During the past year it has been made possible to buy back a company?s outstanding stock. This is done in order to change the capital structure towards a situation with less equity. A change in capital structure means a change in the cost of capital for a company and by that a change in the value for the stockholder. This Master Thesis studies the relation between capital structure and business risk.

Our study aimed at gaining insight of co-workers experiences of different factors that affects the verbal communication and leads to dialogue and misunderstanding between co-workers and their managers. The empirical material was gained from semi-structured interviews with co-workers at various departments within the same organization. We used a hermeneutic interpretive approach and our data was analyzed concerning different factors affecting communication. The result has been interpreted using the theories of deliberative conversations and dialogue competence. We have also used Illeris theory of learning.

This research aim was to examine the relationship between the choice of lunch dish, level of education, gender and age of the participants. The understanding of diet and it´s influence on health was also of interest to the research, as was cooking interest and travel habits. The goal was to demonstrate how these factors affect the adult individuals in their choice of lunch. A questionnaire was filled in by 99 guests in a chosen restaurant. The results show that many of these factors influence the choice of dish, especially those related to gender.

This essay focuses on the implementation of the strategy gender mainstreaming in the European Union and the member states. It starts to identify problems connected to the implementation process and recognizes significant prerequisites for an efficient implementation of the strategy. The main problems and prerequisites are: political will, governance and structure and knowledge about gender equality. The empirical material consists of reports from the EU that touches upon gender mainstreaming and gender equality. The problems and prerequisites will be analysed in relation to the governance perspectives top-down and bottom-up and expert bureaucratic and participative democratic and gender and feminism.

The purpose of this thesis is to study what motivational factors motivates the staff in the public elderly care and to investigate how the staff ranks the different motivational factors and if the rankings differ depending on gender, age, education, type of employment, time of employment, employer, income and ethnic background. The thesis is based on a questionnaire study with a total of 97 participants. The questionnaire was constructed with the help of prior similar studies conducted in the USA and Malaysia over a sixty-year time period. These studies are then used to analyze the results. The participants in our thesis were given ten motivational factors to rank according to what they believed motivated them the most.

This study was carried out at Luftfartsverket (LFV Group, Swedish Airports and Air Navigation Services). The aim was to study what characterizes an employer of choice and further to examine how well the employees at Luftfartsverket feel that their employer lives up to this image. A quantitative method was applied in the form of a selfdeveloped questionnaire. It was answered by a random sample of employees at Luftfartsverket.The results showed that salary, good leadership, good relations to colleagues and a sense of participation were important factors to be an employer of choice. In the organization at hand good colleagues were the most fulfilled factor whereas good leadership were the least fulfilled factor.

In the light of the problems the media industry are struggling with, local news reporting is only one of the challenges the news organizations are facing. When local editors is being moved to the cities the tie with the local community is being severed.The aim of this study has been to analyze how the inhabitants of Vilhelmina municipality talks about their experiences of local journalism. With methodological inspiration from the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) this study examined the discourses of local journalism, social media, journalism's role and municipal policy. The theorectical framework consisted theories of media and democracy, convergence culture and discourse theory.The survey was conducted with four focus groups interviews. The focus groups were divided in different cathegories based on the participants experiences, ages and employment.

Slovenia and Latvia are two examples of countries which have gone through a successful democratic transition. They were both under authoritarian rule and command economy up until their declarations of independence in the early 90s. Today they have a functional market economy and political pluralism. I have examined transition theories highlighted by Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman and from these theories sought the explanations to what lies behind the successful transitions of these two countries. The transition in Slovenia was affected by liberalization from within the ruling communist party which then controlled much of the transition process. A relatively large civil society and the fact that Slovenia was not involved in the Balkan War also contributed to the short process.

American football is a well-known sport in America. In addition to the design and rules of the game and the surface it is played on, there are also other differences that are not directly visible. One difference noted in this study is how the teams in the game provide players. Each team has a board of directors together with the team's leadership and they will determine which players are most suitable for the team. These players are recruited to the team after graduating from a U.S.

The current trend towards globalisation and democratisation has made the theories of politics in pluralistic societies, and how to make them work, of particular interest and concern. Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy is an important influence in this field. At the same time the importance of civil society in transition studies and democratisation processes has been reinforced over the last thirty years. However, the complex political situation that plural societies face, creates obstacles for a healthy civil society. This thesis is based on a case study of Lebanon, a country with deep ethnic divisions and a government that resembles a consociational democracy.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the existence ofpersonalization within Swedish political parties along withhow the parties work with this phenomena in order to achievemore voters.The method used is personal interviews with politiciansfrom four different government parties. As a complement, interviews with a political expert was also made. All parties use personalization in different ways as a strategy tocreate dialogues and relationships with both media and voters. We distinguished two sorts of personalization: individualization and privatization, and discovered that not all parties use both..

?Ecosystem services are the ecosystems direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being.? In order to reach the generation target and the environmental objectives it is important to increase the awareness of biodiversity and ecosystem services and it?s importance to human welfare and simultaneously highlighting the value of ecosystem services. The value of ecosystem services should be integrated into economic standpoints, political considerations and other decisions in the society. In today?s society there is a problem concerning that the value of ecosystem services are not considered in economic terms, which can result in solutions that are unfavorable for our welfare (Ministry of Environment, 2012).

abstractThe aim of this essay is to try to convince the reader that relativism and postmodernism (the latter implying the former, but not the other way around) can be reasonable methods for the social sciences, rather than the irresponsible play of ?extremes? theories of this kind sometimes are made out to be.The intention is to do this by way of the later Wittgenstein, the philosophy of whom is the foundation for what is termed relativism and postmodernism in this essay (definitions of a kind that are here claimed to be missing from the discourse of the social sciences). The essay also contains an empirical presentation/analysis, displaying the Wittgensteinian theory through an aspect of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and -60s..

The aim of this study is to, from a child?s family relations, describe the usage of terms relating to factors of risk and safety in science and in investigations concerning children in need of protection. It is also of importance in what way the terms are used when the Social Services suggest that measures should be taken, and in which way the children have been heard in the investigations.The issues raised in this study are: (a) How is the current life situation and life quality of the children discussed? (b) The value of factors concerning risks and protection. (c) How is the children?s own descriptions taken in to consideration? (d) Is gender issues considered? (e) How is Lagerberg?s model (Lagerberg, 1998) useful in investigations?The method of analysis is mainly qualitative however it is combined with analysis of literature relevant to the study.

By using contemorary work-theory this thesis aim to show how Yarden. En bera?ttelse, puts into play the circumstances of precarian work, circumstances that have gender political as well as identity political overtones. It tries to show how the idea of ?class-jouney? is used as a conciliatory element.