Title: The role of social media on today?s markets ? Companies? desire to understand theircustomersAuthors: Kristoffer Avci-Nåmark & Patrik WidlundBackground: The markets of today are characterized by dynamic conditions because of thecontinuous change in consumer preference. Due to this, the interaction between the company and its consumers is gaining importance as companies find the need to increase their knowledge about the market. Out of this need social media has emerged as a tool forcompanies to improve their communication with customers. The popularity of social media isincreasing at a rapid rate and sites such as Facebook now has around 500 million usersworldwide.

The rise of social media has put a focus on the division of owned, paid and earned media, where earned media has recently been hyped at the expense of owned and paid media. Due to a novel area we examine the differences and effects of using owned and paid media, specifically for packaging versus newspapers. Owned and paid media showed no significant differences regarding credibility, persuasion and perceived commerciality, which restored owned media?s status, especially since owned media is more cost efficient. The effects of allowing ads for external brands on the owned medium were also studied.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to highlight what is perceived as- and what is not perceived as- supportive and comforting, by the sick child in palliative care, and by its family. Method: Systematic literature review in which only scientific articles from the years 2001-2010 have been included. Analysis: A method inspired by qualitative content analysis was used. Results: The analysis revealed five categories of what the sick child and its family experienced as supportive and comforting - and what was perceived negatively - in the context of palliative care for children. The results showed that it was very important to have competent, dedicated and compassionate staff that not only care for the child but also see to the whole family.

The thesis is aiming to investigate what happens in the customer-service worker interaction when the service worker is wearing religious attributes. In order to operationalize this the Muslim head scarf, hijab, is chosen as stimuli. Reviewing previous research and theory in this field, it is clear that people have a preference for people that they perceive to be like themselves, this is referred to as homophily. Further on, the study investigates the ethnicity dimension of the service worker customer interaction. Theoretical areas of attractiveness and color are also investigated.

This study aimed to explore the perceived role and mandate of civil servants employed in municipalities in Kronoberg county. The study aimed to answer the question whether civil servants engaged in municipal economics have different perspectives on their mandate and role based on how said civil servants implement and manage policy tools available in Swedish municipalities. The study aimed to through policy tools theory explain how civil servants through four categories view the policy tools employed in the municipality. The study is based on the reasoning that policy tools influences exercise of authority that in turn influences view on policy tools. In order to study civil servants perspective on perceived mandate and role interviews were conducted with a sample of civil servants from each of the eight municipalities in Kronoberg county.

This study investigates whether creative online product exposure within the clothing industry has a positive effect on the behaviour and attitude of today's consumers. Product exposure is the most important stimulus in the online marketing universe, yet few studies exist on this topic. Thus, this study pioneers in this specific research field. Through empirical analysis this study reveals that product exposure has a significant and direct effect on the perceived corporate ability and consumer involvement. Moreover creative product exposure indirectly increases the perceived product quality, intention to buy and the overall attitude towards the brand.

The purpose of this study was to explore nurses' experiences of obstructed airways in the prehospital work.A qualitative interview study with a descriptive and explorative design was used. The sample consisted of nine registered nurses whereof three were women and six were men, with or without further education and varying length of experience in the ambulance service.Prehospital personnel builds up a vast plan of action based on the emergency information provided by SOS. Simple methods for managing obstructed airways were stated often enough. Problems with obstructed airways are considered so unusual that it never becomes a routine. Several factors affect the identification and managing of obstructed airways, both external factors and the different patient categories are considered important.

The aim of this essay is to analyse certain succinct statements of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His rhetorical style in general, and these statements in particular, are distinguishing Putin from other Russian political figures. The statements have survived the test of time and lived on in the media, on the internet and in the vernacular. They have come to be called Putinisms.The essay is descriptive and treats these special statements, describes where and how they came into being and analyses them on a micro level, word by word. The analysis is also qualitative as it covers selected statements, which represent only a small portion of all the statements made by Putin within the time frame chosen for this study.

From a time where employees often remained at one company until retirement, globalization and changed employment patterns have created a more mobile labor market in the last years. In an effort to expand the connection between organization and employee a rising interest in corporate alumni networks has emerged. Previous research has shown that conditions for such networks are formed through employees social identification, perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship and can be shaped by company's HR practices.This paper aims to examine two case companies' perceived benefits through alumni relations as well as their HR prac-tices, in order to increase understanding surrounding the relationship between the two areas. Further the study intends to draw conclusions about the role of corporate alumni networks in the creation of the received benefits.The study indicates that HR practices, through the creation of an organizational citizenship behavior, can influence the conditions for beneficial alumni relations. Results show that some expected benefits of alumni relations can be re-ceived through strong citizenship.

PurposeThe aim of the study was to examine the affects perceived by young people aged 18-19 years old after resistance training outdoors versus resistance training indoor. The aim of the study was also to examine if the rate of perceived exertion was affected by whether the resistance training took place outdoors or indoors. What immediate affects are perceived in conjunction with resistance training outdoors and indoors in people aged 18-19 years?What immediate affects are perceived after resistance training outdoors compared to equivalent resistance training indoor in people aged 18-19 years?What perceived exertion level can be seen in conjunction with resistance training outdoors compared to equivalent resistance training indoors in people aged 18-19 years?How does exercise habit correlate with affects and exertion in conjunction with resistance training? Method22 pupils in a secondary school conducted two resistance training sessions, one outdoors and one indoor. A questionnaire about their mood and exercise habits was answered before and immediately after the training session. Rate of perceived exertion rate was also included in the questionnaire the participants received after the workout.

The aim of this study was to gain a greater understanding of what social workers perceive to be mentally demanding and emotionally challenging work, and which strategies they use to handle it. I chose to interview six social workers, three of them had long experience of social work, and three of them had worked for less than a year. The justification for this choice wasthat I wanted to interview people with different experience of social work over time, to be able to see possible differences in what was perceived as mentally demanding and emotionally challenging work, and how it was handled. The social workers were interviewed with a semi structured interview manual.The results showed that the organization of the social service is not fitted to the work that social workers execute. This means that what is perceived as mentally demanding and emotionally challenging work largely depends on this.

We investigated a retirement home, where we looked at whether there are differences, disagreements or conflicts between teams who work day and night shifts. Our purpose was to examine the Heads of Unit and the employees perspectives on their perceived work situation, cooperation difficulties and why they emerged. We chose the general systems theory as our theoretical basis, which gave us the opportunity to highlight different parts that can affect the working climate and the cooperation of the working groups. The study also highlights the importance of structure, common goals, reporting and dialogue meetings. To understand the perceived work situation, we used methodological triangulation, using quantitative and qualitative methods (surveys, semi-structured interviews).

In the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden held about 15-20 certified health resorts that wanted to improve peoples? health with vegetarian food and alternative medicine. This essay aims to explore the popularity of health resorts through a patient?s perspective. What did the patients look for at the resort, which they could not find in the official health care? A basis for the analysis is Bonnie Blair O´Connor?s theory of Health Belief Systems.

In todays high-technological society where the Internet plays a central role in our day-to-day life, many e-retailers are not able to attract customers to complete a transaction on their website. In order to succeed, many e-commerce sites must improve several safety aspects regarding online payment, in order to be perceived as a reliable and secured retailer. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if increment in various combinations and aspects in online payment will in fact improve the customer's perception of the e-retailer and result in completed transactions. In order to investigate this aspect, an experiment was conducted to be able to compare eight independent groups, that each had been exposed to a different security scenario on the online payment website of either a known or unknown retailer. Our results clearly prove that perceived security of the retailer's payment website increases willingness to purchase from the retailer.

The media landscape has exploded during the last decade, which has lead to a massive advertising clutter. Consumers defend themselves against this intrusive marketing by creating an advertising filter that sorts and blocks. These changing conditions have lead to new and tougher demands on creators and advertisers to create more efficient marketing communication that stands out in the clutter and penetrates the consumers? advertising filter. Many creators and researchers claim that creativity is the most efficient method to stand out in the clutter and generate sought communication effects.