This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

In this thesis my purpose is to study the mechanisms and discourses that are the foundations for identification processes, in a contemporary society characterised by increased mobility. By means of a fictitious life history, I relate to this problem constantly through the work. At the beginning of the essay I discuss the traditional, western, philosophical view of the self and its surroundings, which eventually leads me to focus on the theories of the sociology of knowledge. From this perspective I choose to examine globalisation processes and mobility, to create an understanding of how these two, changes the circumstances for the individual identification. In my concluding argument I stress that all research or all studies concerning identification processes must take into account that these identifications always take place with regard to time/place which also means, that it takes place both in real space and in imaginary space.

The purpose of this master's degree thesis was to develop an understanding of how hospital management, in the case studied, worked to achieve changes in an organization influenced by differing professional cultures. To gain insight into the conditions that may have contributed to nurses and physicians developing appropriate attitudes and behaviours, which may have affected the organization's ability to achieve the Swedish Quality Award 2012. A qualitative single case study was conducted at Karlskoga Hospital, with focus groups as well as individual depth interviews. The results of the case study showed the following conditions provided nurses and physicians the potential to develop appropriate attitudes and behaviours, which may have influenced the hospitals ability to achieve the Swedish Quality Award:  Responsibility and influence over the development processes.Participation in management teams and quality development groups as well as individual fields of responsibility.Training programs that have given insights and skills in quality management related to clinical practice.Nurses and physicians as key individuals gave legitimacy to development process, and served as management advisors.Collaboration between all kind of employees and responsibilities.Committed management.    .

The society of consumption exposes us to a lot of information, where advertisement constitutes an extensive part. Due to its expanding, advertisement receives a natural and obvious space in our everyday life. This study aims to investigate how social and cultural values can be mediated in advertisement. The focus has been put to ideas related to health and fitness in the advertisement of power drinks. The thesis takes social constructionism as a starting point, and combines image- and critical discourse analysis in purpose to analyze the pictures.Sociology of consumption, construction of identity, lifestyle and everyday life all constitute an essential part of my analysis.

What does the Swedish church Västerås stand for today according to the employees and how do they want to profile themselves to the target group? What image and what expectations does the target group have of the Swedish church Västerås? How can the Swedish church Västerås communicate uniform, with the intent to create mutual value with the target group?The purpose of the study is to make recommendations to the Swedish church Västerås for their prospective communication plan by examining their profile and target group's image and expectations of the organization. The study also aims to examine how the Swedish church Västerås can communicate their brand uniform.The study applies a qualitative research with deductive approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with a sample of the employees and focus groups with a sample of the target group.Better match between profile and image means that SkVs employees better understand the organization and can communicate more uniform which leads to a stronger brand identity. If SkV understands what is relevant for their target group, they can reduce the total cost of customer delivered value and thus increase the total value.

This Master´s thesis aims to aquire knowledge about volunteers attitude toward work. It emphasis is on the differences between volunteers and non volunteers. There are four research questions used in order to fulfill the aim in a scientific manner. The essay aims to get in depth knowledge regarding whether or not the respondents feel that they have gained advantages in work life due to the fact that they are involved in volunteer work. One of the pivotal questions is if there is a possibility to see a pattern that binds together the reasons for volunteer work and the attitude toward work.

The Swedish healthcare system is characterized by lack of resources and extensive hospital queues. In order to counter these difficulties the Lund University Hospital have introduced Lean Healthcare to the hospital organization. The purpose of this scientific paper is to study the relationship between the implementation of Lean Healthcare and the experienced motivation among the staff. This essay thereby intends to impart knowledge, which could be used on future implementations of Lean Healthcare at other hospitals. In order to fulfil the purpose of this essay a case study have been conducted at two wards at the Lund University Hospital in which qualitative research interviews have been the method chosen in order to gather data.

This thesis in sociology was based on a qualitative research strategy. Its intention was to analyze how a specific county in the middle of Sweden work to make the integration process of the unaccompanied refugee youths, with a Swedish residence permit, as good as possible, the other intention was to find out the possible following of this work.Interviews were done and statistics were found, this later on became analyzed together with the theories. The basic theories were integration and class theory.The mainly finding in this study was that that the integration of the unaccompanied refugee children leads them into a lower society class of the Swedish community. This since these youth are more of less forced to follow some steps in the education, which for many of them will lead to that they are too old to apply to the national gymnasium in Sweden, and therefore they only get education though the introduction program, which is not leading to a graduation from the gymnasium. Because of this they are not getting the same chances to succeed with the same kind of education as youth on other programs in the Swedish gymnasium..

This thesis has focused on the construction of homosexual parenthood in Swedish law and preparatory work. The purpose was to describe the norms about legal parenthood and examine if and how homosexual parenthood was included in the normative parenthood. The study was jurisprudential and based on methods such as sociology with a juridical focus and critical discourse analysis of the juridical texts. The theoretical framework was the critical discourse analysis as well as a queer perspective, both influenced by social constructionism and a poststructional theory. The conclusion of the study is that parenthood is described from what is presumably best for the child, which is two parents of different sexes and biological origin.

The purpose of this study was to look into the work of care organizers for elderly care, in three municipalities in southern Sweden, and how they use the law and local guidelines to evaluate the need for home care. The intention was to determine if presence of relatives makes a difference in the needs assessment and if the care organizers practice harmonize with the guidelines. To do this, we did a qualitative study alongside with analyzing each of the local guidelines. By interviewing five care organizers, we were able to see their side of elderly care and how they combine the law and local guidelines in their daily work with elderly care. Our main themes are, in short, the law and local guidelines, the view of care organizing and needs and also closeness to relatives.

 There is an ongoing reorganization within media industries today as they adapt to new and changing demands - the environment is changing fast and the organizations with it. The development of new technology is contributing to new forms of media distribution in the present media industry. The structure of media organizations is getting flatter and the co-workers are getting a new and bigger role. All this is bringing new challenges for the leaders of the organization. Caught in the middle of these new structures is the middle manager who now is facing different demands from all sides.

Syftet i denna uppsats är att få djupare förståelse för studenters visioner angående det goda campusrummet och om hur appropriationen, produktionen och reproduktionen av campusrummet ser ut. En strävan är också att få en djupare förståelse för hur makt påverkar rummets konstruktion och hur makten gör sig gällande i det redan byggda rummet. Det empiriska materialet är insamlat genom intervjupromenader i campusrummet på Åbo Akademi i Finland, främst i det nybyggda humanistcentret Arken. Uppsatsen är uppdelad i en teoridel och en empirisk del. Materialet har tolkats genom en fenomenologisk deskriptiv ansats och en hermeneutisk tolkande teknik med hjälp av Henri Lefebvres rumstriad.

Aim:The aim of the study was to describe the experience of working environment in open plan office within IT- sector.Background:Previously was the most common office model cell office, open plan office is now the most common. A good working environment in theise two office types needs different attributes. A theory to explain relationship between health and unhealth is Karasek and Theorells demand- control- supportmodel.Method:A qualitative interview study was performed to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of working in open plan office within IT- sector. Ten informants from two different organizations were chosen. The result has been analyzed with qualitative content analysis.Results:The analyses resulted in three themes and six sub-themes.

Uppsatsen syfte är att bidra med en diskussion till det omdebatterade ämnet hedersrelaterat våld. Den debatt som har förts på området analyseras samt granskas utifrån dess inverkan för de insatser som syftar till att motverka våldet. I uppsatsen förekommer tre intervjuer med offentliga aktörer som arbetar för att motverka hedersvåldet i samhället. Min slutsats är att ordet hederskultur fortfarande är relativt bannlyst och att detta haft negativa konsekvenser för hanterandet av problematiken. Min teoretiska hållning utgår från tesen - kultur som ett medel i förändrade livsomständigheter och hur det kan förstärka en hederskultur i exil..

Bakgrund: Kontorens utformning påverkar hur organisationer upplevs internt och externt. Utformningen har förändrats genom tiden vilket till viss del beror på samhällsutvecklingen och moden. Aktivitetsbaserat arbetssätt är ett nytt sätt att utforma kontor på och allt fler organisationer väljer idag att implementera ett aktivitetsbaserat arbetssätt.Syfte: Att skapa förståelse för modets inverkan på organisationers utveckling genom att studera implementeringen av ett aktivitetsbaserat arbetssätt. Metod: Studien bygger på en deduktiv forskningsansats med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi. Studien är en tvärsnittsstudie med datainsamling från mer än ett fall. Åtta kvalitativa intervjuer och två observationer har genomförts.