Organizations today face changes continuously as the society, the surroundings and the technology change. The information technology used in organizations has become essential, where intranets are a big part of it. Many organizations embrace social intranets, and these kind of changes has an impact on the members in the way they work, handle information and communicate. As many organizations and the members in it face new kinds of changes, they also face new kinds of challenges. This paper presents an interview study at Smurfit Kappa Kraftliner in Piteå, whom are about to go through a change process unlike any other change they have ever gone through before.

This study addresses the issue of mergers between consulting firms. Previous research has shown that there are specific factors that determine the outcome of a merger and that success is more likely if companies are more similar. The purpose of the study is therefore to define relevant factors and understand when resemblance matter and under what conditions disparity may cause problems. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to find a pattern of which factors are more important in a successful merger. The problem of the study is addressed through a qualitative research approach and is conducted on six different mergers.

Having an intranet as a source for information and communication is common in most contemporary organizations. Research shows that the intranet in itself does not have an explicit area of use, and that leaves every organization to make decisions of the associated functionality on their own. At the same time the strategic opportunities that the intranet could bring get lost somewhere along the way. This means that problems regarding the strategic use of an intranet becomes apparent and may result in loss of investments for the organization. The purpose of this thesis is to identify central choices that can be used as points of discussion and help organizations to work with their intranets on a more strategic level.

The aim of the thesis was to explore the attitudes toward social documentation held by care personnel, as well as factors that could have an impact on the process of social documentation. The study is based on a survey encompassing 100 respondents working as care personnel at six different eldercare units at Kungsholmen in Stockholm. The data was analyzed by quantitative methods, using a statistical software package (SPSS). The main questions in the study are whether the respondents know how, what and why they should document, what obstacles they experience and what they would need in order to document more or better, as well as whether there are factors that influence their attitudes and knowledge regarding documentation. The key results show that more time is the most common need, and lack of time the most common obstacle to social documentation reported by the respondents. Furthermore, the results show that those who report that they are satisfied with their working conditions are most likely to also report that they know how and why social documentation should be conducted. These results suggest that it is urgent for organizations to create good working conditions in order to increase motivation for social documentation. The results are analyzed using organizational theories.

Ledarskapsforskning utifrån ett inlärningsteoretiskt perspektivfokuserar på de observerbara beteenden som ledare uppvisar, i arbetetmed att vägleda medarbetare.  Att tillämpa beteendeanalys iorganisationer, kallas Organizational Behavior Management (OBM).Observationsstudier har visat att feedback och monitorering ärbeteenden som karakteriserar framgångsrika ledare. Experimentellastudier har visat samband mellan monitorering och ökad prestation,samt mellan feedback och ökat effektivitet i organisationer. Syftetmed studien var att undersöka hur en OBM-utbildning påverkadeledares feedback- och monitoreringsbeteenden, samt hur förtroendetför deras ledarskapsförmåga påverkades. Inga signifikantaförändringar av beteende uppmättes under utbildningens första tremånader. Förtroendet för ledarnas förmåga förändrades inte hellersignifikant, dock finns en förbättring vid jämförelser medreferensvärden.

The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

This essay is about the asylum and immigration politics within the EU. Due to the heavy criticism the EU has been exposed to from among others different kind of human rights organizations I have become interested to find out what kind of asylum and migration politics right now is being formed by the member states of the union. Thus the purpose is also to see if the EU is creating a policy within this area that intends to live up to the human rights obligations.My overall research question is:Which ideas characterize the asylum and immigration politics within the EU?The theoretical perspectives of universalism and particularism are used as two analytical tools in order to understand the phenomenon I am investigating and to identify its characterizing ideas. In my essay universalism and particularism are used as opposite ideal types.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka samband mellan global arbetstillfredsställelse, personlighetsegenskaper, psykosociala arbetsmiljöaspekter och arbetsattityder på arbetstagare i en verkstadsindustri. Dessutom var syftet att få ökad kunskap om vad det är som bidrar till global arbetstillfredsställelse. 74 deltagare besvarade frågeformuläret innehållande 53 påståenden rörande global arbetstillfredsställelse, personlighet, arbetsattityder och psykosociala arbetsmiljöaspekter. Resultatet visade samband mellan global arbetstillfredsställelse, upplevelsen av den psykosociala arbetsmiljön och arbetsattityderna job involvement, organizational commitment och arbetsengagemang. Det fanns inget samband mellan personlighetsegenskaperna och global arbetstillfredsställelse.

The swedish song contest ?Melodifestivalen? is the most popular TV-show in Sweden according to number of viewers. Not only has it managed to remain the viewers? number-one choice year after year, it has also engaged a lot of the viewers (2, 4 millions in this year?s final) to vote for their favourite song. Melodifestivalen is classified as a creative organisation since it has evident elements of creativity in its process, product and among its employees.

Organisationsförändringar är något som sker dagligen inom organisationer. Vid större organisationsförändringar uppstår det ofta personalrelaterade problem som organisationsledningen måste ta hänsyn till. En av de största förändringarna en organisation kan genomgå är en så kallad fusion, när en organisation går ihop med en annan. Under de senaste åren har det blivit allt vanligare med fusioner mellan lärosäten.Författarnas syfte med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilka personalrelaterade problem som kan uppstå när två lärosäten med olika förutsättningar går samman genom en fusion. Detta har gjorts med hjälp av av en fallstudie.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att kontinuerlig information från ledning till personal är av yttersta vikt för att i största möjliga mån undvika och dämpa personalrelaterade problem.

The purpose of this study is to dig deeper into the perceptions regarding diversity - and the ambition to achieve increased such - among those who have participated in the Swedish Public Service diversity coach education. Furthermore, the aim is also to problematize, and increase the awareness of, different outlooks on diversity and its practical usage. All in all, ten so called ?Zebra coaches? have been interviewed for this study. The empirical material has been analysed through a theoretical framework that problematizes the constructs of inequality, based on gender, ethnicity, race, class, etc., on different levels.

Studien är baserad på lärares, specialpedagogers samt projektledares uppfatt-ningar av arbetssätt och arbetsformers betydelse i ett matematikprojekt som bedrivs i åk 3. Syftet med detta arbete är att studera vilka arbetssätt och ar-betsformer som används i ett matematikprojekt för att utveckla elevers ma-tematiska förmåga med fokus på aritmetik, ur ett specialpedagogiskt perspek-tiv. En kvalitativ metod valdes där intervju i grupp, enskild intervju samt in-tervju via e-post med respondenter från tre målgrupper genomfördes. Ana-lysmodellen har konstruerats med begrepp frånAdding it up (Kilpatrick, Swafford & Findell, 2001), KOM-projektet (Niss & Højgaard-Jensen, 2002) samt Visible learning (Hattie, 2009). Vårt resultat visar att lärares, specialpe-dagogers och projektledares uppfattning är att flera faktorer påverkar pro-jektets arbetssätt och arbetsformer där bristen av tid är en betydande faktor.

 AbstractSystem methodology is in the very heart of system development, it is a crucial part of how you define your work, how you choose to approach the actual problem at hand and how to solve it. Researchers in the system development field has shown that not all methods in theory are in compliance with how it is practiced by the companies who use them. In our thesis we have studied a larger international IT- company and one of their local offices in Sweden, who some years back changed their system development method from a more traditional to an agile one. Our aim of this study has been to establish whether both of these methods has differed between theory and in actual use, and if so, why this has occurred and what the underlying rationality might have been to promote this change. Our questions that we sought to answer were; 1.

I samband med avregleringen av den svenska postmarknaden är PostNord AB ett företag som de senaste decennierna stått inför många utmaningar. Syftet med denna studie är att studera PostNords interna styrning under en större omorganisation. Detta sker i dagsläget inom PostNords verksamhet i samband med omstruktureringen av enheterna för distribution av paket och pallgods i Stockholmsområdet och vi har därför valt att basera vår studie på denna process. För att uppfylla syftet har vi genomfört ett flertal kvalitativa intervjuer, vilka även har underbyggts av företagets offentliga och interna dokument. Genom att använda oss av en teoretisk referensram med utgångspunkt i nyinstitutionell teori och organisationskommunikation framträder en bild av fallföretagets interna styrning.

In January 2007 the Öresund committy changed its statutes to become a more politically oriented lobby organization. This change can be interpreted as one part of a continuously evolving process where the Öresund region is emancipating itself from the national states in a multi-level European environment. By focusing on this latest development the thesis puts forward the importance of political institutions, as well as politicians and civil servants as actors in them, as crucial factors in the process where the region is gaining political power. The thesis shows how the political cross-border cooperation in the Öresund region is being institutionalized which affects its power relations to other levels in the multi-level system, predominantly the national states. In other words, there is a connection between power and institutionalization.The Öresund committee has by gaining better access to policymaking agendas on the national levels proven that the organizational change has already started to bear fruit.