It is well known that small businesses and entrepreneurs in the initial phase has difficult to gain access to external capital and bank loans. With the background of the problems that entrepreneurs face when they ask for capital has since the financial crisis the phenomenon of crowdfunding developed and evolved. Crowdfunding is an alternative source of funding for entrepreneurs to fund their ideas through small or medium-sized capital contribution from a larger amount of investors, often investors who have any kind of relationship with the entrepreneur or to the very idea. This study examined the factors that motivate and guide an investor's decisions when they select their projects. The results of the study show that the motives of the various existing forms of crowdfunding is big.

The aim with this thesis was to acquire an understanding for how individuals handle the feeling of shame in connection with cultural consumption. In order to capture the feeling of shame we developed an interview method called the Backstabber interview technique. We found that the Backstabber interview technique successfully triggered feelings of shame in connection to cultural consumption, which made it possible for us to study the handling of shame. We found that our respondents tended to use different forms of accounts in order to handle the feeling of shame. We categorized them into five accounts with relating sub-accounts.

The survey describes a number of risks that Swedish farming companies are exposed to. The risk areas covered by the survey are currency risks, price risks and financial risks. The survey further describes why these risks have a great impact on the future development of the farming companies. The survey highlights the interrelation between the risks and the measures which can be used to minimize the risks, so-called financial instruments. The aim of the survey is to put focus on above mentioned risks and describe how these risks can be reduced to prevent the Swedish farming industry from stagnating in the future. The survey is a secondary survey whereby existing knowledge about risks and risk management is applied to farming companies. The written information on price risks and hedging is primarily derived from foreign sources.

As a starting point the society is more enlightened and has gained a greater awareness about the gender power structures and its different forms. Present research shows the continuous development into other shapes and comes into different expressions that might be unrecognised. In order to gain knowledge about the present structure of the gender power structure system, the aim of this study was to investigate framing of female and male politicians in media. The main question asked was: ?are there framing differences in the portraits of the male and female politicians?? In order to achieve results articles in the biggest Swedish daily newspaper were examined.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.

Computer use at work has risen considerably over the past fifteen years and is currently a relatively common phenomenon when 76 percent of women and 72 percent of men using the computer in their daily work (SCB Arbetsmiljörapport 2009).According to Gulliksen and Göransson (2009), Sweden is one of the countries which are more advanced in the procurement of computer systems at work. He means that Sweden has unique opportunities and conditions for user participation in the development of computer systems, when the user has the right to influence their working environment through a law in the Work Environment Act. The paper examines the importance of user involvement in system development and the Swedish company's approach and experience of user involvement. To highlight and explore the importance of user involvement, there has been a case study in which users have been representative of the development process. The case study has been conducted on a case company where the system IST analys was in need of a new interface.

The writer has attempted to discuss the distinction between the necessary and the contingent. It begins with a criticism against the possibility for a so-called ?a possible worlds realism? to give a ?philosophical explanation? of this distinction. The writer argues that this is impossible, since it requires that a notion of this distinction be already accepted (more precisely that the necessity of such a theory is already accepted).After this specific criticism, the writer intends to show that this is a more general problem that follows any explanation of the contingent/necessary distinction.The writer then discusses the counter-argument that the requirements placed on these explanations are set to high, therefore the writer shows in theory the problem can be solved and sketches a more specific way how to explain and show the basis for this distinction..

In the last decades, high speed cutting has become an attractive technology in the wood industry. The possibility of reducing global costs in addiction with an increase in productivity, were the main reasons for the enlargement of the use of this technology. As usual, these advantages are accompanied by disadvantages that should be carefully analyzed. If on the one hand cutting forces are reduced with increasing cutting speeds, on the other hand, the centrifugal forces affecting the tool are higher. Exposed to such high loads, there is a considerable risk of tool failure that embeds hazards for both machine and workers.

Background: The last few years a globalization of the capital market has occurred. This have led to that it is more important for the companies that their financial information can be compared with other companies in order to compete on same grounds. In order to fa-cilitate for the companies within EU to compete with other companies and in order to strive for an internal market EU decided that IFRS should be used by all listed companies within the union.Problem: In 2006 the first financial reports according to IFRS will be published, and then it will be interesting to investigate how the companies have chosen to communicate the transition to its stakeholders. According to IFRS some information is compulsive but the companies have chosen to disclose voluntary information to a different degree.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe to what extent the Swedish listed com-panies have reported the transition to IFRS in their consolidated financial statements.Method: In this essay a quantitative method have been chosen in order to find general re-lations. The data collection is done with help of an evaluation model that have been devel-oped for this study.

Knowledge organization is perceived as a central, constituting activity defining the notion of libraries. Critique calling for a new theoretical foundation voiced by active researchers within library and information science concerning the current knowledge organization has been utilized as a point of departure. Specifications concerning a new theoretical foundation implied by these critiques are considered within this thesis and theory found in The Order of Things by Michel Foucault proposed as an alternative theory for understanding knowledge organization as a human science where meaning, value and representation, by which the ordering of things is possible, is acknowledged as a result of human activity and history. Thus meaning, value and representation must be perceived as dynamic. An example of implementation of the proposed theory has been achieved by the use of bibliometrics.

The goal of this project was to make the requirement process at the Swedish Coastguard more effective. The first step to achieve this was done by locating bottle necks in the process with value stream mapping method. The result of this study showed that the biggest restriction in the requirement process was while examining older requirement documents to understand what elements were suitable for the particular project. This was followed by a study of literature, interviews and theory of Lean Production with the ambition to investigate how the requirement process was handled on other companies and how to improve the process on the Swedish coast guard. This led to a number of potential enhancements of the process which later was evaluated.

Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

In this essay I want to investigate how the poodle strategy affects a person?s credibility when he or she uses it. The poodle strategy is a strategy, which someone uses when he or she is scrutinized by the media. It?s primary purpose is to suppress further media coverage but it is also a strategy for defending oneself and hence rescuing one?s reputation either as a private person or as an official.The essay?s research questions are:How has the strategy been applied for defensive purposes and what are the results?To which extent can the Stasis theory and Benoit?s theory on Apologia be connected to the strategy?Does the strategy affect the user?s credibility?To answer these questions four cases from the political sphere in Sweden where persons have been said to have ?done a poodle? have been analyzed.

This master thesis examines sport habits among young people and a view of their future in sports. Research has shown that the majority of youth leave sport clubs during adolescence. The thesis questions were: How physically active are young people? Which sports do they practice? Regarding their future in sports, what kind of aspirations do the young people have? Are there any barriers that could complicate their involvement in these activities? These questions were examined by analyzing if there were any differences between boys and girls, youth in different grades and youth with Swedish or foreign backgrounds. Pierre Bourdieu´s theoretical framework about sports and economic capital has been used as a research framework.

The thesis aims to increase our understanding about parents reasoning about the elementary school choice by studying which factors parents perceive as important during the decision making process and also by giving meaning to Pierre Bourdieu?s concept of capital through the parents perspective. The empirical material comes from seven BNIM-interviews made with parents, which has been analyzed according to the thematic field analysis.The results show that the parents are not especially concerned about making an active school choice. Stability, closeness, friends, rumors, development and adaptability to the reality are the factors that are perceived as the most important in the decision making process. The school choice has a limited meaning as an investment in social capital, from Bourdieu?s perspective.