cooperation with his co-workers devel-oped a model based on that each year, in addition to salary talks, have an individual conversation, a conversation with each group and individual follow-up talks.

AbstractThis qualitative study has been made to examine which factors that are required to create a work place that can be associated with loyal co-workers. The study covers half structured interviews with nine people on different levels and with different positions, within a manufacturing company in Värmland. Our ambition with this study is to find out if, and if so, in what way the view on loyalty and which factors that are required to encourage loyalty, differ depending on witch level one belongs to in the organization. Our thesis is that our respondents will have various ways of expressing the term loyalty, and that these various ways are linked to the different levels that each employee is currently stationed at.The result of this study shows that the way people look at loyalty, and what loyalty is really about, does not differ that much among our respondents, regardless of their level. The factors that, according to the respondents, are important if one wants to create a work place that can be associated with loyal co-workers are: to be able to feel trust towards and have faith in those one works with, as well as the company and the way things are being run, to be able to experience the feeling of community, and that one is happy with ones work place, as well as ones co-workers.

Work environment activities, such as work health promotion, can take place at different levels - though the best result is obtained when all levels can interact. The overall aim with this study was to examine the impact of health promotion on work related well-being and stress in an industrial company. The focus was on employee experience of and participation in company initiated wellness activities. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in which parts of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ II) were used to examine factors in the psychosocial work environment, and well-being was examined with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). In all 303 employees (50 %) responded to the survey.

AbstractIn this thesis we analyze how institutions describe the dichotomy between ?problem? and ?resource? when dealing with young adults. We also analyze the consequences of this dichotomy as it involves the younger generation's participation and group identity in today's society. Dichotomies and New Institutionalism Theory is the base for this case study completed in Malmö, Sweden. We have done eight qualitative interviews with politicians and employees in Malmö municipality and a quantitative content analysis of reference documents from both the Malmö and Swedish governments.