This thesis examines political consumerism as a political tool for change. Consumers' attitudes and behaviour towards political consumerism is of special interest. The method used is a questionnaire with 59 participating students. Their answers are analysed both quantitatively and, to a lesser degree, qualitatively. The theoretical framework consists of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action and previously published research of essence.The consumers in this study generally rank corporate social responsibility (CSR) as important.

The meaning of being someone and standing for something is getting more important today in the Swedish business market. Our thesis has a qualitative approach that aims to study the usage of personal branding in the upper-management of Swedish organizations. Theories collected from literature and articles include marketing branding, personal branding and leadership. Our main target is to identify components that obtain usage of personal branding which are, attributes and strengths, communication, values, and vision and mission. The empirical data is gathered from six personal interviews with managers.

Denna studie behandlar ämnet ledarskap och inriktar sig på den militära ledarskapsteorin Utvecklande ledarskap.  Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka om Karl XII:s framgångar som ledare kan förklaras genom en modern ledarskapsteori såsom Utvecklande ledarskap. Detta görs genom att undersöka om de eftersträvansvärda ledarkaraktäristika som nämns i Utvecklande ledarskap även går att finna i återberättelser om Karl XII:s ledarskap under den Senkarolinska tiden.Teorin Utvecklande ledarskap har analyserats gentemot dess föregångare Transformational leadership för att få en djupare förståelse för vad den utvecklande ledarskapsteorin innebär samt öka utbudet på beskrivningar av eftersträvansvärda ledaregenskaper. Här identifieras tre kännetecken som sammanfattar teorins önskvärda ledaregenskaper: Föredöme, Personlig omtanke samt Inspiration och motivation.Dessa kännetecken prövas sedan mot återberättelser av Karl XII:s ledarskap för att påvisa att många av de önskvärda ledaregenskaper som nämns i de moderna ledarskapsteorierna även gick att finna i Karl XII:s ledarskap. Resultatet av studien blev att många av de karaktärsdrag som nämns i Utvecklande ledarskap också gick att finna hos Karl XII med skillnaden att innebörden av begreppen ändrats på grund av kulturella och religiösa förändringar med tiden. En sista skillnad är att dessa karaktärsdrag inte var nedtecknade i en teoretisk modell under den Senkarolinska tiden, då Karl XII regerade, vilket försvårade transferering och utbildning i ämnet..

The purpose of this paper is to examine witch factors lays behind political decisions when reforming upper secondary school. Three major factors are used: political, economical and structural. These factors become visible by comparing the school reforms 1965 and the coming one in 2009. An analytical scheme is used to find the factors in the primary information. The study is based both political inquiries and on debate articles from newspapers and political papers.The results show that two factors are more visible than the third, and that is the ideological and structural.

During the last few years the countries in the African continent have experienced an enormous increase in female politicians on a national level. Rwanda is even the country with the highest number of female politicians in its parliament in the world. Despite this development in Africa, the quantitative research on women's political representation in the world has not yet paid attention to the situation there. Some of the surveys that have been done have even excluded countries that do not fit the homogeneous pattern ? which is precisely the problem with African countries ? for it to be possible to explain the situation with existing theories.The intention of this paper is therefore to, with all of the 53 African countries included in the study, examine whether the already existing explanatory factors regarding women's political representation also can be applied to an African context to explain the situation there.

Title:                          Leadership development of individuals in management positions Authors:                    Carl Renér and Peter Simonsson  Institution:                Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics Program:                   Human Resource Management Course:                      Business administration ? Organization including thesis, 15 credits Supervisor:               Olle Duhlin (Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics) Examiner:                 Mikael Lundgren (Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics) It is widely known that the role of managers may result in stress and a heavy workload. As a result of this negative effects organisations have to counteract and find new solutions and systems to facilitate and assist leaders in their work. A popular method for leadership development has come to show both in research and in practice, especially in recent years, this popular method is known as mentoring. This form of leadership development is often applied in so called mentoring programs.

Successful diversity management has become an increasingly pressing concern for companies and organisations, as the workforce has grown more diverse over the past few decades. Research on whether increased work group diversity has a generally positive or negative impact on results remains inconclusive. It has, however, been established that good diversity management is pivotal in creating conditions for the successful performance of diverse work groups. Although much attention has been directed towards explaining the translation of work group diversity into positive results, less attention has been given to the processes that underlie this translation and the way it is expressed in everyday leadership behaviour. This thesis revolves around a case study, at the Swedish bank Swedbank, which combines qualitative and quantitative elements to explore the successful leadership in nine diverse work groups at the local branch level.

People are given better opportunities to participate in polity today. Democratic equality entails that all individuals are equal and therefore they should be included in the process of making the decisions. How can participation be defined and does it mean that having the possibility to participate means that people can influence the process of making the decisions in polity process?This paper focuses on participation and influence in polity and examine the relationship between having the possibility to participate and having the possibility to actually influence polity process on more local level. Therefore I have been examining the citizens? participation and influence in Helsingborg which is my case study.

The first of the dual purposes of this work has been to describe the research that has been done regarding the root causes of terrorism and second, using a general causal theory and examining the political dimensions of it, to discuss whether or not general causal theories (grand-theories) are helpful for researchers and policy-makers when reacting to social developments in the form of terrorism. The essay is a qualitative literature analysis and I have based my studies on mostly new books treating root causes of terrorism. I have concentrated on discussing international terrorism and how political dimensions may impact the occurence of this form of political violence. The conclusions I have made is that there is no widespread consensus among researchers and scholars as to what really causes terrorism. Neither can the general model examined in chapter 5 be used to predict when and where terrorism will occur next.

In today?s society there is an ongoing debate concerning gender distribution amongst the top executives and there is a clear distinction between the men and women in leading positions. The reason for this can be because men and women to a certain degree conduct leadership differently. It is said that men are more focused on task oriented leadership while women seem to focus on a relation oriented and more interactive leadership. A leader?s success could be due to his or her ability to set up and use a network.

This examination project is an investigation about the opinion and comprehension for political engagement of four young municipal politicians. The purpose with this project is to describe and understand the pronounced comprehension for political engagement. There is also an intention to investigate the educational in discussing political engagement with students in social studies at upper secondary school. The method that has been used is ?map of conceptions? because of its appropriate way to elucidate the comprehension and understanding of a certain subject. Those four young municipal politicians see political engagement as the will to improve the community. There is also an importance to have a large engagement in more areas than just one.

This thesis discusses the 2007 elections in Kenya, and its aftermath. The aim is to examine whether or not ethnicity played a major role in the outbreak of violence that followed the referendum. As well as different theories and discussions on ethnicity, I will also try to explain the course of events by using theories of increased civil violence during a democratic transition, and the fact that weak political institutions can cause violence. My conclusion is that ethnicity has played a part in the violence, but is too simple to blame the events following the election on just that. A number of different factors all contributed to the outbreak, but all to a different extent.

Japan is the first industrialized country that is experiencing the threat of a rapidly declining and aging population. This has shifted the focus and the limelight is now on the matter that for a long time has been ignored. That is, the Japanese women?s situation in the society. This thesis seeks to point out the relevance of gender in the construction of leadership in order to get a deeper understanding of the Japanese women?s situation today.

This study deals with one particular instance of foreign policy change in Sweden; The political take-off for enhanced Nordic Defence and Security Cooperation in the beginning of the 21st century which led to an agreement on a Nordic declaration on slolidarity. The aim of this study is to explain why the political development has undergone a rapid upturn and when such a policy change occur. Its purpose is to explain what factors and conditions that influenced the policy change. It also explores the meaning of the Nordic Declaration of Solidarity. The theoretical point of departure is Foreign Policy Analysis combined with John Kingdons policy-window theory.

This essay aims to higlight the perception of achievement among politicians and directors in one of Malmö´s district. The questions higlight the success factors for goal attainment and how to legitimize goals. The success factors that are important are clarity regarding both the organisation, leadership and communication. To achieve that a pioneering leader who can motivate and establish their employees is needed. It is also important to create realistic goals to achieve legitimated goals..