Learning organizations and organizational development are interesting subjects that does not examine municipal organizations and private organizations an equal amount.  Furthermore, there exists little research on the effects of competence development for individuals in a leadership role within organizations. Because of this, we wanted to examine the impact of competence development in business modeling and how it affected local government activities. Competence development is used by organizations to develop their business and achieve a greater competitive advantage, but does competence development for individuals in a leadership role lead to organizational development? This paper examines competence development in the form of a business modeling course via the Bitstreamproject and the effects that occur within three municipalities as a result of the competence development. By interviewing three participants and four coworkers within different municipalities and studied the data from the Bitstream project, we can not conclude that competence development within business modeling leads to organizational development, only that it exists a tendency for it.

The law firm industry has during the last years met new demanding conditions and one tool to handle these new conditions has been to implement a Knowledge Management system. Large investments have been made in these Knowledge Management systems but the implementations have met many challenges from within the organizations.With a multiple study, based on interviews with Knowledge Management Managers included in a Knowledge Management network, this thesis aims to study the challenges with Knowledge Management and the underlying causes. The result, based on McDermott's theories shows challenges within technical, personal, social and management areas where the law firm need to shift a focus from Information to Knowledge Management, create a culture of trust and integration and use the informal powerbase.The causes for these challenges are found in the base of Mintzbergs theories of Professional bureaucracy where the Knowledge Management is affected by strong self-regulated individualist, a divided organizational structure and industry conditions..

It?s not for nothing the time we live in is often referred to as the age of information. Children and young adults who grow up I today?s society have greater access to facts and opinions than any earlier generations. This also applies to popular culture that during the last couple of decades have taken new expressions that no one could have ever dreamed of and more time goes to the consumption of it via visits to the cinema, television and computers.

This thesis explores the validity of feminist poststructuralist theory in relation to gender and culture. Within the theoretical frame¬work of Judith Butler, combined with insights from the field of post-colonial theory, different perspectives of the dilemma of universalism are discussed. Primary sources for the study are policy documents from the Swedish government, literary texts and newspaper articles. The results show a number of paradoxes which need to be continually and critically kept unsolved. This does not mean an end to feminist engagement in other contexts than one's own but rather the need for theoretical awareness and self reflection.

Families of children with disabilities often have many different contacts with professional representing different principals. This places high demands on their professional work together to meet the needs of families and use resources efficiently. The method used is a literature review which aims to describe what is needed to achieve good collaboration between different professions around families with children with disabilities, and that from an organizational perspective to examine why there are often gaps in collaboration and how this affects the parents' life situation.The theories in this study originated from organizational and sociological theories. The most central concept in this study is collaboration from an organizational perspective. The results show that the interaction is problematic, due to that collaborative organizations often have rules which are incompatible and a lack of accountability on who is liable makes impairment in the interaction.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the design and function of an engine production management?s control system and its intended function, and to contrast it with the present management control systems in use on an operational level. Interviews conducted with employees from all levels of the engine production are the main source of this study?s empirical foundation. Information has also been gathered from relevant written material such as annual reports, internal documents etc.

The thesis focus on how organizations can improve the ability of absorbing coworkers ideas in purpose of gaining long term competitive advantage through innovations. The study was conducted at IKEA AB where a campaign to collect coworkers ideas was a big success given the quantity of ideas collected. This fact allows a comparative analysis of idea management in the shape of campaigns and in comparison, idea management in the everyday line-organization.The analysis show that fundamental factors for innovative environments such as organizational climate, culture and leadership perceives auspiciously by the respondents. However, lack of infrastructure such as systems and processes hinders coworkers ambitions to contribute with ideas.An important issue in idea management is the treatment of incentives for innovation. Results of the study show that the ?soft? incentives ?feedback, encouragement and attention have a higher impact in coworkers willingness to the contribution of ideas than for instance monetary rewards..

Background: Different cultures meet to a greater extent than before as a result of the increasing globalisation. Therefore, international leaders have to count on greater differences in behaviour of their employees within organisations than they have experience from. It can consequently be difficult in an international environment to understand what motivate individuals of a different culture. Purpose: The purpose of this report is to make greater understanding for how national cultures influence leaders methods to motivate their employees in an international environment in Spain where two different cultures confront. Performance: The study has been made by 14 qualitative interviews with Spanish and Swedish leaders in Spain.

The recent development in society, such as the increased digitalisation, has brought new terms for both production and consumption within the cultural field. One of the main goals within Swedish Cultural Policies today is that everyone should have the same opportunities to practice and participate in cultural activities, with the right to develop their creative abilities. The cultural policies also contain the possibility to encourage spontaneous culture practice. The question is how to reach this goal.During the spring of 2012 I have been examining the term ?spontankultur? (spontaneous culture practice) as it appears in the discussion around participation in cultural activities and its connection to creativity.

Organizational learning has become more and more important in the last decades as the environment in which organizations exist continues to change rapidly and unexpectedly. In order for organizational learning to happen, the individuals within the organization must learn. Just as different individuals possess different skills, each individual also has their own learning style. As the use of teamwork increases, so does the need for techniques to put high performing teams together and with organizational learning as one of the objectives the question is, how do we maximize learning, efficiency and performance in teams? This study uses a quantitative method to examine how teams, from a course at the Stockholm School of Economics, perform on the individual learning, team efficiency and team performance scale based on the individual learning styles within the team.

The purpose of this study is to investigate two Handelsbanken offices and how they work in similar ways when dealing with internal communication. The goal is to answer if and in what way the managers` and the employes perceive their internal communication at the two bank officies. By a comparation between the two decentralisized officies the aim is also to study what differences and/or similarities that exists in internal communications?Are managers and employees satisfied with the communication that flows in the organization? I find it interesting to investigate in wheather there exist a similarity in the internal communication between the managers and the employees since it is a decentralized organization.I have made five semi-structured interviews with two managers at two different Handelsbanken offices. Additionally two interviews with two employes at one of the offices and also one interview at the other Handelsbanken office.By the study I have found that all respondents have a positive impression according the internal communication.

Men?s magazines is a form of media that has been present and popular among men for decades and even centuries. In the beginning of 1990 the popularity for men?s magazines boosted as the new ideal man was presented. The new lad represented a new masculinity that was more honest about its ideals and point of views.

The purpose of this examination is to investigate how Judisk Krönika, a periodical which was introduced in 1932 with the aim of disseminating Jewish culture and tradition in Sweden, uses history to make comments about its role in contemporary history, specifically during the first two years of the First Intifada. A second purpose was to examine how this use of history differed from results shown in earlier studies comprising the 1960s and the 2000s. The method in use is qualitative; the source material has been read thoroughly and scrutinized in search of the authors open and hidden messages and intentions. The main finding shows that four major themes could be identified: anti-Semitism(anti-Zionism); memory; ethnonational and media. The most dominant theme during the 1980s, as opposed to the 1960s and the 2000s focus on Zionism and Jewish culture respectively, is memory, that could be described as hegemonic and as a part of a existential use of history, which aims for survival and preservation of the Jewish culture in times of conflict..

AbstractThis study focuses on three generations of Kurdish women's view on honor. The study is a qualitative research based on three individual interviews. The aim of this study is to examine how three generations of immigrant women from a culture of honor is influenced over time by the majority culture and its values together with how these women affect each other mutually both consciously and unconsciously within the family. The study is based on two questions: What does"honor" mean to the three generations of women who are Muslim and Kurdish? Did these three generations of women?s idea of honor change over time as they have lived in Sweden? Results of this study have shown that the concept of honor has its focus on the woman's body, sexuality and chastity.

AbstractThis study focuses on three generations of Kurdish women's view on honor. The study is a qualitative research based on three individual interviews. The aim of this study is to examine how three generations of immigrant women from a culture of honor is influenced over time by the majority culture and its values together with how these women affect each other mutually both consciously and unconsciously within the family. The study is based on two questions: What does"honor" mean to the three generations of women who are Muslim and Kurdish? Did these three generations of women?s idea of honor change over time as they have lived in Sweden? Results of this study have shown that the concept of honor has its focus on the woman's body, sexuality and chastity.