In our world, more than two billion people are living under insecure food conditions and more than eight hundred million people are estimated to be starving. The majority of these people live in developing counties which are poor and often subject of civil war. The past fifty years the main subject of security analysis has been the sovereign and rational state and the threats have been viewed in terms of military and weapons of mass destruction. This has come to change over the last decades and security as a concept has broadened, which better represents the reality of today. Within this broader conceptualization of security the main referent of security is the individual, rather than the state, and threats are not only analyzed from a military point of view, but also seen as threats against human rights and freedoms.

Violence in close relationships has for a long time been recognized as a major social problem. Many women who have left a violent and destructive relationship have been broken apart by their former partner. They find different strategies to regain their self-esteem and self- confidence. Selection of strategies may be consciously or unconsciously. Some women have chosen martial arts.The purpose of this study is to explore and learn more about women's experience of performing martial arts and their previous violent relationship.

This thesis aims at investigating the conflict development of Swedish foreign policy debates during 1989-2000. It is rather assumed that the Swedish foreign policy debates have been highly characterized by a large consensus. Despite that, there have been certain occurrences where the political parties have flushed into party struggle and shown disagreements over the party frontiers. This has raised questions about the range of conflict and consensus in such debates where I have studied the political parties' backchats. I have studied situations where the political parties replicate each other in order to investigate the range of consensus and controversy that exists within different foreign policy areas.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between the Big Five personality traits Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism and the five conflict styles developed by Thomas-Kilmann: Accommodating, Avoiding, Compromising, Collaborating and Competing. The participants consisted of 128 students of the Linnaeus University in Växjö. A questionnaire consisting of two parts were used for this study: Part one consist of a personality-test developed from Lewis R. Goldberg?s Big-five scale, and part two where the participant is asked to fill out Thomas-Kilmanns conflict style test.

In studying the art of Counterinsurgency Warfare we are usually inclined to the reading of several books regarding this matter. Because of this some writers have the power to influence the minds of the reader. This can be of great benefit since it enables information sharing and for the reader a chance to learn from the triumphs, but also mistakes of others. However each writer is the creation of the time and context under which he existed. Because of the wheel of time certain things change, and because of the context a myriad of factors came into play affecting the outcome and product of the doings and thoughts of that specific occurrence.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the interdependencies within the process of partner selection in the fashion and design sector and the emanating criteria for finding the ideal co-branding partner in order to use co-branding as a strategic brand activation tool. Methodology: Multiple Case Study Theoretical perspective: Brand Building and Brand Activation, Relationship Marketing, Strategic Alliances, Affinity Partnering, Co-Branding, Consumer-Brand Relationships Empirical data: Interviews with expert consultants and company representatives (adidas, BMW, BMW MINI, Diesel, H&M, Opel, Philips, Sharp, Volkswagen) Conclusion: Partner selection depends decisively on the different co-branding aims and incorporates the crucial step when using co-branding as a tool for strategic brand activation. The co-branding aim and the corresponding partner lead to various types of relationships, which, in this study, are anthropomorphized to connect the world of marketing and branding to real life. Fashion and design brands have proven to be particularly eligible as co-branding partners for brand activation due to their innovative and trend-oriented nature..

The thesis aims to analyze strategic, cultural and structural aspects of Grameen Bank and its micro-credit project, in order to identify key success factors. A case study was performed with an inductive and qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews. The data was collected by field observations and interviews on site in Dhaka, Bangladesh and surrounding areas.The main conclusion is that the critical success factor of Grameen Bank is the relationship focus, guiding and aligning its strategy, culture and structure. Also, local offices have been observed to utilize practices not permitted by the bank?s management, ultimately increasing the organizational efficiency..

Peace operations are considered to be hard to solve but Sierra Leone is by many thought to be a success despite major problems during the operations. Solving this conflict involved several dif-ferent actors which all contributed to the creating of peace. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether similarities between the way the conflict in Sierra Leone was solved and the method that Galula presents led to the positive outcome. This will be done by a qualitative textual analysis to demonstrate presence and absence of those parts that Galula claim are crucial to counter an insur-gency. Similarities between the method used at the solving of the conflict in Sierra Leone and Galulas method for counterinsurgency can be found.

Can coercive care be justified against drug and alcohol addicts or should treatment be offered on a strictly voluntary basis? This was one of the central questions debated in Sweden during the 70's when the development of a new social legislation, The Social Services Act (Socialtjänstlagen), took place. The first aim of this thesis was to analyse whether the arguments that were presented both in favour for and against coercion were sound. To achieve this, a method for analysing arguments was employed, where a sound argument is defined as acceptable, relevant and adequate. The analysed material consists of both official government reports and books of influential debaters.

This is a qualitative case study about tourists and boat migrants in movement to and in place on the Canary Islands, Spain. The aim is to study how these two groups of guests are treated differently, either as guests or strangers, based on how they move, illegally or legally, where they come from and where they have rights to go. To analyze the case I use theories of how differences in ethnicity, culture and religion etc. are created and recreated in society in interactions among humans and in the politics - the politics of difference. The politics of difference creates and recreates categories of mobility such as tourists and boat migrants.

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers perceive and understand violence and threats of violence from clients, and how it effect their working environment. It seems that the respondents understand the violence and threats of violence from clients as a result of the clients background problems, vulnerability, dependency and from ?the reason" that the client is currently in the contact with the organization. How respondents interpret the client´s behaviour based on the above-mentioned factors, seem to determine how the respondents perceive and define the violence and threats of violence by clients directed against them. Interestingly enough, although all respondents in the study experienced violence and threats of violence from clients, none of them perceived themselves as exposed at work. The answer to this is consensual.

Recently, the IASB and the FASB initiated a joint project to determine which companies that could be defined as investment entities and thus subject to an exception from IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements. The first draft, ED/2011/4 Investment Entities, was published in 2011 and included six criteria that a company must meet in order to be classified as an investment entity. Based on academic theory, the fact that the IASB and the FASB published a joint proposal is interesting for several reasons. Traditional accounting theory tends to distinguish between two different approaches in standard setting: principles- and rules-based. The IASB is considered to have a principles-based approach, while the FASB is considered to have a rules-based approach.

The purpose of this study is to portray conflict managing associated with children in a small class and what problems they may face each day at school. What types of conflicts and what consequences do teachers practice? This study is based on these following questions:Is there any difference for solving/measure for students with psychosocial problems or ADHD in a conflict or does teachers still works with the same methods?What types of conflict solving does schools use?What is important to consider with students in a small class who has psychosocial problems and ADHD to prevent conflicts?Summary: To answer my questions in this study, I´ve used qualitative methods, interviews and observations. I have used my cellphone for recording the interviews so that all content from the informers are accurate. My theoretical points concerns on having strict rules both inside and outside the classroom.

SCA is the largest private owned forest owner in Sweden, with an ownership of 2 million hectares of productive forestland. To manage the planning of such large areas and to fit the traditional organization structure of a Swedish forest company, the planning approach is subdivided into three stages; strategic, tactical and operational. The strategic part, based on a statistic sample of stands, returns a harvest level estimate which should then be implemented at actual sites in the tactical part. This procedure can lead to incompatible solutions as the strategic solution is not necessarily possible to translate into actual sites in the tactical plan. The geographic aspect is important in tactical planning due to the large costs for moving equipment and maintenance of a large number of forest roads.

This study examines how management consulting firms work with business- and functional strategy and how these strategies are interrelated. More specifically we focus on business strategy (business unit level) and knowledge strategy (functional level) and whether these are aligned or not, i.e. whether strategic congruence exists.A number of recent studies have examined the importance of business strategy and knowledge strategy in management consulting firms separately, but few have pointed out the importance of the alignment between them. With this study we contribute to the strategic field of research with a model that describes how management consulting firms should work with their knowledge strategy given their business strategy. The model is developed through a synthesis between theories in the field of strategic congruence, business- and functional strategies and thereafter tested by an empirical case study of six management consulting firms.